Orangutan survival and the shopping trolley

The challenge of saving the orangutan - man's closest relative - from extinction is trickling down to the weekly shop.

Many of the biscuits, margarines, breads, crisps and even bars of soap that consumers pick off supermarket shelves contain an ingredient that is feeding a growth industry that conservationists say is killing the orangutans.

The mystery ingredient in the mix is palm oil - the cheapest source of vegetable oil available - and one that rarely appears on the label of most products.

Palm oil is grown on land that was once home to the vast rainforests of Borneo, and the natural habitat of the orangutan.

I think its really about what consumers can do because the most powerful message that can be sent to companies is from their consumers about what it is they want to buy Environment Secretary Hilary Benn

The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates that the population has declined by 50% in recent decades and the Indonesian government admits that 50,000 orangutans have died as a result of de-forestation.

A BBC Panorama investigation into clear-cutting in Indonesian Borneo - the island it shares with Malaysia - found that the thirst for land on which to plant palm plantations is encroaching on areas that the Indonesian government has deemed to be off-limits.

'Nuisance'

The orangutans, displaced as the trees of old-growth forests are burned and at times killed by workers who see them as a nuisance in the logging process, are not the only victims of the runaway growth in palm oil - scientists say there is a wider environmental price being paid.

Greenpeace has identified the draining of ancient peat lands to make way for palm oil as a global threat, saying it had lead to massive amounts of trapped methane and carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere.

As a result, Indonesia is the world's third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind only America and China.

ORANGUTAN FACTS Orangutan means "old man of the forest" in Malay Only apes living outside of Africa Largest tree-dwelling mammals

Using GPS technology and satellite imaging, the BBC team pinpointed exact locations where palm oil giant the Duta Palma Group is logging on both high conservation lands and deep peat lands - both are illegal.

Shailendra Yashwant, Greenpeace director for Southeast Asia, said this illegal logging is widespread and includes major suppliers to the UK's food and household product market.

"We want the Indonesian government to immediately announce a moratorium on further deforestation…beginning with peat lands."

Willie Smits, a former advisor to the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry turned environmental campaigner, said of the findings: "This is criminal, this should not take place. It means there is no hope left for the most endangered sub-species of the orang-utan in west Kalamantan."

He said the wider environmental issue of greenhouse gases can no longer be overlooked by both manufacturers and everyday consumers.

"This is not just a matter for Indonesia to decide, this is a matter for the world."

'Greenwash'

The palm industry - valued at £5bn ($7.7bn) for Indonesia - is the country's third biggest export earner.

Many of the big manufacturers who buy that oil via European wholesalers say that while they are starting to find oil from sustainable sources, they are not yet in a position to trace the origin of all of the oil they use.

Currently, only 3% of the world's palm oil is certified sustainable, meaning it comes from plantations that pass an environmental and social impact test.

Many have joined the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) scheme set up to promote certification of where palm oil originates.

Others have set ambitious goals to use sustainable oil by 2015 or earlier, but Greenpeace's Shailendra Yashwant said the RSPO amounts to a "greenwash" because those commitments are unenforceable on the ground.

Bulk oil from a variety of plantations - including that of Duta Palma Group that the BBC found to be illegally clear-cutting - is mixed together and shipped around the world and sold on to manufacturers behind everyday products.

Duta Palma declined to comment on the BBC's evidence of illegal deforestation.

Consumer pressure

Hilary Benn, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, told Panorama the time is right for consumers to put pressure on manufacturers, demanding to know which of their products contain palm oil and assurances that it comes from a sustainable source.

Many of the sweets and staples in our shopping trolleys contain palm oil

Current labelling laws allow manufacturers to list palm oil as 'vegetable' oil, without singling out the palm oil content.

Many manufacturers, including industry giants Unilever and Proctor and Gamble, say their recipes can change and the amounts and types of oils they use can vary from week to week, making more detailed labels unworkable.

However, Sainsbury's supermarkets had earlier taken the decision to not only single out palm oil on the ingredients lists of their own-brand products, but to state directly that it is from a sustainable source.

Recently Unilever, the UK's largest user of palm oil in products that range from Dove soap to Pot Noodles, Knorr soups and Flora, terminated a large contract with a supplier called Sinar Mas, because of reports it was destroying high conservation value forests.

Unilever has told Panorama that while it may have used oil from Duta Palma in the past, it intends to overcome its supply system problems so that it no longer uses oil from the producer.

Secretary Benn said: "I think it's really about what consumers can do because the most powerful message that can be sent to companies is from their consumers about what it is they want to buy," he told reporter Raphael Rowe, citing the demand for free range eggs in the UK as an example of consumer influence.

Mr Benn said the participation by UK retailers and manufacturers in the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil is a step towards ensuring that palm oil is traceable and therefore increases the chances that it can be certified sustainable.

Indonesia: Timber Corruption’s High Costs

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(Jakarta) - Corruption in Indonesia's lucrative forestry industry costs the government US$2 billion annually, detracting from the resources available to meet its obligations on economic and social rights, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Inadequate oversight and conflicts of interest also raise a red flag over whether Indonesia can be a reliable carbon-trading partner. Carbon trading schemes are likely to be an important topic at the United Nation's Climate Change Conference, which begins December 7, 2009, in Copenhagen.

The 75-page report, "Wild Money: The Human Rights Consequences of Illegal Logging and Corruption in Indonesia's Forestry Sector," found that more than half of all Indonesian timber from 2003 through 2006 was logged illegally, with no taxes paid. Unreported subsidies to the forestry industry, including government use of artificially low timber market prices and currency exchange rates, and tax evasion by exporters using a scam known as "transfer pricing," exacerbated the losses. Using industry methods, including detailed comparisons between Indonesia's timber consumption and legal wood supply, the report concluded that in 2006 the total loss to Indonesia's national purse was $2 billion.

Recent challenges to the country's Anti-Corruption Commission (Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi, KPK), including an alleged conspiracy by police and prosecutors to discredit the commission as it began looking into possible police corruption, exemplify the harmful effects of corruption on the country's governance, Human Rights Watch said.

"Widespread corruption in the forest industry is the dirty secret no one wants to talk about," said Joe Saunders, deputy program director at Human Rights Watch. "But until the lack of oversight and conflicts of interest are taken seriously, pouring more money into the leaky system from carbon trading is likely to make the problem worse, not better."

Some reduction in revenue loss has been reported since 2006, attributed to a dramatic increase in plantation timber production, doubling in a single year. But the area of established plantation required to produce the high volumes of timber reported call these new numbers into question, the report says.

The domestic impacts of corruption and revenue loss, especially on the nation's rural poor, are significant, Human Rights Watch said. Indonesia is a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the key international treaty under which it has agreed to use maximum available resources to ensure its citizens enjoy their rights to such services as health, education, and housing. Yet, the scale of lost revenue to corruption demonstrates Indonesia is in violation of these obligations.

The roughly $2 billion in annual lost revenue is equal to the country's entire spending on health at national, provincial, and district levels combined. The annual loss is also equal to the amount that the World Bank estimates would be sufficient to provide a package of basic health care benefits to 100 million of the nation's poorest citizens for almost two years. Indonesia has among the lowest per capita health spending in the region, even compared with countries of much lower per capita GDP.

"It's a particularly cruel irony that in many of the rural areas that generate the country's forestry income, basic health care services are among the worst in the country," Saunders said. "People who live next door to the very forests being ravaged to line officials' pockets must travel huge distances to reach the nearest doctor."

Indonesia has one of the largest areas of forest in the world, but also one of the highest deforestation rates. Reported exports from its lucrative timber industry were worth $6.6 billion in 2007, second only to Brazil and more than all African and Central American nations combined.

The individuals who profit the most from illegal logging and the associated corruption are rarely held accountable, the report found, in part because of corruption in law enforcement and the judiciary. Bribes go to the police to manipulate evidence or even to sell seized illicit timber back to illegal loggers; to prosecutors to manipulate indictments (sometimes deliberately using a charge for which the evidence is weak); and to judges for favorable rulings.

Forestry Ministry officials have taken steps to improve timber reporting and tracking systems, the report says, but they have to contend not only with shady dealings in the private sector but with entrenched interests within their own ministry. Reporting of timber production and revenue collection is compromised by conflicts of interest within the forest agencies and unclear jurisdictions between central and local forest authorities. Bribes to officials in exchange for allowing logging without, or in violation of, proper permits create a powerful incentive to neglect accurate data keeping or to fail to make regular reports to the central ministry.

While the government of President President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has taken steps to combat corruption, there is strong resistance from some high-level officials. Increasing tensions between the Anti-Corruption Commission (KPK) and police and prosecutors led to the arrest and removal of two of the commissioners after the police accused them of extortion and abuse of authority.

In November, a presidential fact-finding team found insufficient evidence for the charges against the commissioners and recommended they be dropped, although it is not clear if the commissioners will be returned to their posts. The team further recommended a full investigation into corruption in the judiciary to eradicate "case brokers" inside the judiciary and police who act as go-betweens to deliver bribes, and a full inquiry into abuse of authority by the police, with sanctions for officers responsible for wrongdoing in the arrests of the anti-corruption commissioners.

"This is a critical juncture," Saunders said. "If Indonesia can curb the corruption, it can be a global forestry leader. As it is, a lot of trees and a lot of money are going missing and the country's poor are bearing the brunt of the losses."

Human Rights Watch called on prosecutors to use the strong sanctions available in anti-corruption and anti-money laundering laws to reduce forestry corruption. The Forestry Ministry should create a mandatory revenue tracking and auditing system for all Indonesian timber from harvest to point of export to ensure legality, and allow for independent oversight.

Indonesia's trading partners should also ensure that they are not complicit in logging corruption. Consumer countries should enact laws to prohibit trafficking in these illicit products, as the US did recently by amending its Lacey Act. The EU should immediately pass pending legislation that would require a certification of legality for wood products to enter European markets, Human Rights Watch said.

"It will take strong action at the top levels of Indonesia's government and international trading partners to halt the corruption in the timber industry," Saunders said. "The stakes are huge for the country's ability to improve living standards for its citizens and its standing in the world."

Indonesia’s rainforests recover from deforestation due to illegal logging - Trends Updates

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More than 70 percent of Indonesia’s original forest cover has been lost. Logging, which is mostly illegal, is estimated to destroy over 2.4 million hectares per year.

Re-elected Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) gets international praise for leading the fight against deforestation in his country. All Indonesian presidents in the past have pledged to preserve Indonesia’s rainforests. What makes Yudhoyono different is that, unlike his predecessors, he has taken strong steps to keep his promise. One of his flagship projects is Operation Sustainable Forestry which was launched in 2005.

According to one veteran travel organizer, “Illegal logging decreased rapidly the first year SBY was in power. Powerful people, including government officials, were sent to jail for their roles in deforestation.”

Indonesia’s military has long been suspected of having ties with illegal loggers. Yudhoyono, a former general, has asserted greater civilian control over the military, particularly regarding illegal logging.

Logging concessions in Sebangau National Park, one of Kalimantan’s most infamous illegal logging areas, ended in 1990, yet there were 147 sawmills still operating as late as 2001. Illegal logging requires heavy investments in Indonesia. Loggers had also built extensive networks of canals to transport cut timber, making the lowland peat forest area more susceptible to burning.

Staunch environmentalist groups such as the WWF have always kept watch over deforestation in Indonesia. WWF has begun reforestation with corporate partners in 850 hectares of the worst hit areas of Sebangau, located just 45 minutes by speedboat from Central Kalimantan’s provincial capital Palangka Raya and believed to have one of world’s largest wild orangutan populations.