Oil palm and human rights report

A new report from Friends of the Earth, LifeMosaic and Sawit Watch provides a shocking insight into the human rights impacts of oil palm plantations.

Losing Ground:The human rights impacts of oil palm plantation expansion in Indonesia documents how forest communities in Indonesia are being conned into giving up their land to oil palm plantation, often at horrific costs.

Lipstick to fuel tanks - the thirst for palm oil

Oil palm is grown for palm oil - a vegetable oil already used in 1 in 10 supermarket products. 

Demand is rising as countries want to use palm oil as a biofuel to replace fossil fuel-derived petrol and diesel.

The environmental costs of oil palm plantations are well known, but it's not just Indonesia's forests that are under threat. 

An estimated 60-90 million people in Indonesia depend on the forests for their livelihoods, but many are losing their land to the expanding palm oil industry.
Promised Land report

A heavy price

Oil palm plantations transform diverse forests into monoculture, and evidence suggests that communities are paying a heavy price too:

• Conflict and loss of culture
  Forced off land, ancestral graves destroyed, traditions, language and rituals lost forever.
• Financial hardship
  Poor wages and debt combine with the loss of goods and services the forest used to provide.
• Water
  Floods, droughts and pollution. 

Losing Ground reveals growing evidence of human rights violations associated with the Indonesian oil palm industry. 

Drawing on interviews with individuals on the ground, new Sawit Watch data, and previous research, Losing Ground provides an insight into the many impacts of oil palm plantations.

Losing Ground - the full report 

Losing Ground - the executive summary

Take action

The European Commission is considering setting targets for 10% of road fuels to come from biofuels by 2020. Such a target could fuel:

• Forest destruction.
• Human rights abuses.
• Climate change.

Tell your MEP to vote against the 10% biofuels target.

Press for change >

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