Archived press release

EU fuelling human rights disaster in Indonesia

13 February 2008

Palm oil production for food and biofuels is resulting in wide spread human rights abuses in Indonesia according to a report released today by a coalition of international environmental groups. In Losing Ground (PDF† ) Friends of the Earth, Sawit Watch, and LifeMosaic expose the huge social problems being fuelled by EU targets to increase the use of biofuels in transport.

The report reveals that oil palm companies often use violent tactics to grab land from indigenous communities with the collusion of the police and authorities. Previously self-reliant families, who were able to meet their own needs from the forest around them, complain of being tricked into giving up their land with the promise of jobs and new developments. Instead they end up locked into debt and poorly paid work, while the bounty of the rainforest is replaced with monotonous oil palm plantations. Pollution from pesticides, fertilisers and the pressing process is also leaving some villages without clean water.

Since 2005, Friends of the Earth, Sawit Watch and LifeMosaic have worked closely together on a project aimed at bringing impartial information to communities affected by oil palm plantations in Indonesia, enabling them to make informed decisions about their land and their futures. Losing Ground draws on community testimonies gathered during this project, new Sawit Watch data and previous research to provide an insight into the social, economic and cultural impacts of oil palm plantations.

The European Commission has recently proposed a target for 10 per cent of road transport fuel to come from biofuels by 2020 in an attempt to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, despite mounting evidence that biofuels fail to deliver such reductions. These targets will fuel a huge expansion in the amount of land used to grow oil palm. Friends of the Earth and LifeMosaic are calling on MEPs and Member States to reject the 10 per cent target when it comes before the European Parliament and Council this spring. To tackle transport pollution the EU should instead strengthen its proposals for mandatory emissions limits on all new cars.

Hannah Griffiths, Friends of the Earth biofuels campaigner:

"This report shows that as well as being bad for the environment, biofuels from palm oil are a disaster for people. MEPs should listen to the evidence and use the forthcoming debate on this in the European Parliament to reject the 10 per cent target. Instead of introducing targets for more biofuels the EU should insist that all new cars are designed to be super efficient. The UK Government must also take a strong position against the 10 per cent target in Europe and do its bit to reduce transport emissions by improving public transport and making it easier for people to walk and cycle."

Serge Marti from LifeMosaic, author of Losing Ground:

The European Commission is proposing sustainability criteria for biofuels but they do not include any attempts to address the social impacts of biofuel production. This means that the EU's increased biofuel use will lead to more of the types of problems exposed in Losing Ground as more land is converted to meet the increased demand for palm oil.

85% of the worlds Palm Oil is produced in plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia. According to local government plans Indonesia alone plans a further 20million hectares of plantations by 2020 - an area the size of England, Holland and Switzerland combined. The Oil Palm industry says that plantation expansion is vital for economic development and methods used are both environmentally sustainable and benefit the local people. However in the resulting vast monoculture plantations little survives. Half the loss of orang-utans habitat in the last decade has been linked to Oil Palm plantation expansion.

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust