palm oil

Deforestation continues in Indonesia, as this image taken on 16 October of an area cleared for an Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) plantation shows (c) Sutton-Hibbert/Greenpeace

Being a part of a Greenpeace ship tour is never boring. Generally, you expect the unexpected, and then you're surprised. But even by ship tour standards, the Rainbow Warrior's recent 'tour' of Indonesia was an interesting one.

It started with high hopes that our peaceful campaigning ship would be able to support the Indonesian president's stated aims of ending deforestation in Indonesia. It ended with the Rainbow Warrior being denied vital supplies and being ordered - and escorted - out of Indonesian waters and well into international waters by two navy vessels, in breach of international maritime law.

Take a look at this audio slideshow produced by photographer Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert and our very own Bex Sumner, both currently in Indonesia. It features our international exective director Kumi Naidoo and US forest campaigner Rolf Skar who've been witnessing the devastation in Sumatra for themselves, where plantations are replacing the rainforests at a rate of knots.

At last, the Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is threatening action following the release last month of the independent audit commissioned by Sinar Mas, which showed that the company had been breaking Indonesian law and RSPO rules.

The independent audit which Sinar Mas thought would absolve it of deforestation, peatland clearance and law-breaking is now exploding in front of its face like a firework in a munitions factory.

Greenpeace campaigners and supporters in the US have been demanding that Burger King drops Sinar Mas as a supplier until the group commits to ending deforestation and yesterday it did just that, announcing that "the report has raised valid concerns about some of the sustainability practices of Sinar Mas' palm oil production and its impact on the rainforest".

More of Sinar Mas's handiwork, this time in an area known to support endangered Sumatran tigers 

There's been a not insignificant amount of fallout from the implosion of Sinar Mas's audit last week. You'll remember that the independent auditors demanded public clarification on some statements made by Sinar Mas about the results of said audit which were not, in fact, supported by the audit itself.

First of all (and this might be a complete coincidence), shares for Golden Agri Resources (Gar) - one of the Sinar Mas group's palm oil producers - fell by over 6 per cent between 19 and 23 August. PT Smart, another palm oil arm, dropped by nearly 3 per cent.

Shooting yourself in the foot. Getting egg all over your face. These and many more idioms apply to the Sinar Mas group which, following the release of its audit last week, has seen its executives "misreporting" the audit's findings.

Despite what company bigwigs have been saying, the audit doesn't clear Sinar Mas of operating irresponsibly or outside Indonesian law, leading to the embarrassing retraction of several claims made publicly which the audit doesn't in fact support. Worse, Sinar Mas has been telling these fibs not just to journalists, but to its shareholders, the Indonesian government and the stock exchange.

This blog first appeared on Ethical Corporation.

Last week saw Sinar Mas, one of the largest conglomerates in Indonesia, come to London for a press conference to try and turn the tables on two years of Greenpeace investigations into their deforestation practices.

The palm oil producer came to explain that they are a responsible company, that they don't destroy rainforests and how the likes of Unilever, Nestlé and Kraft had been mistaken to suspend them from their supply chains.

They claimed a new 'verification exercise' would prove Greenpeace has got it wrong.