The world's largest palm oil plantation project threatens the last Indonesian forests.
The world's largest palm oil plantation project threatens the last Indonesian forests.
A satellite view of the deforestation caused by Digoel Agri, late November 2019 (Gecko)
"A new player in the industry has started clearing land in its project for the largest palm oil plantation in the world." This is what the investigative media the Gecko Project reports in partnership with Mongabay. This media specializes in the destruction of primary forests and related corruption. Their new report is edifying. An environmental disaster is underway in the greatest media silence. A disaster that links corruption, anonymous investors and politicians. This is not a thriller, it is Indonesia in the palm oil era.
The hour is serious for the country. The Tanah Merah project is a real threat to the Indonesian province of Papua and its still virgin forests (one of the last areas in the country). This project of the largest palm oil plantation in the world would have an area equivalent to twice the surface of the city of London. In fact, 280 hectares have been allocated to this project, which represents a profit of 000 billion for the sole sale of wood. If the Tanah Merah project is carried out, it would be a real ecocide whether by the disappearance of a unique biodiversity, the astronomical release of CO6 and another deforestation caused by the displacement of local farmers .
170 hectares have already been razed to the ground where the bulldozers have settled since last March. Deforestation still small but localized in a protected sector. This start of construction threatens an acceleration in a project that has taken more than 10 years to start.
To understand the scope of the project, it is necessary to understand what is at stake. This project is directed by Digoel Agri Group, a firm created by a family close to the Indonesian government and supported by an anonymous investor from New Zealand.
Since 2007, the permits for this project have been exchanged between several conglomerates, and reveal an alarming opacity in a context where the firms involved wish to remain anonymous. Worse yet, according to information from 4 investigative houses *, the permits for this project were issued by a politician, serving at the same time a prison sentence for embezzlement of public funds. Other investigations revealed falsified licenses. It is on this total illegality that this project began. The takeover by Digoel Agri Group aims to be transparent. Only, this firm linked to the Indonesian power, uses the fraudulent permits of the past to operate.
For Greenpeace Indonesia, the government can still ban the project, and thus avoid an environmental massacre. In fact, in 2016, the Indonesian government created a three-year moratorium banning new palm oil plantations, in response to forest fires that destroyed thousands of hectares. However, in reality, government actions are struggling to be adopted, and the Tanah Project is an example. The investors of the project defend themselves by evoking that the natives on the spot are in favor of the project. However, for Pusaka, an association for the rights of the natives, the tribe on the spot is radically opposed to the project because it threatens their water and food resources.
The associations on the ground are asking the government to impose sanctions against the permits authorized 10 years ago, and thus request the cancellation of the project.
https://www.lejeuneengage.com/tous-les- ... onesiennes
For further:
https://fr.mongabay.com/2019/04/le-cont ... e-paradis/
So when ABC asks the question: "at what point do we judge that the disadvantages of industrial society justify giving up?"
The answer to this kind of project is "at once".