Global Civil Organizations Urge RSPO to Delay Astra Agro Lestari Membership Amid Controversies

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Illustration of Palm oil plantation. Photo by: Sawit Fest 2021 / Hendra A Setyawan

PALMOILMAGAZINE, JAKARTA – Thirty-two global civil organizations have submitted a public petition to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), urging the non-profit organization to postpone the membership application of Astra Agro Lestari (AALI), the second-largest palm oil company in Indonesia. This request comes two weeks after AALI officially applied for RSPO membership, with the application supported by a statement from RSPO.

The petition emphasizes that AALI must resolve ongoing conflicts with communities in Sulawesi and address the impacts on affected individuals by providing recovery and compensation. The organizations also call for a verification process to ensure that communities can provide or deny free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) and for the Indonesian government to investigate allegations of permit fraud involving AALI.

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The petition follows the recent release of a report by Friends of the Earth, which detailed environmental abuses, human rights violations, illegal deforestation, and crimes committed by AALI against human rights and environmental activists.

Also Read: AALI Joins RSPO to Strengthen Sustainability Initiatives

“AAL should not hide the land deprivation, crime, and environmental damage behind RSPO as its members,” Uli Arta Siagian, Forest and Plantation Campaign Manager of Wahana Lingkungan Hidup/Walhi (Friends of the Earth Indonesia), said, as in the official statement to Palmoilmagazine.com, Thursday (25/7/2024).

Boru Siagian thought, destructive operation of AALI in Indonesia was against RSPO principles and criteria in sustainable palm oil production. AAL operates in Sulawesi without FPIC from the people that got the impacts, let violence, crime, and intimidation happen to human rights campaigners.

Every violation that AAL conducted, was well documented for the past few years. This encouraged some big scale – consumers’ brands, for instance, Colgate, Palmolive, Danone, and L’Oreal, as the members of RSPO, announced to postpone (material) supplies from AALI. Some big scale – investors, such as, Norges Bank and BlackRock delivered sanction for AALI and the main company.

Friends of the Earth and other groups thought, RSPO membership was always used as the tool to get greenwashing to every environmental violence and human rights in palm oil sectors sustainably. There is no legal condition for RSPO members to obey the principles and criteria in the organization. RSPO was always criticized because it published certification for the company(ies) that delivered bad impacts and failed to deliver sanctions for its members that broke the principles.

Also Read: Indigenous Papuans Petition Supreme Court to Reject Palm Oil License

“The proposal of AALI to RSPO would not be a surprise because disobedience to RSPO standards is systemic and widely spread to its members,” Gaurav Madan, Senior Forest and Area Rights Campaigner, Friends of the Earth, USA, said.

Madan continued, taking AALI as one member of RSPO would be the same to weaken the protests of the people on justice, and weaken RSPO itself.

The civil organization activists claimed the Government of Indonesia to investigate the permit issue and illegal operation in AALI, should facilitate to re-hand over the people’s areas that AALI cultivate without the people’s agreement. The activists also emphasized it would be significant that European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) should oblige the company(ies) to show free – deforestation supply chain and ban product imports that would have something to break the national scale – regulations.

“Many know that sustainability scheme is voluntarily conducted. If the commitment was failed to vanish deforestation and break human rights regulation, many agribusiness companies did,” Coordinator of International Forestry Program in Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Belanda), Danielle van Oijen said. (P2)

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