February, 05 2013, 02:26pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
In the US: Laurel Sutherlin, 415.246.0161
In Indonesia: Lafcadio Cortesi, 62 821 45731116
Rainforest Action Network Responds to Asia Pulp and Paper's New Forest Commitments
If implemented, APP’s new commitments could mark a milestone for Indonesia’s communities and endangered forests. Serious concerns about human rights violations and APP plans to build world’s largest pulp mill remain
SAN FRANCISCO
Controversial Singapore-based paper giant, Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), today announced a new "Forest Conservation Policy" to undertake environmental and social reforms to its business practices. This comes on the heels of almost 100 international corporate customers cutting contracts or stepping away from APP paper products, most notably Disney, Staples, and Mattel, after responding to criticism about the paper company's role in harming Indonesia's endangered rainforests and communities. APP is the largest paper company in Indonesia and one of the largest in the world.
"Though we welcome APP's new rainforest commitments as a milestone, the hidden story here is the controversial paper giant's long history of broken promises, land conflicts and human rights violations across its operations," said Lafcadio Cortesi, Asia Director for Rainforest Action Network. "APP will not be seen as a responsible company in the marketplace until its new commitments are implemented and resolve the devastating rainforest and human rights crises it has caused in Indonesia."
APP's new forest commitment, which went into effect February 1, extends beyond lands controlled directly by the company to cover its entire supply base - about half of APP's paper fiber comes from 'independent' suppliers. The company says it will also defer clearing and conversion of natural forests and carbon-rich peatlands while conservation and carbon values are assessed. In addition, the commitment acknowledges the company's problems associated with land conflict, and recognizes indigenous and local community rights to land.
"Since building its pulp mills in Sumatra, APP has deforested an area of rainforest the size of Massachusetts," continued Cortesi. "APP has a long history of making and breaking environmental and social commitments. The real proof of APP's new commitment will be in how it proceeds with current plans to build what could be the largest pulp mill in the world in South Sumatra."
In 2004, APP promised to protect High Conservation Value Forests (HCVFs) and reach "full sustainability" as part of a legally binding US$6 billion debt "Master Restructuring Agreement" with Western financial institutions and Export Credit Agencies. As of March 2012, APP still remained in gross violation of this agreement.
Rainforest Action Network and its Indonesian partners are currently tracking dozens of cases of ongoing conflict between Asia Pulp and Paper, its wood suppliers and local communities across the Sumatran provinces of Jambi and Riau alone. (Raw data and background information on these cases are available on request.)
In one example, which is representative of countless others, members of the Senyerang village in the Jambi Province of Sumatra have been embroiled in high-tension conflict with APP affiliate PT. WKS for many years. PT WKS cleared community gardens and forcibly displaced dozens of families. When the community took action to block log barges from reaching its pulp mill in November of 2010, police were called in and a community leader was shot dead. The land conflict and human rights violations in Senyerang remain unresolved and the community released a press release with an update on the conflict just last week. (View an English-translated version here, and a listing of grievances against PT WKS here.)
Rainforest Action Network has campaigned since 2009 to pressure APP to reform its destructive practices, including working with ten of the top publishing companies in the US to cancel contracts with APP until the company ends its central role in Indonesia's deforestation crisis.
Indonesia is home to some of the most biologically diverse forests in the world but it also has dangerously high rates of deforestation. Logging for pulp, along with the expansion of palm oil plantations, is a leading driver of this destruction. Indonesia is now listed as the third largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, after the US and China. An estimated eighty per cent of its emissions come from the conversion of peatlands and other natural forests.
APP's new commitment comes at a critical moment for Indonesia's forests. The two-year moratorium on deforestation decreed by President Yudhoyono in 2011 expires in May this year.
For more information on APP, please visit: https://understory.ran.org/2012/12/15/app-the-most-destructive-company-in-the-world/
Rainforest Action Network (RAN) is headquartered in San Francisco, California with offices staff in Tokyo, Japan, and Edmonton, Canada, plus thousands of volunteer scientists, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens around the world. We believe that a sustainable world can be created in our lifetime and that aggressive action must be taken immediately to leave a safe and secure world for our children.
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Apr 20, 2024
Nearly 40 House Democrats voted against a measure to send around $26 billion more to Israel as it continues its war on Gaza that human rights experts have deemed a genocide.
While the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act passed the Republican-led House by a vote of 366-58, party insiders said it was significant that such a large number of Democrats had opposed it, with more centrist lawmakers joining progressives who have called for a cease-fire since October.
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Human rights lawyer, lobbyist, and former Democratic National Committee committeewoman Yasmine Taeb posted that it was "incredibly significant that 37 Democrats voted NO and rejected AIPAC's role and influence in the party."
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Section 702 is the provision that allows U.S. intelligence agencies to spy on non-U.S. citizens abroad without a warrant. Currently, they are able to do so by acquiring communications data from electronic communications service providers like Google, Verizon, and AT&T. The existing provision has already been widely abused and criticized, as the communications of U.S. citizens are often caught up in the searches.
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Goitein used similar language to condemn the vote.
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NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden added, "America lost something important today, and hardly anyone heard. The headlines of state-aligned media screech and crow about the nefarious designs of your fellow citizens and the necessity of foreign wars without end, but find few words for a crime against the Constitution."
Schumer announced a deal late Friday to vote on a series of amendments to the bill clearing the way toward its passage, according toTheHill. However, all five amendments that would have added greater privacy protections were voted down, The Washington Post reported.
"If the government wants to spy on the private comms of any American, they should be required to get approval from a judge, as the Founding Fathers intended."
These included an amendment from Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) to require a warrant and another from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to remove the House language expanding the entities who could be forced to spy, according to Roll Call. The amendments were rejected 42-50 and 34-58 respectively.
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"We're poised to be the first domino of many to fall," one worker at the Chattanooga plant said.
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Workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, became the first Southern autoworkers not employed by one of the Big Three car manufacturers to win a union Friday night when they voted to join the United Auto Workers by a "landslide" majority.
This is the first major victory for the UAW after it launched the biggest organizing drive in modern U.S. history on the heels of its "stand up strike" that secured historic contracts with the Big Three in fall 2023.
"Many of the talking heads and the pundits have said to me repeatedly before we announced this campaign, 'You can't win in the South,'" UAW president Shawn Fain told the victorious workers in a video shared by UAW. "They said Southern workers aren't ready for it. They said non-union autoworkers didn't have it in them. But you all said, 'Watch this!' And you all moved a mountain."
"This incredible victory for labor will transform Tennessee and the South!"
According to the UAW's real-time results, the vote tally now stands at 2,628—or 73%—yes to 985—or 27%—no. Voting at the around 4,300-worker plant began Wednesday.
The Chattanooga workers announced their current union drive in December 2023. Friday's victory follows two failed unionization attempts at the plant in 2014 and 2019.
"We saw the big contract that UAW workers won at the Big Three and that got everybody talking," Zachary Costello, a trainer in VW's proficiency room, said in a statement. "You see the pay, the benefits, the rights UAW members have on the job, and you see how that would change your life. That's why we voted overwhelmingly for the union. Once people see the difference a union makes, there's no way to stop them."
The union's win comes despite the opposition of Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee.
"Today, I joined fellow governors in opposing the UAW's unionization campaign," Lee said on social media Tuesday. "We want to keep good-paying jobs and continue to grow the American auto manufacturing sector. A successful unionization drive will stop this growth in its tracks, to the detriment of American workers."
However, Tennessee State Rep. Justin Jones (D-52) celebrated the win.
"Watching history tonight in Chattanooga, as Volkswagen workers voted in a landslide to join the UAW," he wrote on social media Friday night. "Despite pressure from Gov. Lee, this is the first auto plant in the South to unionize since the 1940s. This incredible victory for labor will transform Tennessee and the South!"
Other national labor leaders and progressive politicians also congratulated the Chattanooga workers.
Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, said the win "shows what we already know—workers in every part of this country want the freedom to join a union, and when we stand together, we have tremendous power. Even though the deck is stacked against us, momentum is on our side, and we're winning."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said: "This is a huge victory not only for UAW workers at Volkswagen, but for every worker in America. The tide is turning. Workers all across the country, even in our most conservative states, are sick and tired of corporate greed and are demanding economic justice."
"I think it's a great push for the entire South, and people will follow suit."
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called the results "an utterly historic victory for the working class."
"Tennessee is shining bright tonight," she wrote on social media Friday. "We are in a new era. Congratulations to the courageous workers in Chattanooga and the entire UAW. Absolutely heroic. Solidarity IS the strategy—across the South, and all over the country."
More Perfect Union said the victory would "change the auto industry, and the future of American labor," and the campaign organizers themselves are aware of the importance of what they've accomplished.
"We understand that the world's watching us," worker Isaac Meadows, who has been at the plant for one year, told More Perfect Union. "You know there's a labor movement in this country, you know, we're poised to be the first domino of many to fall."
Worker Kelcey Smith, who has also been at the plant for one year, added, "I think it's a great push for the entire South, and people will follow suit."
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For the Chattanooga workers, meanwhile, their next big fight will be to secure their first union-negotiated contract.
"The real fight begins now," Fain told cheering workers. "The real fight is getting your fair share. The real fight is the fight to get more time with your families. The real fight is the fight for our union contract."
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