Greenpeace and Bruno Manser Fund protest Finnish company’s palm oil
purchases
JOINT PRESS RELEASE BY BRUNO MANSER FUND, SWITZERLAND, AND GREENPEACE
14 April 2011 for immediate release
Protest at Neste Oil meeting of shareholders in Finland - Swiss NGO: Neste Oil´s palm oil supplier IOI violating land
rights, destroying forests
Helsinki/Finland. Activists from Greenpeace are today protesting in Helsinki against deforestation and social problems
caused by the growing demand for palm oil in biofuel production. Activists are welcoming shareholders to the annual
general meeting of Finnish oil refiner Neste Oil with banners saying: Neste Oil - destroying the rainforests.
Huge investments in biodiesel production have made the company one of the largest single users of palm oil globally.
Neste Oil celebrated the opening ceremony of the world´s largest biodiesel refinery in Singapore in March and the next
refinery will be opened in Rotterdam later this year. In Indonesia and Malaysia, rainforest and peatlands are being
cleared for commodities like palm oil. This causes significant greenhouse gases emissions and also destroys the habitat
of endangered species like the orang utans.
The company claims to produce sustainable biofuels, but in practice it is driving a huge increase in global demand for
palm oil. Furthermore, only last week, Neste Oil´s sustainability claims took a serious blow when the Roundtable on
Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) suspended all current and on going certifications of IOI, one of its key suppliers, due to
land conflict issues in its operations in Sarawak, Malaysia and illegal deforestation in Ketapang, Indonesia [1], said
Matti Liimatainen, Forest Campaigner for Greenpeace Nordic in Finland.
Speaking in a Greenpeace press briefing today in Helsinki, director Lukas Straumann from Swiss NGO Bruno Manser Fonds,
specialist in defending rainforests and indigenous people in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, said with regard to IOI:
IOI is far away from being a responsible palm oil producer. The company neglects the problems that it is causing, it
does not communicate openly and transparently, causes land conflicts and destroys forests with high conservation values.
We find it very strange that European palm oil buyers accept a producer acting like this as their business partner.
In March 2011, in the village of Long Teran Kanan in Sarawak, Malaysia, inhabitants blocked roads to prevent IOI
continuing to trespass and harvest palm oil on their lands. This was despite a court ruling over one year ago which
declared that IOI’s license to operate was null and void [2]. Recently announced plans by the state of Sarawak to open
one million more hectares of land for new palm oil plantations are shocking. Expansion of palm oil plantations is taking
place in lands that are important for the culture and livelihoods of indigenous people. And the driving force is growing
demand for palm oil, for instance the massive biofuel plans in Europe, said Straumann.
Palm oil biodiesel linked to rainforest destruction is no solution to climate change. On the contrary, it exacerbates
the problem if rainforests are felled to make way for palm oil for cars. Even if Neste Oil were only to use existing
agricultural land for the production of its palm oil for biofuels, the result of their action means that those
agricultural areas will be displaced and established elsewhere, quite possibly still at the expense of forests and
valuable ecosystems.
"For climate gains, driving on palm oil from deforestation is not an option", says forest campaigner Matti Liimatainen.
For more information, please see: http://www.greenpeace.fi/palmoil and http://www.bmf.ch/en
Picture 1: Greenpeace campaigners protesting at NESTE OIL's annual shareholder meeting in Helsinki, Finland, 14 April
2011
Picture 2: Rainforest destruction at Long Teran Kanan, Sarawak (Malaysia), by IOI, Malaysia's second-largest palm oil
producer
Picture 3: Villagers from Long Teran Kanan, Sarawak (Malaysia), protesting against the Malaysian IOI corporation that
claims to sell "sustainable" palm oil, March 2011
Picture 4: Peatswamp forest destruction by the Malaysian IOI corporation near Ketapang, Kalimantan (Indonesia (Picture:
Friends of the Earth International)
ENDS