• A report by Global Witness has found that more than 100 Indonesian palm oil mills supplying agribusiness giants ADM and Bunge have been accused of land and human rights violations and environmental destruction.
• Global Witness found that neither company is addressing the majority of these allegations through their formal grievance processes, and effectively passing on this “conflict” palm oil to major consumer brands such as Nestlé, Unilever and PepsiCo.
• ADM and Bunge have denied any failure to police their suppliers, but have also pledged to look

The people of the village of Aasikulam, Vavuniya stressed the hardships caused by the Sri Lankan Forest Department seizing their land earlier this month, with around 50 families stating they had been affected.  

One of the villagers said, “We depend on the agriculture to maintain our livelihoods and we make our living through the means of Chena cultivation.”

The Ministry of Environment on December 28 issued a report detailing crackdowns on illegal activities in protected natural areas and biodiversity conservation corridors.

According to the report, forest rangers responded to 8,917 cases of natural resource crimes over the past 12 months, an increase of 3,442 cases, or 63 per cent, over last year’s 5,475 reported incidents.

Rangers had logged 27,588 patrols for the year, up from 24,048 the previous year, but the number of cases sent to courts for prosecution had declined from 631 to 605.

• Once covered in vast tropical forests, East Kalimantan, in the Indonesian half of Borneo Island, is today the most intensively mined province in Indonesia.
• Surface mining for coal has left behind vast expanses of barren land across the province.
• Under Indonesian law, mining companies are responsible for rehabilitating their mining concessions.

Main photo: young oil palms await planting on land deforested by South Korea’s Korindo in the Indonesian province of Papua (Image: Mighty Earth)

In 2019, South Korea imported 745,000 metric tonnes of palm oil, up from 194,000 metric tonnes in 2005. It is one of the fastest-growing markets for the commodity in the world, driven by government policies to boost palm oil as a lucrative green industry and to secure food and energy supplies from overseas.

Environment, forest and climate change minister Md Shahab Uddin on Sunday directed the country’s eight divisional commissioners for taking measures not to lease out forestlands to individuals and businesses and to evict the grabbers of forestlands.

At a routine meeting with the divisional commissioners at his office, Shahab Uddin asked the officials to pass on the order to all 64 deputy commissioners not to lease out anymore forestland in protecting the country’s forests.

• Indonesia’s environment ministry has issued a new regulation allowing protected forest areas to be cleared for a “food estate” program.
• The program is aimed at boosting domestic crop supplies, but critics say it prioritizes the interests of agribusiness at the expense of small farmers and the environment.
• Indonesia degazetted 26 million hectares (64 million acres) of its forest over the past 20 years, primarily for large-scale agriculture, and today has 29.7 million hectares (73.4 million acres) of protected forest, an area the size of Italy.

Coordination, data and inclusivity key to move ahead, says study

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) embraced REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) a decade ago, becoming an early adopter of the initiative in the region. However, the country’s rate of emissions from forest loss continues to be among the highest in the Congo Basin due to unsustainable logging, fuelwood collection, agricultural expansion and mining.

BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Thai authorities have reached an agreement with a landless community that will allow villagers to live in a mangrove forest if they help protect the area, a unique collaboration that could work across the country, land rights groups said.

Under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the government, human rights groups and about 45 families in the coastal town of Ranong, the community will not get ownership rights but will receive assistance in building homes and access to utilities.

A Korean palm oil giant has been buying up swathes of Asia's largest remaining rainforests. A visual investigation published today suggests fires have been deliberately set on the land

Petrus Kinggo walks through the thick lowland rainforest in the Boven Digoel Regency.

"This is our mini market," he says, smiling. "But unlike in the city, here food and medicine are free."

Can Sri Lanka live up to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s environmental commitments?