Jakartass Home thoughts from abroad. Alien thoughts from home.

Every so often the Jakarta Post carries a ‘Supplement’ or ‘Special Issue’ devoted to  ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’. These are in fact nothing but advertisements, as anyone prepared to plough through the verbiage can discover.

Today’s page 9 begins thus: The implementation of corporate social responsibilty (CSR) is decidedly one of the real or tangible steps of a company that applies good corporate governance (GCG).

“Real” or “tangible”? Tangible means visible, able to be touched etc., i.e. ‘real’!

The GCG includes a number of related pillars, namely transparency and accountability by as company’s resposnsible and professional management as well as its owners for the sake of all concerned stakeholders. The public in general, including consumers who are an inseperable part of a company’s existence, will always demand that a company’s operations are clean and friendly.

I don’t think that last bit is true; too many consumers look for brand names without caring about the sweat shops, and poor folk couldn’t give a damn about GCG when one’s priority in life is to feed and clothe one’s children.

The more I read of today’s advertorial, the more concerned I got. In essence, it is a glorification of PT Sinar Mas’ rehabilitation of “degraded peatland” in South Sumatra.

Every year, at this time, vast areas of Indonesia are set on fire in order to clear land for agriculture. It’s generally blamed on ‘squatters’ moving on to ‘private’ land or into a national park. However, that blame is apportioned by companies such as PT Sinar Mas and the politicos in their pockets, who reap vast profits from their palm oil plantations on hitherto primary rainforest or peatland.

What the page of corporate bullshit doesn’t say is that, after facing immense criticism in Indonesia for its clearance of tropical rainforest and peatlands in Borneo and Sumatra in violation of Indonesian law and the company’s own standards, … the Sinar Mas Group is also facing the prospect of limited future expansion under Indonesia’s proposed moratorium on peatland and natural forest conversion. The moratorium is part of the government’s partnership with Norway to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and degradation.

Today’s Sinar Mas advertorial is, therefore, something of a mea culpa and a ‘get out of jail free’ card except …. the ‘degraded’ peatland is planted with acacia crassicarpa (common name: wattle), which is suitable for land reclamation, fuelwood and pulpwood plantations.

Exactly one year ago, Greenpeace International which issued a report – How Sinar Mas is
Pulping The Planet.

Greenpeace investigated two important rainforest areas on the Indonesian island of Sumatra and discovered that Sinar Mas is wreaking environmental havoc in both. The Bukit Tigapuluh Forest Landscape is one of the last refuges for endangered Sumatran tigers and orang-utans. Kerumutan’s carbon rich peatlands are a key defence against climate change; some of the forest’s peat is deeper than three meters and thus illegal to clear under Indonesian law. Sinar Mas’ paper arm APP uses the logs from these rainforest areas to feed its Sumatran based pulp mills, which export pulp and paper products worldwide.

Several leading companies have already responded to Greenpeace evidence of the Sinar Mas group’s illegal and destructive environmental practices in Indonesia and are cancelling their contracts with the Indonesian palm oil and paper giant. (These include General Mills, Unilever, Kraft, Nestle and Lego.) Greenpeace is calling on the rest to follow suit.

While I appreciate that the Post needs advertisements in order to keep the cover price of the paper down, I find it rather strange that this particular advertorial is carried in the same week a major two part exposé of how that pork barrel politics are entrapping the country’s farmers – vote for us and we’ll give you fertiliser.

But something more sinister may be afoot.

A video, released by Greenpeace, of a young tiger trapped on the fringe of a Sinar Mas company’s acacia plantation has gone viral. Yes, the tiger may have been trapped by local villagers, but they and the tiger have been displaced by the plantation.

What is sinister is that suddenly it’s Greenpeace which is under attack. It’s not the first time that Sinar Mas have used bullying tactics against Greenpeace, but using the Betawi Brotherhood Forum (FBR) is surely a step too far.

The FBR are demanding that Greenpeace should register with the National and Political Unity Agency (NPUA), which I’d never heard of till now. That Greenpeace is registered with the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights seems to be overlooked, but one may legitimately ask if the FBR is registered with the NPUA.

Furthermore, the FBR have received the verbal backing of a legislator, Effendy Choirie, who sits on a parliamentary commission overseeing security and foreign affairs. He seems to be unaware that Sinar Mas is part of a Singapore-based company, and accuses Greenpeace of “trying to ruin [Indonesia’s} sovereignty,” whereas surely it’s Sinar Mas which in destroying the country’s eco-system has actually succeeded.

One may assume, therefore, that if Pak Effendy isn’t incredibly stupid, then he’s either shit-scared of FBR or he’s in the pay of Sinar Mas. They presumably haven’t told him that having screwed up vast areas of Indonesia they are now out to ruin the sovereignty of Liberia.

Yes, Sinar Mas is following the lead of Sime Darby, which has ruined areas of Kalimantan, Sumatera and Sulawesi, in establishing vast plantations in the African country founded by ‘free’ slaves, but which is now being enslaved by oil companies.