Our new report, Who Watches the Watchmen?, has revealed flaws in the system by which the Rountable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) guarantees palm oil is free from links with primary forest destruction. Auditing firms relied on by RSPO regularly fail to identify and mitigate unsustainable practices by oil palm firms.
The last-minute exemption of 15 product groups from Indonesia’s timber legality verification system threatens to block EU market access for these products, to delay or sabotage a long-negotiated EU-Indonesia timber trade agreement and undermine Indonesia’s forest industry reputation, NGOs have warned
The conviction and subsequent pardon of 155 Chinese nationals for illegal logging in Myanmar threw a spotlight on how massive volumes of timber stolen from the county’s precious frontier forests have been flowing unhindered into China for decades and a murky trade worth hundreds of millions of dollars every year
An area of Indonesian rainforest three times the size of Manhattan and home to endangered species such as orangutans and clouded leopards is under threat from a palm oil company run by one of the country’s most notorious former illegal logging kingpins
The clear-cutting of forests to make way for oil palm plantations is driving a wave of illegal logging in Indonesia, fundamentally undermining efforts to bring much-needed reform to the nation’s forestry and timber sectors
Massive flows of illegal timber stolen from forests around the world will not be stemmed by voluntary industry guidelines currently being developed by the Chinese Government, environmentalists have warned