{"id":18608,"date":"2018-09-25T01:55:42","date_gmt":"2018-09-25T01:55:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/?p=18608"},"modified":"2019-11-06T09:47:59","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T08:47:59","slug":"greenpeace-occupies-refinery-loaded-with-dirty-palm-oil-in-indonesia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/press-release\/18608\/greenpeace-occupies-refinery-loaded-with-dirty-palm-oil-in-indonesia\/","title":{"rendered":"Greenpeace occupies refinery loaded with dirty palm oil in Indonesia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bitung North Sulawesi, Indonesia \u2014\u00a0Thirty Greenpeace activists are currently occupying a palm oil refinery belonging to Wilmar International, the world\u2019s largest palm oil trader and supplier to major brands including Colgate, Mondelez, Nestl\u00e9 and Unilever. <\/span><\/p>\n

The refinery, which is on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, was processing palm oil from major producers that are destroying rainforests in Kalimantan and Papua, Indonesia.[1] <\/span><\/p>\n

“Wilmar has been promising to clean up its supply chain since 2013. Yet it is still buying palm oil from forest destroyers. It is not Greenpeace\u2019s responsibility to police their supply chain. Wilmar should only buy palm oil from producers it can prove are clean. That is what Wilmar CEO Kuok Khoon Hong promised almost five ago,” said Kiki Taufik, head of Greenpeace\u2019s global Indonesia forests campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Greenpeace team[2] includes activists and <\/span>climbers <\/span>from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, the UK, France and Australia. One group of activists climbed the anchor chain of a tanker ship transporting palm oil and are preventing it from moving. Another group scaled the refinery and are painting \u201cDIRTY\u201d <\/span>in five-metre high letters on the storage tanks. <\/span>They are accompanied by the Indonesian rock band Boomerang, who are performing their new single from the top of the storage tanks. <\/span><\/p>\n

In 2013, Wilmar became the first palm oil trader to adopt a \u2018no deforestation, no peat, no exploitation\u2019 policy. Last week, a <\/span>Greenpeace International investigation revealed that 25 palm oil producers had cleared 130,000ha of rainforest since 2015<\/span><\/a>.[3] Wilmar was buying from 18 of those palm oil groups; three supplied the refinery where the protest is taking place. Only a fraction of the palm oil Wilmar trades comes from its own plantations; more than 80 percent comes from other palm oil producers. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis refinery is loaded with Wilmar\u2019s dirty palm oil and if we weren\u2019t here it would be on its way to factories and supermarkets all over the world. Hundreds of thousands of consumers from all over the world have had enough of forest destruction. The message to big brands like Unilever, Nestl\u00e9 and Mondelez is simple: cut Wilmar off until it can prove its palm oil is clean,\u2019 said Yeb Sano, Executive Director at Greenpeace Southeast Asia, speaking from one of the activist boats at the palm oil refinery.<\/span><\/p>\n

Greenpeace is calling on Wilmar to prove it no longer sources palm oil from forest destroyers. The first step is to require all producer groups in its supply chain to publish mill location data and concession maps for their entire operations and to cut off any that refuse. <\/span><\/p>\n

Palm oil impacts on environment, people and climate<\/b><\/p>\n