Local communities protests in South Sumatra: "Restoration, not amnesty for corporate crime"

While governments and companies meet in Pelambang, South Sumatra, for the Bonn Challenge Meeting, local communities representatives coming from areas affected by plantations, organised together with NGOs a parallel meeting in the city.

Over 30 members of communities from areas degraded by industrial plantation for pulp, paper and oil palm development gathered with over 20 Civil Society Organizations from South Sumatra, Jambi, Riau, West, Central and East Kalimantan yesterday for the “Community Based Restoration Conference” in Palembang that ran in parallel to the Bonn Challenge Meeting. Community members and CSOs shared their experience about alternatives to industrial plantations and community efforts to improve livelihoods and restore degraded ecosystem and discussed the conditions and requirements for successful restoration efforts. The conference participants also developed the following statement to be shared with delegates to the Bonn Challenge meeting taking place today in Palembang.
They also opened a banner with the text: "Restoration, not amnesty for corporate crime"

Community Members from Areas Degraded by Pulp, Paper and Oil Palm Development and Civil Society Organizations Send Message to Bonn Challenge Delegates that Communities and CSO Must be Involved in Ecosystem Restoration Efforts and that Restoration Efforts Must Include the Recognition of their Customary Rights to the Land.

Meanwhile, as APP is presenting its own Forest Conservation Policy alongside with the Belantara Foundation at the Bonn Challenge meeting, Foresthits.info reports that in the last two years APP in South Sumatra recently built new canals the length of Bonn to Brussels. According to a Forestry Ministry secretariat Genera, Bambang Hendroyono, three APP companies in South Sumatra province (PT BAP, PT BMH and PT SBAWI) have reported to the ministry through their annual reports, replete with maps, that they constructed around 200km of new canals in 2015-2016,” said Bambang.