Indonesia is Making Strides with Sustainable Agricultural Production through Progressive European Partnerships

"Despite government claims of partnerships with Europe, Indonesia is still failing miserably as it allows multinational interests to destroy its rainforests decades after it was an obvious catastrophe in the making."

The EU welcomes and supports Indonesia’s efforts toward achieving 100 percent sustainable Palm Oil by 2020. The EU is ready to work with Indonesia on how existing certification schemes could be strengthened and promoted. 

 The EU does not require sustainability measures to be commodity-specific. We are committed to fighting all drivers of deforestation (soy, beef, cocoa, coffee, timber approaches occurred, etc). To be fully inclusive, a future, “sustainable Palm Oil solution “ does not have to put the burden of certification on individual “small farmers “ (40 %of Indonesian Production ): Group -certification and landscape approaches occurred could also be explored. Indonesia has committed to reducing emissions from deforestation by 70–99 percent compared to business as usual until 2030. 55 % of tree cover loss within Indonesian primary forest from 2000 to 2015 ( more than 4.5 million hectares) occurred in legal concessions. Conversions to oil palm, pulp, and paper industries, each contributed about 1. 5Mha, an area larger than Switzerland. 45 %tree cover loss took place outside concession and destroyed 3.6Mha, most from licensed concession holders(cultivating more than permits allowed), unsustainable harvest rate, or a vast network of small oil palm plantations, operating outside legal concessions but most likely feeding into the same supply chains.

  Source; sultansaiful.medium.com (World Resources Insitute figures).