World Bank Funds Destructive Palm Oil Industry

Should the World Bank be lending to the Indonesian palm oil industry, which is an environmental disaster, when the Bank may be called upon to manage international forest carbon funds? Rainforest Rescue definitely doesn’t think so – and they want your help in getting the Bank to end finance of industrial development that impacts rainforests.

From Rainforest Portal:

The World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) ignored its own environmental and social protection standards when it approved over a twenty year period nearly $200 million in loan guarantees for palm oil production in Indonesia. The IFC has temporarily frozen new investments in oil palm projects and is reviewing all current oil palm projects. The message must be conveyed to the World Bank that oil palm and any finance of industrial development that deforests or diminishes primary tropical rainforest must permanently end. And certainly oil palm — or any logging of primary forests, or replacement of primary forests with plantations — is not worthy of REDD forest carbon funding.

Indonesia is home to large primary rainforests and peat swamps, which naturally hold and continue to remove carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas that causes climate change.  Rampant destruction of these forests, largely to make way for palm oil plantations, has caused giant releases of CO2 into the atmosphere, making Indonesia the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases on the planet.  Oil palm inevitably causes widespread clearance of forests and peatlands and the theft of indigenous peoples’ lands.  Auditors found that Wilmar International Ltd., the recipient of IFC loans, was illegally using fire to clear primary forests, and seizing Indigenous peoples land without free, prior, and informed consent.

Protest this conflict of interest at the Rainforest Portal website by simply adding your name and email address to a protest email that will be sent to IFC officials.

Learn more about how palm oil production is threatening endangered orangutans and other wildlife, destroying Indonesian rainforests and ‘cooking the climate’ at Greenpeace.

Link [Rainforest Portal] + [Greenpeace]
Photo credit: Redapes.org

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