Caught REDD Handed: How Indonesia's Logging Moratorium was Criminally Compromised on Day One and Norway will Profit

EIA and Telapak report that at the same time that the Indonesian president was declaring an area of peat swamp to be out of bounds to loggers, they were documenting a plantation company (palm oil firm PT Menteng Jaya Sawit Perdana, a subsidiary of Malaysian firm Keping Berhad) illegally clearing it.

The moratorium, the cornerstone of a REDD deal with the Norwegian government, was breached on its first day and yet, say the authors, Norway stands to profit from the illegal clearance as the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global has invested large sums in plantation and logging companies in Indonesia.

The authors state that not only is such behaviour incompatible with Norway's position as a global leader on REDD+, but also that it is only the tip of the iceberg and hundreds of other companies are also operating outside the law, particularly in Central Kalimantan, where illegal plantations now outnumber legal plantations.

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edited:24/06/2011
uploaded:24/06/2011