rainforest

Yesterday we released a report exposing KFC for driving rainforest destruction and pushing tigers toward extinction. Sadly, KFC executives have responded by putting a big bucket of denial on their heads.

No matter what you think about fast food, you’ll no doubt agree that rainforests shouldn’t be trashed to make packaging destined for the rubbish pile. But that’s exactly what’s happening. Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) is supplying KFC with packaging products that are made from Indonesia’s rainforests.

Our research has revealed that KFC is sourcing paper for its packaging products from rainforests. This has been confirmed in China, the UK and Indonesia. Products found to contain rainforest fibre include cups, food boxes, French fries holders, napkins and the famous chicken buckets.

This morning in Jakarta APP invited journalists to the launch of what it’s PR people grandly referred to as the ‘biggest announcement yet’ which would ‘reveal APP’s greatest commitment to natural forest protection as part of its sustainability program’.

The Rainbow Warrior is moored in the port city of Belem, here at the mouth of the Amazon river in Brazil. It’s a historic city, over 400 years old, which was established in colonial times and has become a thriving trade center ever since.

As the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior was sailing down the Amazon I participated in an event that was very different from our day-to-day campaigning for Zero Deforestation in the Amazon. It was a suit and tie summit in London organized by the Financial Times and the Brazilian Government to discuss the future of Brazilian agriculture.  It was a star-studded affair with the heads of the Brazilian cattle, sugar cane, chicken, beef and orange juice associations, two government ministers, and Senator Katia Abreu, head of Brazil’s National Confederation of Agriculture.    

Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), the pulp and paper giant behind the illegal timber scandal we exposed last month, has lost one of its largest international investors. In March we released evidence from a year-long investigation showing how illegal ramin was regularly identified at APP’s main pulpmill in Indonesia, Indah Kiat Perawang.  Eleven companies were named at the time as having links to APP and most, including Danone, Xerox and Mondi have acted to suspend any contracts with the APP. 

After months of investigations, activists have exposed an illegal logging operation underway in public lands in the Amazon. The illegal timber was discovered inside the Rural Settlement Corta Corda, 140km from the city of Santarem, Para State.