Nature Alert: Bakrie to expand oil palm plantation area

Thursday, 15 May 2008

Bakrie to expand oil palm plantation area

Thursday, May 15, 2008 4:07 AM

Bakrie to expand oil palm plantation area

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta Wed, 05/14/2008

Publicly listed PT Bakrie Sumatera Plantations plans to add 50,000 hectares to its oil palm plantation by 2010 with an investment of US$260 million.

"Thirty-million dollars will be financed by equity from Bakrie Sumatera's new subsidiary PT Bakrie Sentosa Persada (BSP), $80 million from an international consortium equities and the remainder with bank loans," president director Ambono Janurianto said Wednesday.

Bakrie Sumatera established the palm oil producer BSP in June 2007.
Ambono said the expansion area, located in Central Kalimantan and Riau, Sumatra, was expected to contribute a profit of $100 per hectare, totaling $5 million per annum.

Bakrie Sumatera now operates 87,415 hectares of plantation, with 67,745 hectares for oil palm and the rest for rubber. Ambono said the holding company aimed to expand its plantation area to 200,000 hectares by 2011.

Bakrie Sumatera, the country's fifth-largest plantation owner by value, booked a 794 percent increase in its first quarter net profit to Rp 18.5 billion (US$1.99 million) over the same period last year.

"The year 2007 was really a great year for palm oil and natural rubber as prices surged to levels never reached before," said president commissioner Soedjai Kartasasmita.
In 2007, the world crude palm oil price reached $600 to $800 per ton up by 100 percent from 2006.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/05/14/bakrie-expand-oil-palm-plantation-area.html

Hall of Shame for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the Palm Oil Industry.

Nothing can prepare one for the sight of the systematic extermination of orangutans by the government of Indonesia.

Look at the photos and news articles on these pages in the context of a statement the President made to the media on 10th December 2007.

“In the last 35 years about 50,000 orangutans are estimated to have been lost as their habitats shrank. If this continues, this majestic creature will likely face extinction by 2050,” President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said at the launch of an orangutan conservation plan at the climate talks in Bali.

“The fate of the orangutan is a subject that goes to the heart of sustainable forests … To save the orangutan we have to save the forest.”

Statements like these are most welcome, but unless backed up by action, such words fall on deaf ears within the Ministry of Forestry....who are busy granting licences to cut down the very forests the President says they should protect!

When you think you are to busy to help, please could you reflect for a moment on .........

The following extract refers to environmental problems in general. I just hope you find it as thought provoking and relevant to orangutans as I have.

"This is such a shocking and unpalatable fact that most people deny it, or they just don't want to think about it. They believe as individuals, they can do little about it, so push it to the back of their minds. But I can't do that.

When something has to be done, we need to do it. It doesn't matter how big the challenge is or how hard the solution; if I know something is wrong, and I am in a position to help, I will do my best to make it right." Duncan Bannatyne, successful British businessman.