 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Information in: Español - Français - Deutsch - Português - Russian - Japanese - Svenska - Italiano - Suomi
|
||||||||||||||
|
|
|
PRIVATE
PROFITS, PUBLIC RISKS: EXAMPLES OF SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF ECA
PROJECTS V. FORESTRY SECTOR IN INDONESIA Problems: In the financial press there is now abundant reporting about the heavy indebtedness and potential collapse of the Indonesian pulp and paper sector, specifically Asia Pulp and Paper (which may be de-listed from the New York Stock Exchange) and Asia Pacific Resource Holdings. But it is less widely known that the dubious investments underlying this crisis were in part made possible by export credit agencies. In the Suharto era, export credit agencies (ECAs) played a major role in financing environmentally and socially unsustainable investments that have depleted Indonesia’s extraordinary natural wealth. Forest degradation reached a rate of close to two million hectares per year. Security forces were routinely used to prevent forest-dwelling, rural, and river-side peoples from protecting and managing the natural resources upon which their livelihoods and communities depended. In resource-rich regions, the violation of human rights was a routine occurrence. The government of Indonesia has been supporting the expansion of the paper and pulp industry which, before the economic crisis, was expected to grow from its current 2 million ton annual production capacity to a 10 million ton capacity by 2010 with the addition of 16 new paper and pulp mills. The mills currently operating in Indonesia rely, for the most part -- despite their public statements -- on the clearcutting of natural or community managed forests, often on indigenous lands. The government’s campaign to expand paper and pulp production has led to the wholesale clearcutting of hundreds of thousands of hectares of the nation’s remaining forests, often inhabited by indigenous and other forest farming peoples. This has sparked unrest, litigation, the continual harassment of local communities by security forces, and, in the post-Suharto era, massive public protests against the forced seizures and clearcutting of community forests, air pollution, and the pollution of major waterways by paper and pulp mills and factories. ECA involvement: JEXIM (Japan) EXIM (USA), HERMES (Germany), FGB (Finland), EKN (Sweden), ECD (Canada), ERG (Switzerland). Corporate involvement: Asia Pulp and Paper, Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Ltd Further information: www.wrm.org.uy,
or Environmental Defense, www.environmentaldefense.org/programs/international.eca/indonesia.html
### |
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
Home | What are ECAs? | The Problems | Goals | Take Action! | Press Room | About Us For Questions or Comments, email info_at_eca-watch.org
|
||||||||||||||
