Statement
Musim Mas Remains Firmly Committed to Sustainable Palm Oil Production
This statement is in response to the 11th November 2014 report issued by Rainforest Action Network (RAN), entitled “the Last Place on Earth – Exposing the threats to the Leuser Ecosystem, a global diversity hotspot deserving protection.”
Musim Mas shares with RAN its concern that Palm Oil companies need to protect vulnerable ecosystems when developing oil palm plantations. Like other major Palm Oil companies mentioned in the report, Musim Mas has a strict sourcing policy to trace and eliminate deforestation in its supply chain. While every effort is made to exclude from the supply chain Palm Oil produced in controversial areas (the conflict Palm Oil ), care is also needed to ensure that such exclusion will not unwittingly apply to Palm Oil produced by Smallholders (the small people Palm Oil ) thus adversely affecting their livelihoods.
As a temporary measure, Musim Mas will suspend sourcing from PT Pati Sari while actively engaging with them to have a better understanding of their supply base and find ways to exclude conflict Palm Oil without affecting small farmers.
Musim Mas remains firmly committed to the principle of sustainable development and subscribes to the Precautionary Principle, which underlies the core of the RSPO Principles and Criteria. The Group is a consortium member of an HCS study involving renowned scientists and has voluntarily committed to a moratorium on all potential HCS forest in the interim period whilst the study is ongoing. It has also voluntarily stopped new planting on Peatland since 2008.
The Group will seek to engage RAN to have a constructive dialogue on the points raised in the report.
