We share the concerns of Rainforest Action Network (RAN) for the Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve, especially the illegal oil palm plantings in the Singkil Wildlife Reserve.
We have been engaging with our suppliers in this area for the past years, and have mapped the risk areas down to the village level. Our suppliers in the region have been asked to exclude the two Plantation companies mentioned by the report, PT Indo Sawit Perkasa and PT Laot Bangko, and to ensure that their agents are not sourcing from inside the Rawa Singkil Reserve.
We will continue working towards the transformation of our sector, in particular in the Singkil area, and in particular to ensure positive impacts for Smallholders , as per our roadmap to 2020 and beyond.
The two mills mentioned in the report will enter into our Grievance Mechanism immediately, and will be eligible to enter our Controlled Purchase Protocol following further engagement and verification; no new business with either of these mills will be possible until they are compliant with our sustainability requirements.
Our approach to the Singkil landscape
The Singkil landscape is a mosaic of old and new palm plantations and Smallholders , in a critical ecosystem.
There are nine mills in our supply chain operating in the Singkil district. We have achieved 53% traceability for the nine mills, including independent Smallholders , and are aiming at full traceability by the end of 2020. For Smallholders , we are using a risk-calibrated, village-centric methodology and focusing resources in high-risk areas.
We have also conducted supplier engagement workshops with supplier mills in the region on our Sustainability policy and our traceability efforts. Several suppliers from Aceh Singkil have attended the supplier workshop in July 2019. The workshop informed the need for Traceability to Plantation (TTP), No Deforestation, No Peat, and No Exploitation (NDPE ) requirements and Musim Mas’s Roadmap for the future.
We also participate actively in workshops organised by other stakeholders in the Singkil area. One such meeting has taken place last week in Subussalam, led by the Earthworm Foundation, and gathered a wide selection of stakeholders, including the local government. Such engagement is crucial to the transformation of this landscape and will remain a priority for us.
Commitment to transforming our supply base
In line with our Sustainability Policy, we are working towards a fully traceable and transparent supply chain. As of December 2017, we can trace 100% of our supply base of Crude Palm Oil (CPO) to mill level, and 53% of our supply base of CPO to Plantation level. We have also published the list of our CPO and Palm Kernel (PK) suppliers, and our third-party suppliers’ GPS coordinates on our corporate website. Our supply chain map can be accessed here.
We have been working with our suppliers in the Aceh region since 2014, such as Pati Sari – mentioned in RAN’s campaign of 2014. You can read more about our work with Pati Sari here.
Another supplier is Mopoli Raya, whom we stopped purchasing in July 2015 after potential High Carbon Stock (HCS) forest clearance was proven through our verification. However, we continue to engage Mopoli Raya actively on improving their sustainability policy. In March 2019, we saw a strong commitment by Mopoli Raya towards sustainability through relevant documents shared with us. In April 2019, we resumed limited business with Mopoli Raya. More on our engagement with Mopoli Raya here. RAN has also mentioned the good progress by the supplier here.
Both the above examples show that actual change by our suppliers is possible. We will continue to enable and support such positive outcomes.
As we approach 2020, we have published our roadmap that will inform upon how we intend to tackle the challenges in transforming our supply base by 2020 and beyond. You can read up more about our time-bound roadmap here.
We believe that the transformation of the wider Palm Oil sector can only be achieved through a broader landscape-level and sector-wide initiatives (a full list of these initiatives and platforms can be found on page 24 of our Sustainability Report 2017).
More information about our efforts on our website here.
For more information, please contact:
Carolyn Lim
Corporate Communications
media@musimmas.com
+65 6576 4770
