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Oil palm has devastated Indonesia's rainforests and life including orangutans and local peoples  (link)

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End Credit Suisse and UBS investment in Indonesian rainforest destruction

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Dear Mr. Dougan and Mr. Grübel, I am shocked and disappointed to learn that your Swiss banks -- Credit Suisse and UBS -- are taking the lead in the raising of capital investment funds for Golden Agri-Resources Group. This group is the holding company of the rainforest destroying activities of the infamous Sinar Mas Group in Indonesia, known for ruthlessly destroying rainforests and local cultures for toxic palm-oil monocultures. The capital you are to provide will be used to expand their palm-oil plantations and to construct palm oil mills and refineries. Using funding you arrange, the group plans to further develop 1.3 million hectares of new rainforest destroying palm-oil plantations in the Indonesian provinces of Kalimantan and Papua. This gravely sullies both you and Switzerland's international image, and we demand that you stop this funding immediately. In Indonesia alone there are already 7 million hectares of carbon and species rich rainforests and peat bogs that have been sacrificed for oil palm monocultures which are biological deserts. As much as 20 million more hectares of plantations are planned for the future, further uprooting local peoples, and burning and clearing their rainforests. The rainforest destruction is of global importance because of the climate change emissions it causes. Indonesia's intact rainforests and peat bogs are immensely important carbon sinks. Despite years of appeals and efforts to get the Indonesian government to stop converting rainforest peatlands to oil palm; because of the bad impacts upon biodiversity, climate and local peoples, the government continues with plans to sacrifice massive areas to further rainforest conversion and deforestation from oil palm. Golden Agri-Resources and the Sinar Mas Group are known to be particularly ruthless rainforest destroyers. In the past they have disastrously impacted indigenous populations, small farmers and indigenous people such as the Dayak, displacing indigenous and other local peoples from their land and depriving them of their livelihoods. For example, a subsidiary company of Golden Agri-Resources named Kresna Duta Agroindo (KDA) is currently involved in a serious land conflict with the village of Karang Mendapo in Sumatra. In January 2009, the mayor of Karang Mendapo, Muhammad Rusdi, who is also a dedicated environmentalist, was arrested under bogus accusations in order to silence farmers protesting loss of the lands and livelihoods. Soon, on 11 July 2009 Rusdi's fate will be determined. It is vital that he not be falsely convicted because pressure from the companies you support that are stealing their land. Rusdi is a role model for hundreds of thousands of small farmers and indigenous people in Indonesia, where the palm oil industry has stolen their rainforests and country. The European Union's recently adopted sustainability criteria for biofuels and the standards of the Round Table for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) prevent continued rainforest destruction and land grabs from indigenous peoples. Indeed, the RSPO label is a pure sham as rainforests and peoples continue to suffer from oil palm. Those investing in Sinar Mas Group, as well as those arranging the financing such as your banks, are faced with serious long term risk. At any time investors could be held accountable for carbon being emitted, human rights violations against local peoples and poorly conceived business plans based upon rainforest liquidation. This was shown in the case of the pulp company Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), which also belongs to Sinar Mas. APP has not only been responsible for devastating large-scale forest destruction, but has been poorly managed and went spectacularly bankrupt in 2001, causing one of the largest bankruptcies in Asia. Credit Suisse was up to then the most important provider of capital to APP. Clearly industrial conversion for oil palm and logging of the last of Indonesia's primary rainforests is not a good investment. I therefore call on Credit Suisse, UBS and BNP Paribas to immediately stop the process of raising further investment capital for Golden Agri-Resources, and to permanently end its business relations. I strongly urge you and your potential oil palm investors to look for environmentally and socially acceptable investment opportunities elsewhere. This clearly means no money for Indonesian palm oil and paper industry stuck. Yours sincerely,

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