- The RSPO, the world’s leading sustainable palm oil certifier, has dismissed a complaint filed by an Indigenous community in Indonesia against a plantation company accused of violating their land rights.
- The company, MAS, arrived on the Indigenous Dayak Hibun’s ancestral land in 1996, and by 2000 had swallowed up 1,400 hectares (3,460 acres) of the community’s land within its concession.
- The community lodged its complaint in 2012, aimed at MAS’s parent company at the time, Malaysian palm oil giant Sime Darby Plantation, which is a member of the RSPO. In dismissing the complaint, 11 years later, the RSPO cited no evidence of land rights violations, and also noted that Sime Darby Plantation has sold off MAS — whose current owner isn’t an RSPO member and therefore isn’t subject to the roundtable’s rules.
JAKARTA — An Indigenous community in Indonesian Borneo that has waged a decades-long legal battle against a palm oil giant has slammed a decision to absolve the company of allegations of land rights violations.
The Dayak Hibun community in Sanggau district, West Kalimantan province, had brought a complaint in 2012 to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) against PT Mitra Austral Sejahtera (MAS), at the time owned by Malaysian palm oil company Sime Darby Plantation Bhd.
The company had first arrived in the area in 1996, wielding a permit to the location, despite never having obtained the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of the community. A subsequent permit, known as an HGU and issued in 2000, granted it an 8,741-hectare (21,600-acre) concession, which includes 1,400 hectares (3,460 acres) of ancestral Dayak Hibun land.
The RSPO finally ruled on the complaint in August this year, dismissing it due to “insufficient evidence” that MAS had obtained its HGU permit irregularly.
“A Company that has obtained a certificate of HGU means that the company has fulfilled all its obligations to the State,” the RSPO wrote in its decision.
At a recent press conference in Jakarta responding to the decision, representatives for the Dayak Hibun slammed the RSPO for essentially ignoring the rights and pleas of the community.
“We are very disappointed and furious with the RSPO,” said Redatus Musa, a community member.