Are human rights abusing plantations hiding in RSPO supply chain? Palm oil body insists on greater transparency for miller in Peruvian Amazon but loopholes persist

Regarding the most recent complaint, after two years, the RSPO CP, which is based in Malaysia, has emitted its decision on the case (RSPO/2019/05/PR). On the one hand, the RSPO rules that OLPESA has violated its Code of Conduct for members, in particular article 2.3 which holds that: “Members will commit to open and transparent engagement with interested parties, and actively seek resolution of conflict.” This is on the grounds that the company did not respond to FECONAU’s requests for information in 2018 and 2019 about the miller’s supply chain and whether its supply base included Ocho Sur P.

Moreover, the RSPO signals that OLPESA “is to follow the timebound plan as set out in the Annual Communication of Progress 2019 with its commitment to achieve Supply Chain Certification by 2021.” As part of the audit which this certification process involves, the RSPO indicates that this should verify OLPESA’s claim that it no longer buys palm from Ocho Sur P, as well as the publication of its list of suppliers on its website. In previous communications to the RSPO, OLPESA committed to doing the latter in the second half of 2020, however at the time of writing it still has not done this.

It should be noted that in deciding this case, the CP did not apply the RSPO’s Principles & Criteria to OLPESA, which is classed by the RSPO as an “independent miller”, but rather the aforementioned Supply Chain Certification Standards. For this reason, the RSPO holds that the community’s allegations – which included denouncing OLPESA for having acquired palm fresh fruit bunches from the community’s dispossessed ancestral territory, without their free, prior and informed consent, from a plantation operating without environmental permits or a social environmental impact assessment – are not applicable in this case.

Efer Silvano Soria, chief of the Santa Clara de Uchunya community, said,

“I understand that the RSPO lacks relevance for us, its actions are yet to have any effect in our community. Already the company Plantaciones de Pucallpa withdrew just like that in the past. And now they tell us that because OLPESA is an independent miller, [the RSPO] cannot do anything. Why was it not necessary for OLPESA to have a social license [Social Impact Assessment] if they were sourcing fruit from the plantations established on Uchunya’s territory? In that case what is the RSPO for?”

Miguel Guimaraes, President of FECONAU, said,

“Since we presented this complaint two years ago, Ocho Sur has constructed its own mill [1] to process the palm fruits which come from our Indigenous lands without our consent. In addition to obligating its members to publish their supply bases, the RSPO should issue a clear prohibition against acquiring palm from plantations which have been found in breach of its standards. To clarify this situation for the public and its member companies in Peru, the RSPO should establish and maintain an exclusion list of those plantations found to be in breach of its standards, which in this case would begin with the plantation currently operated by Ocho Sur P.”

Alvaro Masquez Salvador, IDL legal specialist, said,

“This decision reflects serious weaknesses in the RSPO’s palm oil certification system, above all for those companies which process or buy palm fruit; these weaknesses should be understood by the public who may see the RSPO’s stamp but not understand what it means. The way in which the RSPO currently works allows its members to trade on its reputation, but the weakness of its rules allow almost any company to participate without deserving it, such as those who trade in palm oil from Indigenous Peoples’ dispossessed and massively deforested lands. If the RSPO aspires to have credibility in Peru, in a context in which the expansion of oil palm in recent years has been heavily criticised for violating Indigenous Peoples’ human rights and destroying nature, it urgently needs to close these gaps.”

Tom Younger, FPP’s Peru Programme Coordinator, concluded:

“Although it took a long time, we appreciate that the Complaints Panel has upheld our complaint, as far as it could. But the decision reveals that RSPO standards need urgently to be strengthened so RSPO member companies further down the supply chain cannot trade and process fruits and oils from plantations that operate illegally, abuse human rights, grab Indigenous Peoples’ lands and destroy forests.”

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[1] The mill located on Ocho Sur P’s plantation is operated by another company which is part of the Ocho Sur corporate group, Servicios Agrarios de Pucallpa SAC.

Cover photo: Satellite image of Santa Clara de Uchunya (bottom right) and plantation operated by Ocho Sur P SAC. Credit: Google Earth