Ten years ago this month, I stood with the CEO of Asia’s biggest agribusiness, Wilmar International, to announce the company’s new No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation policy. It banned deforestation, destruction of carbon rich peatlands, land-grabbing and labor rights abuse throughout their vast global supply chain – meaning that in one stroke, thousands of palm oil companies would have to comply or risk losing access to one of the biggest customers. Because Wilmar single-handedly controls more than a third of trade in the commodity, the policy was a big deal. It provided hope that the era of wanton forest destruction and climate pollution might come to an end. The policy was hard won, the product of a global campaign across continents combined with five months of roller-coaster negotiations. Despite our excitement, we knew that what mattered was translating it into action on the ground in Asia, Africa, and beyond. We didn’t know for sure that would happen. But happen it did. Over the next five years, deforestation for palm oil would plummet more than 90% and stay at low levels to this day. The paper and rubber industries, facing similar campaign pressure, would achieve similar progress. Overall, this action contributed to Indonesia reducing overall deforestation to the lowest level on record, as well as progress in Malaysia and Papua New Guinea. In addition, we and our allies were able to persuade the companies to apply their policies to protect the forests of tropical Africa, where the industry had been…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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