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HSBC, Credit Suisse Make A Mockery of Their Environmental Policy Major news media in Hong Kong reported that two of the worldfs largest European banks, Credit Suisse and HSBC are to be arranging a USD 250 million share placement on the Hong Kong market in early March 2007 on behalf of the Samling Group, one of Malaysiafs largest forestry companies. The Samling Group has faced almost constant attack from pressure groups in Malaysia and internationally for the last thirty years over its allegedly destructive logging practices and corrupt business methods. The Group has its origins in northeast Sarawak where it been responsible for the logging of most of the primary forest in the region. It has since moved on to logging of primary forests in Cambodia, Guyana and through subsidiaries, in Papua New Guinea. Only a small portion of its forestry activities involve managed plantation forests, through a recently acquired operation in New Zealand. The involvement of these two banks in helping Samling to raise funds appears to be in direct conflict of their respective pledges on supporting sustainable forestry. Read... How the West is Funding the Greatest Climate Change Culprit In the name of fighting terrorism, the United States and G8 powers are funding the Indonesian security apparatus which is standing by as the countryfs forests are illegally burnt year after year. Repeated forest fires, condoned and often aided by the military in the worldfs third largest tropically forested nation are responsible, on average in each of the last ten years, for half the carbon emissions of the United States and more than five times the Kyoto Protocolfs target for annual reduction! Read... Nippon Paper Asks for Comments on its Procurement Policy Japan's leading paper company has produced a raw materials procurement policy relating to its buying of pulp, wood chips and paper for its operations. While the policy states that Nippon Paper will not utilise sources which use illegal logging, the policy is woefully lacking in details and makes no mention of phasing out of sourcing from highconservation value forests (HCVF) such as Tasmania's remaining primary forests, which it currently buys from. Read... Emergency in Sarawak - the Penan's Last Stand Heavily logged northeast Sarawak's remaining primary forests are under assault by logging company Samling Strategic, one of Malaysia's leading forestry groups. Their activities are destroying the last primary forest habitat of the Penan tribes in the area, threaten the age-old Bario Highlands and involve illegal extraction of logs from accross the Indonesian border. Read... Sumatra's Last Primary Forests Sold as Copy Paper in Japan Askul and Itochu are some of the leading business partners in Japan of Asia Pulp and Paper, an Indonesian pulp/paper company widely criticized for its unsustainable logging of high-biodiversity primary forests. The Japanese remain their best customer for copy paper. Read... News Archive... |
