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Some of the world’s largest coffee companies have been unwittingly
sourcing beans from illegal plantations inside an Indonesian wildlife
sanctuary, reports the conservation group WWF.
A new WWF study says growers supplying companies including Nestlé and Kraft Foods have illegally used 45,000 hectares of the Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park in Lampung province on Sumatra. The investigators used satellite images, tracking and interviews to calculate that 19,600 tonnes of beans were being produced illegally every year.
The WFF emphasized that most of the coffee companies were unaware of the irregularity, thanks to the absence of local planning rules, but it criticized importers and exporters for not having procedures to stop the illegal trading.
Nazir Foead, of WWF Indonesia, said: ‘WWF doesn’t want to shut down the coffee industry in Lampung province. But we’re asking multinational coffee companies to implement rigorous chain-of-custody controls to ensure that they are no longer buying illegally grown coffee, and we’re asking the Indonesian government to better protect the park.’
A Nestlé spokesperson said: ‘We share the concerns of the WWF and we are in talks with them. It is an industry-wide issue. It’s true that sometimes determining source can be problematic, but we would never [knowingly] buy illegally grown coffee.’
A new WWF study says growers supplying companies including Nestlé and Kraft Foods have illegally used 45,000 hectares of the Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park in Lampung province on Sumatra. The investigators used satellite images, tracking and interviews to calculate that 19,600 tonnes of beans were being produced illegally every year.
The WFF emphasized that most of the coffee companies were unaware of the irregularity, thanks to the absence of local planning rules, but it criticized importers and exporters for not having procedures to stop the illegal trading.
Nazir Foead, of WWF Indonesia, said: ‘WWF doesn’t want to shut down the coffee industry in Lampung province. But we’re asking multinational coffee companies to implement rigorous chain-of-custody controls to ensure that they are no longer buying illegally grown coffee, and we’re asking the Indonesian government to better protect the park.’
A Nestlé spokesperson said: ‘We share the concerns of the WWF and we are in talks with them. It is an industry-wide issue. It’s true that sometimes determining source can be problematic, but we would never [knowingly] buy illegally grown coffee.’
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