Covid-19 may have caused delays to shipments of key equipment, but that has not derailed the timeline set out for building Singapore’s largest solar photovoltaic (PV) system to date.
Spread across 10 solar-panel islands – equivalent in size to 45 football fields – on the surface of Tengeh Reservoir, it is also one of the world’s largest inland floating solar PV systems.
It is set to be operationally ready in a few months, with national water agency PUB poised to tap the farm’s 122,000 solar panels to power its water treatment plants which convert reservoir water into drinking water.
The farm can produce enough electricity to power around 16,000 four-room Housing Board flats for a year.
Last year, solar PV systems generated only 0.56 per cent of the total electricity generated nationwide.
Then Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing, who is now Education Minister, announced a climate target – a quadrupling of solar energy capacity to 1.5 gigawatt-peak (GWp) by 2025.
That would power about 260,000 households annually, meeting about 2 per cent of Singapore’s projected electricity needs in 2025.
The target accelerates the country’s goal of deploying 2 GWp of solar energy by 2030.
Since 2015, the capacity of solar PV systems that have been contributing to the national grid has grown from around 60 megawatt-peak (MWp) to around 428 MWp at the end of last year.
This newest solar farm in Tengeh, which has a capacity of 60 MWp, will lead to carbon savings equivalent to removing 7,000 cars from the roads and contribute 4 per cent to the 2025 target.
Ms Chong Mien Ling, chief sustainability officer and director of policy and planning at PUB, said Tengeh Reservoir was chosen for this large-scale project because of its size. The farm occupies around a third of the reservoir’s surface.
Building the farm
PUB – Singapore’s water agency – will purchase clean energy generated by the farm from the national grid. The solar energy is not directly supplied to PUB’s infrastructure.
Energy company Sembcorp, which won the tender, took just about half a year to build the farm, with the bulk of the construction starting last December.
Ms Jen Tan, head of integrated solutions in Singapore and South-east Asia at Sembcorp Industries, told The Straits Times: “The beauty of a solar farm is that it has no moving parts. With a service lifespan of 25 years, this means that the farm should behave in the same way for the next 25 years if properly installed. No major maintenance is required.”
But the solar panels have natural degradation, with the power generated falling by 0.5 per cent to 0.6 per cent every year.
“So we are expecting the system to still be able to perform around at least 80 per cent of its original capacity at the end of 20 years,” said Ms Tan.
Being the first in Singapore to undertake such a large-scale project, Sembcorp faced a steep learning curve. “Early this year (amid the pandemic), assembling just 1,200 solar panels a day was difficult,” Ms Tan recalled.
The engineers then came up with their own techniques to boost productivity, such as by inventing a custom-built jig that saw the number of solar panels assembled peaking at around 1,800 to 2,000 a day.
A digital monitoring system will be set up to monitor the health of the solar farm. And as dirt on the panels can reduce operational efficiency, they are tilted at a slight angle to allow rainwater to wash off the dirt.
Drones with thermal-imaging capabilities will also be deployed to detect any faulty panels.
Environmental challenges
PUB said that as operationalising a sprawling solar farm may throw up environmental concerns such as the disruption of aquatic life, it took pre-emptive steps by looking into the feasibility of “solarising” Singapore from as early as 2011.
In 2015, the agency started studies to determine the potential impact on biodiversity and water quality of the reservoir, and subsequently started a 1 MWp solar testbed in Tengeh in 2016.
“We wanted to look at the impact on water quality, such as dissolved oxygen levels, nutrient levels and water temperature; how biodiversity is affected, if there is any noise generated and so on. We concluded that there was minimal impact,” Ms Chong said.
These studies gave PUB the confidence to scale up implementation of the panels, and in 2019, it invited private developers to come on board to install the Tengeh floating solar PV system.
Sembcorp also ensured sufficient gaps between the panels, facilitating good airflow and sunlight into the water.
Materials used to build the farm were carefully selected. For instance, the floats used are food-grade certified – meaning that they are non-toxic and safe for consumption. This prevents water quality from being compromised in the long term.
Nature groups were consulted, and the results of the environmental study were shared with them to allay their concerns.
The Tengeh solar farm intentionally avoided the south of the reservoir so as not to encroach on the nesting area of the grey-headed fish eagle, a near-threatened species.
“The farm was not built near that area to preserve the eagle’s habitat – an understanding which PUB has with the nature groups after we consulted them,” Ms Chong said.
In 2019, Sembcorp and Singapore Polytechnic also agreed to collaborate on researching and commercialising Singapore’s first solar panel recycling process. This involves extracting recyclable materials from parts of used solar panels after their lifespan of 25 years.
Powering the future
PUB is currently constructing two floating solar PV systems at Bedok Reservoir and Lower Seletar Reservoir, with each having a capacity of 1.5 MWp.
“We are also trying to maximise the solar PVs on our rooftops,” said Ms Chong.
Earlier in March, sustainable energy provider Sunseap Group announced that it had set up a sea-based floating 5 MWp system in the Strait of Johor, off Woodlands.
Meanwhile, Sembcorp is ready to scale up and build more farms. With a substantial amount of learning that came out of the Tengeh project, the company is confident about undertaking future projects of such scale, Ms Tan said.
Tweaks will be done as each environment is different and there is no one-size-fits-all design, she noted. For instance, whether the farm is out at sea or in a reservoir will determine the materials used as freshwater and seawater have different salinity levels.
“We have the knowledge, we know the challenges, how to mitigate them, and we intend to document all of these and apply it to other farms,” Ms Tan said.
The article was shared by The Straits Times as part of the World News Day initiative.
Aerial shot of the 60 megawatt-peak floating solar photovoltaic system on Tengeh Reservoir on May 15, 2021. ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
Emden Deep yields dirty secret in Philippine Trench: Trash
MANILA, Philippines — When Filipino oceanographer Deo Florence Onda and American explorer Victor Vescovo descended into the Emden Deep in the Philippine Trench, the third deepest point in the world, they were met with almost complete stillness.
At a depth of 10,045 meters, they peered through the small windows of the deep-sea submersible DSV Limiting Factor and watched their surroundings move as if in slow motion.
Vescovo was then surprised when he caught sight of two black eyes staring at them only to realize they belonged to a stuffed teddy bear.
Both he and Onda soon saw that more “travelers” had made the deep dive way before they did: Plastic bags and packaging, even clothes, were half-buried in the sediment.
“If in the beginning, I felt like I was on Mars, when I saw the garbage, I thought to myself, ‘Am I in Payatas?’” Onda told the Inquirer, referring to the landfill in Quezon City. “The sight brought me back to the reality that I’m still on Earth.”
The successful mission into the bowels of the Emden Deep on March 23 marked the first-ever deep dive in the Philippine Trench, a unique marine feature east of Mindanao, and the first-ever deep dive below 10,000 meters within Philippine waters.
While the expedition led by Caladan Oceanic, a private organization dedicated to advancing undersea technology, was not considered a marine scientific research activity, the explorers’ shocking discovery highlighted the worrying extent and impact of human activities on the planet.
Patches of garbage
A white plastic bag appears almost ghost-like amid the silence and darkness of the Emden Deep in the Philippine Trench. Explorers were surprised to see the extent of human contamination in the Emden Deep which, at 10,045 meters deep, is third deepest point in the world. Photo courtesy of Verola Media/Caladan Oceanic
Onda, an associate professor at the University of the Philippines’ Marine Science Institute, said they began to catch glimpses of the trench’s bottom around four hours after their descent.
It was like an oceanographer’s book come to reality, watching science unfold before his eyes.
At a depth that is deeper than Mt. Everest is high, the Emden Deep appeared like a “ghost town,” he said, with sediments slowly floating away from them.
But as they explored the western wall of the trench, plastic bags, food packaging, even a pair of pants and shirts, would appear every five minutes or so.
“What I was expecting, because of the depth and high pressure there, were fragments of plastic. But they were so intact as if they just came from the supermarket,” Onda recalled.
Vescovo, the first to complete all deep dives in the five deepest points on the planet, said the human debris in the Emden Deep was “pretty extensive.”
“The greatest amount of contamination I’ve seen in any deep dive was at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, at the Calypso Deep, but the Emden Deep is the second largest,” he told the Inquirer. “In the Emden Deep, we saw scattered locations of human debris, isolated here and there. It was in pockets.”
The American explorer noted that materials do not degrade in the deep parts of the ocean, where there is no oxygen and sunlight. “People think that if they throw something into the ocean, it will just decompose over time.”
“But they are actually preserved,” he said.
From Hawaii, Pacific Islands
It remains unclear how the debris made its way to the Emden Deep. With the ocean currents, some of it could have drifted from Hawaii and other Pacific Islands, or coastal communities near the Philippine Trench such as Siargao Island, Onda said.
The garbage may also be from passing ships, with the Philippines near the world’s major shipping lanes, Vescovo noted.
Their discovery, however, underscored the connectivity not only of the world’s oceans, but also of any human activity to the planet, said Onda.
“The Philippine Trench is already so deep, but human pollution was still able to reach it. What more for shallower environments like coral reefs and seagrass beds?” he said. “[If we don’t do anything], I wouldn’t be surprised if I would get confused if I was in the Philippine Trench or in Manila Bay.”
While the expedition opened new scientific questions for him to pursue, Onda, a founding member of the Plastics Research Network, hoped that their worrying discovery would result in more stringent policies, not just on plastic use and waste management, but also on plastic production.
“We don’t expect the plastic problem to go away overnight,” he said. “But hopefully our stories will lead to behavioral change, with people seeing their connection to the problem.”
Oceans should not be seen as dumps for human waste, said Onda and Vescovo.
“Whatever we do will have an impact on our environment,” Onda said. “I hope what we’ve seen will be an inspiration for us to do something about the problem and in our own ways, contribute to the solution.” INQ
MANILA, Philippines — In the past few years, Bishop Gerardo Alminaza of the Diocese of San Carlos in Negros Occidental has been at the frontline of a crusade waged both from the pulpit and on the streets.
Alminaza, 61, is part of the Philippine Catholic Church’s strong opposition to the use of fossil fuels in the country. And the threat to the diocese looms large: a proposed 300-megawatt coal-fired power plant in its coastal city.
But the bishop understands that beyond dialogues and campaigns, the Church can and should be doing more to demonstrate its seriousness in rejecting fossil fuels. “We cannot just oppose and oppose,” he says. “We have to be more proactive.”
Happily, their avowed intention shows.
In 2017, San Carlos became one of the first dioceses in the country to formally sign a partnership with an energy resource company to install solar panels on the roofs of three of its buildings, including the seat of the diocese, the San Carlos Borromeo Cathedral.
That they are blessed with sunshine is an understatement. Negros Island, already dubbed the renewable energy capital of the Philippines, has solar power comprising nearly half of its installed capacity mix, according to a 2020 scoping study by the think tank Center for Energy, Ecology and Development (CEED).
Nationwide, more dioceses are pivoting toward solar energy to power up parish churches, schools and seminaries — both a manifestation of the Church’s commitment to a just transition to renewable energy sources, and a showcase of its call to the government to rethink energy policy amid the climate crisis that threatens the most vulnerable in its flock.
Care for common home
The Catholic Church in the Philippines, with 85 dioceses, is by no means an energy-intensive sector. But its vigorous campaign for the faithful to withdraw support from fossil fuels is seen as a potential inflection point in a country that continues to depend heavily on burning coal for power and energy needs.
The Philippines is home to the biggest Catholic population in Asia and the third largest in the world. Among 110 million Filipinos, at least 8 of 10 are Catholic, making of the Church a moral and political force.
The Church’s involvement in social justice and environmental issues is not new. Catholic priests and nuns have long taken their preaching to the streets, standing with communities against destructive activities such as illegal logging and large-scale mining.
These advocacies took a new dimension in 2015, when Pope Francis issued the “Laudato si,” his second encyclical that called for the “care for our common home.”
“There is a traditional belief that the Church should not meddle in social and environmental issues, that it only needs to focus on its role of giving the sacraments and celebrating the liturgies,” notes Fr. Edwin Gariguez, the former executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines’ National Secretariat for Social Action (CBCP-Nassa), the humanitarian and advocacy arm of the Church.
Gariguez adds: “But Pope Francis himself has said that we have a responsibility for social transformation, part of which is our obligation for the environment and to help the poor. And the ‘Laudato si’ is a mandate, an imperative from the Church.”
In his 180-page encyclical, the Pope lamented the destruction of the environment, explicitly mentioning fossil fuels as the factor behind the rapidly warming planet. “We know that technology based on the use of highly polluting fossil fuels—especially coal, but also oil and, to a lesser degree, gas—needs to be progressively replaced without delay,” he wrote.
Gariguez says this has been the big push for the global Catholic movement, including in the Philippines, to streamline its activities from education drives to signature petitions in an effort to bring awareness and pressure to governments to shift away from coal.
SHIFT TO RENEWABLES Catholic dioceses across the country are making a shift to solar energy to power up their buildings, from parishes to seminaries, convents and schools, such as St. Joseph College in Maasin City, Leyte province.
Mainstreaming the shift
While some Philippine parishes had individually moved to “solarize” and green their churches, Pope Francis’ clarion call prompted the Church’s national leadership to mainstream the shift toward clean and renewable energy.
In October 2016, the CBCP’s Episcopal Commission on the Lay Apostolate, with its implementing arm Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas, entered a partnership with WeGen Laudato Si Inc., a special-purpose company formed by WeGen Distributed Energy taking inspiration from the Pope to work closely with faith groups in the country.
A distributed energy resource company, WeGen operates in the Philippines and in Vietnam, focusing on renewable energy technologies, particularly solar energy.
Aside from the goal shared by the Church and the company, what speeded up this partnership was a bridge: Jun Cruz, the director of relations of WeGen Laudato Si and a member of Laiko.
Facilitated by Cruz, a memorandum of agreement was signed to assist Catholic dioceses interested in using solar power for their buildings.
Each diocese being autonomous and self-reliant, WeGen Laudato Si spoke with individual bishops to pitch the benefits of harnessing the sun’s energy for their power needs.
Their efforts in the last five years appear successful. WeGen Laudato Si has sealed partnerships with 74 of the 85 dioceses. Solar panels have been installed in nearly 200 religious or Church-owned buildings in at least 45 dioceses from the Prelature of Batanes in the north to the war-torn Prelature of Marawi down south.
World’s first
The biggest project so far is in the Diocese of Maasin on Leyte Island which, in 2018, became the first diocese in the world to completely shift to solar energy use.
The Vatican commended the diocese for this effort during the 5th anniversary of “Laudato si” last year.
The installed solar panels in 42 parishes and a school building has a system size of 234 kilowatt peak (kWp). Bishop Precioso Cantillas has said that shifting to solar allowed them to save at least P100,000 a month in power bills—resources that the Church can funnel into its other socio-civic activities.
At the Diocese of San Carlos, Alminaza says they have yet to fully calculate their savings from the installed 12-kWp system in their buildings. As in other dioceses, their system does not have battery storage and is still tied to the grid. This means that during the day, the solar panels power up their buildings, but their energy consumption is hooked back to the existing power grid once the sun sets.
The technology for battery storage remains expensive, pushing dioceses to forgo this option.
WeGen Laudato Si’s solar panels on rooftops may pale in comparison to huge solar farms that generate megawatts of electricity, but this is exactly how they envisioned their work to be, says Cruz.
“Our projects are small compared to other companies,” he says. “But even if it’s a small parish on an island that only requires 3 kWp, we install our panels because our vision is really clean and affordable energy, anytime, everywhere, for everyone.”
Other players
Other companies tried to strike similar deals with the Church to provide solar panels to dioceses, Gariguez recalls. None has prospered, he notes, perhaps given the challenges of dealing with individual prelates in dioceses that are smaller, far-flung, and with less resources.
“For a company that is profit-driven, the Church may not be as appealing” to do business with, Gariguez says. “But if there will be other players who can offer cheaper prices, then it will encourage competition, and it’s the parishes that stand to gain.”
With WeGen Laudato Si, Church leaders are presented cost-benefit analyses and financial studies based on the diocese’s power needs and capacity to pay, says Cruz.
Most, if not all, of their projects offer no cash-out and have payment terms that can extend to 15 years.
Such a setup does not allow for a quick return of investment, with the company spending at least P70,000 per installed kilowatt peak, Cruz says.
“From the start, we [tell] them that we are a business and not a nongovernmental organization,” he says. “Solar panel systems may still be expensive, but they are definitely cheaper now…
With the panels installed, we explain to the Church leaders that whatever they can save from their electricity bills, instead of paying it to a distribution company, they can use it to pay us.”
SHINING ON THE FLOCK Encouraged by Pope Francis’ encyclical “Laudato si,’” the Catholic Church in the Philippines has been pivoting to solar energy one parish at a time. In Malabon City, San Bartolome Parish Church has installed solar panels on its rooftop.
Hit by pandemic
But even with the options offered by the energy firm, many dioceses are still reeling from the financial hit of the COVID-19 pandemic. The lockdowns require the faithful to stay home, resulting in massive reductions in Mass collections that are the primary source of funding for the parishes.
“I think there is no longer an argument on the shift to renewable energy for the protection of the environment,” says Fr. Antonio Labiao, the current executive secretary of CBCP-Nassa. “I think what our priests and lay leaders are more concerned with is the cost.”
“Many of our dioceses now, especially in the provinces, are struggling to survive. So pushing for the implementation of solar energy might take some time,” he says.
But the pandemic may just lead the country to pursue a cleaner energy pathway, environment experts and advocates say.
“The pandemic is an opportunity for green recovery, a just recovery,” says lawyer Avril de Torres, head of the CEED’s research, policy and law program. “This must focus on reformulating energy plans, so we don’t go back to the ways of the past and we move forward by being powered by renewable energy.”
Department of Energy data show that the Philippines is still heavily reliant on fossil fuels, particularly coal and oil, for its energy needs. There are 28 coal-fired power plants nationwide, with an existing capacity of 9.88 gigawatts. At least 19 other coal plants remain in the pipeline, putting the Philippines among the top countries in coal expansion.
Renewable energy advocates are hopeful that the pandemic will give wind to the shift to sustainable energy, especially with consumers burdened with high electricity bills and communities with coal plants clamoring for urgent change, says De Torres.
“There are a lot of renewable energy mechanisms that will become effective, that we are hopeful for… but unless there is a clear phaseout policy, renewable energy cannot displace coal,” she says.
Symbolic to concrete
As Filipinos face more supertyphoons and intense droughts each year, the Catholic movement toward cleaner energy further crosses from symbolic deeds to concrete actions.
Beyond their shift to solar power, Catholic dioceses and other faith groups have moved forward to demand that banks and other financial institutions withdraw their investments from coal and fossil fuel industries. A number of bigger dioceses and religious groups sit as top shareholders in these institutions.
“We are happy that there are so many Catholic dioceses that are already putting up solar panels, but it should not stop there,” says Rodne Galicha, executive director of the interfaith movement Living Laudato Si Philippines. “You cannot just put solar panels and not [urge] companies and parishioners to not patronize services and products that are harmful to the environment.”
In Catholic-majority Philippines, the groundwork is set, says Galicha, with the Church possessing the machinery and architecture to influence the conversation on energy democracy and environment protection.
But for actual changes to take effect, the collective action of the faithful, not just the chosen few, is needed—and this is not expected to be done overnight.
As he envisions a more sustainable energy path for his diocese and the entire Negros Island, Alminaza believes that Church leaders like him can truly make a difference and rally their flock behind a good cause: the survival of the planet, of which humans are the stewards.
“The challenge I see is for the Catholic population to wake up,” he says. “Ecological conversion takes a while… and even with consecutive calamities, people don’t see yet the connection [of our actions to the planet].”
“But we cannot say we love God,” he says, “and then neglect and keep destroying the environment.” INQ
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This report was written and produced as part of a media skills development program delivered by Thomson Reuters Foundation. The content is the sole responsibility of the author and the publisher.–Ed.
Diana Ríos Rengifo took on the defense of the Peruvian Amazon after the murder of her father, a well-known Asheninka leader in the fight against illegal loggers. The trees in Saweto, a community located near the Peruvian border with Brazil, are highly coveted on the market and are threatened by indiscriminate logging.
In addition to forests, winding rivers and species that science has yet to discover, the Peruvian Amazon is also home to the meiri, squirrel whose tail seems to replicate in the hairstyle of Asheninka indigenous girls. For Jorge Ríos Pérez – a leader who was killed along with three others by illegal loggers on September 1, 2014 – the resemblance was undeniable: every time he saw his eldest daughter he thought of that elusive little animal, which is why he began to call her Meiri when she was a child.
Accepting the death of a parent is painful, and to do so without a body to mourn is even worse. Six years after the murder of Rios Perez, the authorities have yet to search for his remains. And, today, although he does not physically accompany her, Diana Ríos Rengifo feels her father is still out there, in nature, the place where he taught her to stand up and fight.
“He is in the forest. The forest is life and, thanks to it, I am alive,” she says.
Ríos Rengifo is a reserved woman who divides her time between raising her children and defending the land. “Sometimes, I wish there were more than 40 Dianas who struggle, who propose things, and who get it all done,” she says, emphasizing her last words.
Six years after her father was murdered, she is determined to support any indigenous community that begins the process of securing deeds to its land or seeks to expand the areas recognized by the Peruvian state. It is a struggle Ríos Pérez entrusted to her shortly before his death.
JUSTICE. For six years, Diana Rios and her mother, Ergilia Rengifo, have been waiting for those who murdered Jorge Ríos Perez and three other Saweto leaders to be sentenced. Credit: OjoPúblico / Geraldine Santos.
On Sunday, August 31, 2014 – the last time Diana saw her father – he was on his way to the indigenous community of Apiwxta, near the Brazilian border, to meet with other leaders who had allied themselves with Saweto’s fight against illegal timber trafficking. Before starting that trip, he made a brief stop at his daughter’s house to pick up a pair of propellers he needed for his little boy, a small boat named as such because of its noisy engine.
At that meeting, Diana gave him a bottle of masato – a fermented yucca-based drink that is traditional in the Amazon region – being certain she would see him again on Friday of the following week, at the very latest. That morning, she remembers he looked anxious about the meeting. And, shortly before saying goodbye, he said something that would stay with her throughout the day: “If anything happens to me along the way, you’ll be in charge of taking care of your mom and your little brothers and sisters, and continuing the fight,” he said.
Ríos Pérez’s death not only widowed Diana’s mother, Ergilia Rengifo López, but also left nine siblings without the head of their household. One of them was barely a month old. So, Diana – the eldest – had to take on a new role: that of becoming a leader to find justice for the murders and to persist in the defense of antamiki (the Amazon forest).
Asheninka Resistance
Saweto is a Peruvian indigenous community located near the Brazilian border. To get there, one must travel by boat for a week from Pucallpa, the capital of the Ucayali region. Within its territory, which extends across 77,000 hectares of deeded land recognized by the State, there are trees whose wood commands a high price on the market: cedar, mahogany and shihuahuaco, the latter being threatened by indiscriminate logging.
The presence of illegal loggers is not unusual in region’s forests, and Diana’s father and the three community leaders who were killed with him – Edwin Chota Valera, Leoncio Quintísima and Francisco Pinedo – had been threatened previously on a number of occasions.
Since his death, Diana has been forced to deal with successive delays in the search for those responsible and with evasiveness on the part of the authorities who are in charge of the investigation. This had happened already in the past, with the complaints filed by Edwin Chota Valera, a former Asheninka chief in the community. Six years earlier, Chota had begun a legal battle to demand an investigation into the presence of illegal loggers in the forests of Saweto. And, although the authorities knew the community was being harassed by loggers, the inquiries by the Ucayali Environmental Prosecutor’s Office did not begin until the crime became known.
The investigation by the Environmental Prosecutor’s Office was analyzed in Saweto: The Violence of Impunity in the Amazon, a report by OjoPúblico, which revealed a chain of irregularities and efforts to dismiss the information presented by local leaders to support the complaint; namely, photographs of those involved in unlawful logging and the coordinates of where they were operating illegally. Moreover, for four years, that office ignored the testimony of a witness regarding the identity of the person who masterminded the crime and the identities of those who carried it out.
VICTIMS. According to the Asheninka worldview, the leaders killed today represent four warriors who died defending their land. Illustration: Enrique Casanto Shingari.
Along with these problems, the task of representing the case before the media and international organizations fell to Diana. She was only 22 years old. That responsibility led her to travel outside Saweto for the first time, in November 2014. She left her community of 30 families and traveled more than 3,000 miles to New York City, a cosmopolitan American metropolis of more than 8.6 million people. The reason for the trip was to receive an award presented by the Alexander Soros Foundation to commemorate the Asheninka who have fallen in the fight against illegal logging.
Those were days of sudden changes for Diana. From a routine in a small community without basic services, she moved on to interact with news agencies and civil-society organizations in a city with inhabitants of different nationalities and cultures.
Robert Guimaraes, then leader of the Federation of the Native Communities of Ucayali and its Tributaries (Feconau) and the only Peruvian who accompanied her on that journey, recalls the culture shock: “She was surprised to be in a city this big and with such high buildings. She was attracted to modern things. But she was always sad because the events [murders] were recent.”
Guimaraes also remembers a moment during the ceremony when he believes Rengifo became convinced that she should continue to defend the Amazon region. “She broke down when they showed us a video on Saweto’s struggle. When pictures of Edwin Chota and his community were passed around, her eyes filled with tears. But I think she knew her struggle had to continue, and that gave her strength,” he says.
The Burden of Being a Leader
Representing a community threatened by illegal logging is not easy, and even less so when it comes to a sudden legacy. For Margoth Quispe, a friend of Diana’s and a lawyer who is accompanying the Saweto case, Rios’ successor needed a break from mourning, but the opposite happened: Diana, along with the widows of those where killed, began to suffer a degree of exposure in the press that overwhelmed them. Quispe says Diana did not show her discomfort in a categorical way, but you could see it in her short statements to reporters.
“She was not prepared for it. She needed to understand what had happened and what was going to happen to her and her family. She didn’t have time to pause and say, ‘I’m going to do this or that from now on.’ The pressure was intense,” says Quispe, who also witnessed Diana’s initiation to the cause at meetings to define strategies for securing deeds to the community’s land, something that was achieved almost a year after the multiple murders were committed.
LEADER. Today, Diana Ríos lives with her sons, brothers and mother on the outskirts of Pucallpa, the capital of the Department of Ucayali. She still awaits justice for the murder of her father. Photo: Diana Ríos’ personal file.
Progress like that helped Diana to persist in her defense of the Amazon region. After a decade of active participation in Saweto, she has become a reference in the environmental and indigenous struggle. That commitment, however, has not sidelined her search for justice or the need to one day find her father’s remains.
In the indictment against Eurico Mapes, José Carlos Estrada, Hugo Soria and the brothers Segundo and Josimar Atachi Félix, the alleged killers of the Asheninka leaders, it was suggested that the skeletal remains of the unidentified victims be found and identified; specifically, those of Diana’s father and Francisco Pinedo Ramírez. The process, however, is being held up due to lack of a response from the Ucayali branch of the judiciary.
This uncertainty led Diana to believe for a long time that her father had not died. “I found his sweater, his backpack, but not him. So, for me, it was as if he were alive,” she says in a broken voice.
However, in 2018, she performed a ritual with ayahuasca – a traditional Amazonian drink with hallucinogenic effects – as part of her mourning process. “I wanted to do a session, to see inside myself [and to check] if my father was alive or dead. For me, he was alive at every moment. But, when I took [ayahuasca], I saw what they did to him that day. Yes, it was him,” she says.
New Coexistence
Today, if Diana represents Saweto’s face to the world, her mother does the same within the community. Ergilia Rengifo López works on the town council, through which she organizes and coordinates social programs. At the beginning of 2020, Diana and her mother decided to move to the outskirts of Pucallpa to accompany the judicial process from the capital of Ucayali, but they are still in contact with local leaders to stay informed about what is happening in Saweto on a daily basis.
In this new coexistence with her large family – made up of her mother, siblings and children – Diana has not lost the opportunity to teach the youngest members of her household the significance of their culture. In Asheninka, she explains to them the importance of defending the Amazon, perhaps in the hope they will follow in her footsteps and help to realize her wish for “40 Dianas”.
ASHÉNINKAS. Representation of Alto Tamaya Saweto, a Peruvian community located on the border with Brazil. Ilustration: Enrique Casanto Shingari.
“I [want] them to understand a little tree is like a child, that you plant it and take care of it. If we don’t and we wrongly exploit that tree, it will die; and, it is as if a child were dying,” she says, imitating the teacher who was her father.
In the midst of the pandemic that paralyzed the entire apparatus of the government, Diana awaits the resumption of the judicial process far from Saweto, but with the hope of returning. There is no exact date for her return, nor for the start of the judicial hearing in Ucayali against those accused of the murders. On August 21, it was postponed for the fifth time.
Meanwhile, as part of her most urgent activities, Diana took quick tests and medicine to the indigenous communities bordering Saweto – San Miguel de Chambira, Putaya and Tomajau – that are combatting Covid-19. In Ucayali, the region where these and other indigenous communities are located, there are already more than 15,000 positive cases.
While flying over the area in a small plane, the Asheninka leader felt mixed emotions. Seeing the forest again brought back memories of her childhood. But, at the same time, she thought about the murder of her father.
“I was born in that forest and grew up around it. It’s up to everyone to understand, but for me it means a lot,” she said one night in August, while monitoring on her cell phone the latest emergencies of the day in Saweto.
*****
Este artículo forma parte de #DefenderSinMiedo: historias de defensores ambientales en tiempos de pandemia, una serie periodística coordinada por Agenda Propia, y en la que participa OjoPublico junto a otros veinte periodistas, editores y medios de América Latina. Con el apoyo de Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).
Since 2013, palm exports in Peru increased in 94%. The boom has gone hand in hand with social conflicts in agricultural areas, complains for deforestation in the Amazon region, and land trafficking. The Romero Group concentrates most of the industry, but still cannot guarantee the total use of palm in its supply chain which does not come from destroyed forests. Their company plans state that they will only be able to do so after 2025. The main export destinations during these years have been Colombia, Chile and Ecuador.
Soap, necessary to deal with the current Covid-19 pandemic, is largely made with palm oil. It is a silent ingredient in many products we use daily: from vegetable oils, cookies and detergents, to milk, bread, chocolates, and cosmetics. Their components include some of this input or its derivatives. The growing global demand for this product, which is rooted in social conflicts and deforestation, has forced many companies, such as the transnationals Nestlé, PepsiCo, Kellogg or Procter & Gamble, to adopt standards in their processes that guarantee that the oil used does not come from palm cultivated in destroyed forests.
These standards are based on environmental criteria developed by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), which must be met by its more than 4,000 members, including seven Peruvian companies. Annual reports to RSPO show that none can still guarantee the sustainable use of palm in 100% of their supply chain. Not even the companies in the Romero Group that have exported more than two-thirds of refined oil and crude oil (69%).
If we separate the products, the Romero Group has an almost full monopoly of exports of refined oil (98%), and controls just over half of the foreign trade of crude oil (58%). This industry does not have much time in operation. Eight years ago there were no exports, but in the past seven years, 346 thousand tons (US$ 253 million) of crude and refined palm oil have been exported nationally.
According to figures from the National Superintendency of Customs and Tax Administration (SUNAT), in seven years (2013-2019), the Romero Group exported palm oil through four companies: Industrias del Espino SA (the largest exporter in the country with 39.5%, a value of US$ 100.2 million); Alicorp SA (25.7% or US$ 66.2 million); R Trading SA (3.5% or US$ 6.5 million) and Sociedad Industrial Yurimaguas SAC (today Industrias del Shanusi SA, with 1.7% or US$ 3 million).
However, the buoyant business of the country’s largest oil palm exporter is overshadowed by official investigations linked to deforestation and irregular environmental certifications.
This is shown by a recent court ruling of December 2019 for a case of illegal environmental certifications for agro-industrial oil palm projects of companies in the Romero Group. This case stirs the debate on the control of this industry. In the judgment, the Superior Court of Justice of Lima sentenced the former Agricultural Environmental Affairs Management Director from the Ministry of Agriculture, Ricardo Gutiérrez Quiroz, to four-year of suspended sentence for having illegally approved in 2013 the environmental certifications of four palm projects in Loreto belonging to companies of the Romero Group (Islandia Energy SA, Empresa Desarrollos Agroindustriales Sangamayoc SA, Empresa Agrícola La Carmela SA and Empresa Palmas del Amazonas SA).
The projects were located in areas of Amazon forests and would cause deforestation, but as the prosecution was initiated, they did not start operations. According to the English NGO Environmental Investigation Agency – EIA, 23,143 hectares were at stake among the four projects (“Maniti“, “Santa Catalina“, “Tierra Blanca” and “Santa Cecilia“), just over 30 thousand times the field area of the National Stadium of Lima. According to the judgment, the decision of the agricultural authority was to cause irreversible environmental damage against the Amazon region.
Although there are still no data on exports of crude palm oil in 2019, from 2013 to 2018 exports of crude and refined oil from the most prominent companies of the sector, such as Alicorp and Industrias del Espino, grew by 39%. Unlike their competitors, both companies always exported in the last seven years, although since 2018 their volume has declined, especially Alicorp (from US$3.6 million in 2018 to only US$89 thousand in 2019). If, in the last two years, the export of companies from the Romero Group reduced their exports, the opposite happened with four of their closest competitors: Industrias Oleana, Sol de Palma, Cargill Americas Perú and Exportadora Romex.
For example, exports from Industrias Oleana account for 2.8% of exports since 2013 (S/7 million with only two years of activity). This company started operations in October 2018 and its parent company is based in Ecuador. It has more than 50 years of experience in the country and since 2012 has been the main exporter of products derived from oil palm in Ecuador.
In the case of Sol de Palma, exports represent 8% of the total. The company went from selling US$ 62,000 in 2015 to US$ 9 million in 2019. This company, which began its operations in 2011, is defined as a consortium of six palm-growing companies working with 3,500 small- and medium-sized producers in the country.
North American Cargill Americas Peru SRL exported 9%, although it exported only in 2016 and 2017. It started operations in 1953 and its parent company Cargill is based in the United States. This US firm, with a presence in more than ten countries of the region, was part of a report by former member of the US Parliament and now president of Mighty Earth, Henry Waxman, where he noted that Cargill had poor environmental practices in their oil, cocoa, and soy production processes.
Finally, Exportadora Romex SA had 10.6% of all exports only in 2018 and 2019. This company was incorporated in May 2009, as a product of the of the Romero Trading Coffee and Cacao business division. According to their activities, they market and deliver services related to agro-industrial activity, such as the export of coffee, cocoa and cocoa derivatives. Their main brand is Cafetal.
These four companies together account for 30.5% of the exports from 2013 to 2019. The rest has been in the hands of the four companies of the Romero Group.
The companies of this economic group have a presence not only in the export stage, but in the entire oil palm production chain: from harvest to extraction, refining, production and marketing. They participate in all this process with a number of companies and with three extraction plants, which pool a working capacity of 140 tons of palm per hour, while their closest competition, the Ocho Sur Group, achieve only 45 tons of extraction per hour. The following infographic shows the business structure of the economic group in the oil palm industry:
The first destination of the oil
According to estimates by the Peruvian Oil Palm Board (Junpalma), Alicorp dominates 80% of the national refining market of the sector. The palm derivative that Peru has exported the most is crude oil, which is almost threefold the exports of refined oil.
The palm market in Peru began to revitalize in 2013. The three main destinations of Peruvian palm oil in the last seven years were: Colombia (US$ 134.4 million), Chile (US$ 53.5 million) and Ecuador (US$ 18.3 million). The chart in this section shows the full list of countries.
To explain the progress of exports, we will focus, to begin with, on the case of refined palm oil.
For example, of the fourteen destinations for this type of oil between 2013 and 2019, nine are Latin American countries, with Chile as the main buyer. In seven years, the southern country paid US$ 51 million for the more than 56,000 tons purchased from companies in Peru. Their purchases increased exponentially by 2,700% until 2018. Foreign trade of this product with Chile has accounted for three quarters of all exports since 2013.
From that year until 2018, Chile and Bolivia were the only countries that bought Peruvian palm every year continuously. Colombia, in turn the leader in palm exports in Latin America, is the second country that has bought the most from Peru. It is followed to a lesser extent by Brazil, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador and Spain. A 97% of exports of refined palm oil were sent by the company Industrias del Espino SA between 2013 and 2019. During that period, the company’s business grew by 1,470%: it went from exporting US$ 700,000 in 2013 to US$ 11 million in 2019.
Industrias del Espino SA is part of Palmas Group, an agro-industrial branch of Romero Group, which also markets finished products such as soap, oil, and butter. According to Minagri 2012 report, “the company marketed 90% of their production in the Peruvian jungle at that time, where they have the monopoly of the oil market. Because of their competitive prices it has displaced products coming from the coast and even those imported from Brazil.”
This company also manages a significant portion of processing plants throughout the country. By the end of 2018, they purchased 100% of the shares of Industrias de Grasas y Aceites (Igasa) corporation, which work in “the manufacture and marketing of plant and animal soaps, oils and fats, the industrialization of candles and other related inputs”.
Together with seven other companies of the Romero Group, Industria del Espino SA is a member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) which, as we mentioned at the beginning of this report, is a non-profit organization that provides worldwide certifications for sustainable oil palm production to all its members (from producers, processors and traders to investors and transnational corporations such as Nestlé or Procter & Gamble).
The RSPO monitors that its members comply with international standards and ensure that they use 100% sustainable palm and RSPO-certified palm products throughout their production chain. In other words, RSPO make sure they provide guarantees that the palm they use does not come from deforested areas or other illegal activities.
Certifications are also used to establish chain traceability. “Currently, we have 20% RSPO certified oil in the world, but still 80% is not. Therefore, we understand that change in the businesses do not happen overnight, it is a process. Then, with these commitments, our intention is that companies make their corporate decisions transparent regarding sustainability,” said RSPO Director for Latin America, Francisco Naranjo, in an interview with OjoPúblico.
Industria del Espino SA, represented before RSPO by another company in Romero Group: Palmas del Espino SA) has proposed to the RSPO in their last annual report submitted, that in 2025 they would achieve a 100% certification of their entire supply chain. This type of certification is renewed every year after the RSPO checks the progress and the attainment of the goals proposed by the company, until they achieve the certification of their entire supply chain, explained Francisco Naranjo, RSPO Director for Latin America.
In other words, only then will Industrias del Espino SA guarantee that there is no palm coming from deforestation in their supply chain. This intention to certify also the suppliers includes mainly the small independent producers in the country, from whom the companies in the Romero Group buy a total of 91,438 tons of fresh fruit bunches (according to Palmas Group website), that represents 13% of their total supply.
In short, the RSPO gives its members an ISO that provides them with credibility and openness in the markets. Therefore, the companies in the Romero Group are interested in receiving these certifications. OjoPúblico found that foreign companies that have purchased the most Peruvian palm oil are RSPO certified. In theory, as members of the RSPO, they should enter trade agreements with their peers who have the same certification.
Another RSPO powers is to receive complaints about deforestation against companies, audit their work and punish them. There is a Peruvian case in its file that illustrates the irregularities of the palm industry in our country.
Chart: Elaboración: OjoPúblico Source: Sunat.
In April 2016, the RSPO ordered to stopthe Pucallpa plantation operations (now under another name and part of the Ocho Sur business group). This decision was based on a complaint by the Santa Clara community in Uchunya, which accused the company of destroying more than 5,000 hectares of their ancestral forest and intimidating their leaders, among other irregularities. In their investigations, the RSPO confirmed many irregularities in what the company did and ordered their operations to be paralyzed. When RSPO was processing the complaint, Plantaciones de Pucallpa left the organization.
At the beginning of 2018, as part of a precautionary measure requested by the Ministry of the Environment legal advisor, the Fourth National Preparatory Investigation Court temporarily suspended the activities that were then operated by Ocho Sur in the Tibecocha area of the district of Nueva Requena and adjacent to Santa Clara de Uchunya.
In February of this year, the Ucayali Regional Government handed over to the Santa Clara de Uchunya shipibo community a property title for over 1,544 hectares. However, many areas have been divided, generating disputes in this community, and in the control of Plantaciones de Pucallpa (who became Ocho Sur P SAC, the second business group, after the Romero Group, with more palm crops in the country with more than 10,000 hectares).
Ocho Sur P and Ocho Sur U are the new legal names of what used to be Plantaciones de Pucallpa and Plantaciones de Ucayali, respectively. The Czech-American businessman Dennis Melka had been the director of the last two, until the judicial investigations began to emerge; therefore he is considered to be involved in the Ochoa Sur Group until today.
In Peru, there are seven companies and associations members of the RSPO. Perhaps the biggest challenge for these companies and those of the Romero Group is to ensure the 100% use of both sustainable palm oil and RSPO-certified products throughout their supply chain.
This company, the most important one in food industry in Peru, explained the 10-year term: “Achieving a RSPO certification for our palm crude suppliers represents a long-term intervention, considering that the informality in which they operate in the productive sector and the lack of resources to invest in closing gaps. We believe that this work could take, in the best scenario, from 2 to 5 years of work and, in some cases, up to 10 years to be completed.”
OjoPúblico found that foreign companies that buy most of Peru’s oil palm are RSPO certified. This is the case with the two companies that bought the most refined palm in the last seven years. Both are Chilean. The third-place company is Bolivian and belongs to the Romero Group. These three companies concentrate 70% of total purchases of refined palm since 2013.
The Main Buyers
The largest buyer of refined palm oil is Camilo Ferrón Chile S.A., for US$ 22 million in six years since 2014 (equivalent to one third of the total foreign palm trade since it began exporting in 2013).
The company’s purchases grew by 114.5% until 2019. Camilo Ferrón Chile SA has more than 70 years of experience in the production of vegetable oils, margarines and butters. They have been a member of the RSPO since August 2013 and in their 2018 report indicated the use of sustainable RSPO-certified palm oil and palm for a year. The company committed to having 100% sustainable palm oil in its supply chain starting in 2030. OjoPúblico contacted the company, but at the close of this publication it had not responded to our inquiries.
In the second company buying the most of refined Peruvian palm is Chilean Watts S.A. for an amount of US$ 12.7 million. This amount represents 18.8% of the total exports of this type of palm since 2013. In seven years, the purchases of this company grew by 1,280%: from only US$ 203,000 (2013) to US$ 2.8 million (2019).
Watt’s S.A. was founded more than 80 years ago, and is today a conglomerate of companies linked to the Chilean and international food and wine industry. Their board is controlled by the Larraín family, one of the wealthiest in Chile. In Peru, they own 37% of the shares in Laive, sharing control with the Peruvian family Palacios Moreyra. Watt’s S.A. is one of the five most important suppliers of major supermarket chains in Chile such as Walmart and Cencosud, and has a significant participation in the production of all kinds of milk, yogurt, cheese, margarines, edible oils, juices, nectars, jams, preserves, fresh pasta, and wines.
This company has been a member of RSPO since 2014. In their 2018 report, they indicated that they would use RSPO-certified sustainable palm oil only since 2020. Regarding the question on the 100% use of RSPO-certified sustainable palm throughout its supply chain, the Chilean company also indicated that they would adopt this standard in 2020. Why didn’t they do it before? The company explained in its report that “their suppliers might have problems, but that was not their responsibility.” Watts did not respond to our inquiries either.
In the third place, we find Industrias del Aceite S.A., based in Bolivia, with more than US$ 11 million in purchases in seven years (17.7% of the total). This company has been part of the Romero Group since 1974 and its purchases have grown by 117% since 2013. We will come back to this company later.
Although Industria del Espino SA has 97% of the exports of refined palm oil, they leave Alicorp with a minimum sales margin. The three companies that have bought most from Alicorp are also Chilean: Importadora y Comercializadora (US$ 263,000); Inmobiliaria e Inversiones Kori Wasi (US$ 74,000) and Importadora y Alimentos ICB Food SE (US$ 40,000). The proportion of exports from Industria del Espino SA compared to Alicorp is 90 to 1. But their places are reversed when we look at exports of crude oil palm.
According to figures from UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Peru ranks seventh in palm production in Latin America. At the top of the list we have Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras. In the region, Peru’s crops have accounted for 3.7% of the total over the past seven years.
In perspective, compared with Colombia (32.30%) or Guatemala (15.3%), the Peruvian industry is still small, but its rise is undeniable: palm production increased by 56% from 2013 to 2018. However, more and more facts and complaints prove that the growth of the palm industry seems inevitably linked to social conflicts, deforestation, land trafficking, and violence against Amazon populations in the country.
Eight months ago, in September 2019, and after six years of investigation by the environmental prosecutor’s office in Yurimaguas, The Superior Court of Justice of Lima resolved a complaint involving Palmas de Shanusi SAC, a company in the Romero Group, for the deforestation of 500 hectares of forests in the San Martín region, in order to expand its oil palm cultivation borders in the area.
The judgment acquitted two company representatives (Ronald Campbell García and José Mercado Bartolo, then general manager and legal representative of Palmas de Shanusi SAC, respectively), accused of being the mediate authors of slashing and burning forests; in addition, no registry links for the land was found for the company.
However, Milton Artiaga Díaz was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. He was accused of felling and burning 500 hectares of forests (almost 700 soccer fields), without a license to do so and having purchased land from a number of small owners. Artiaga Díaz, born in the Amazon region and identified by the prosecution as an independent worker, is the manager of Agroservices Altomayo EIRL, a company working in the agricultural and livestock sector.
In his statement, Artiaga Díaz (47) indicated that he had purchased land for agriculture and livestock, and that he did not remember how much he had paid to each owner, but that he did so with his savings and in cash. The prosecution argued that it was not credible that the defendant had bought the land on his own, as he could not prove the origin of the money with which he paid them. For the prosecution, Artiaga Díaz had been in charge of purchasing the land on behalf of Palmas de Shanusi SAC and the direct responsible for deforestation. The sentence ordered payment of half a million soles of civil damages, and reforesting the area for the irreversible damage caused. Prosecutor’s sources told OjoPúblico that the case is on appeal pending hearing.
In recent years there has been an “interaction between large companies and networks of land traffickers” where “several of the past projects have had a degree of irregularity in the way they have accessed the land,” explains specialist Juan Luis Dammert, researcher and Director for Latin America at the Natural Resources Governance Institute (NGRI).
Although there are no updated official figures on palm crops and production (officials of the Ministry of Agriculture told OjoPúblico that the information on the subject is available at the offices of each regional government), according to Devida, Ocho Sur is the second largest private group with palm crops nationwide. Until 2018, they owned 10,040 hectares, representing 12% of 86.000 hectares of crops nationwide (the Palmas Group ranks first with 29%, just over 25,000 hectares (33,000 times the field of the National Stadium in Lima).
Chart: Elaboración: OjoPúblico Source: Junpalma.
In mid-2019, OjoPúblicorevealed the scheme used by the land mafia in Ucayali. The documents in the prosecutor’s file show the participation of ghost farmers’ associations and former officials of the agricultural management in the same regional government. The prosecutor’s investigations describe a system that allowed the award of land for farmers’ associations represented by alleged front-men, and to be later sold to businesses linked to oil palm cultivation, such as Ocho Sur (formerly known as Plantaciones Pucallpa SAC), a company linked to US-Czech businessman Dennis Melka.
The evidence pointed to the former head of the Ucayali Agriculture Directorate and to the former Director of Sanitation and Land Titling of this office, as heads of an organization that traded at least three thousand hectares of land. According to the prosecutor, they simulated an award of 128 pieces of land to relatives and friends of former workers of the Ucayali Regional Agrarian Directorate, to later sell them to palm companies like Ocho Sur.
The case is still under investigation – today at the organized crime prosecutor’s office in Lima – and is called ‘Cocha Anía’. This is the name of the area where the land to be sold in Nueva Requena is located, a district today in the center of the criminal disputes of land invaders. In this Ucayali jurisdiction, six farmers were killed in the midst of a land-trafficking conflict in 2017.
Where does crude oil go?
Unlike refined oil, crude oil is extracted directly from the fruit. In other words, it has not gone through any chemical and industrial process modifying the original product. It is refined to make the most elaborate products like butter, cookies, cleaning products (disinfectants, detergents). Crude oil can be a raw material for biodiesel.
Alicorp SAA is the country’s largest exporter of this type of oil, with 34% of the total exports in the last seven years, even though they only exported for three years: 2013, 2014 and 2018 (US$ 64 million altogether). In the second place is the other company of the Romero Group, Industrias del Espino S.A., which exported just over half of what Alicorp did (18% of the total), even though they have not exported since 2016. However, in the last four years, three companies competing with the Romero Group have increased their exports: Exportadora Romex SA (US$ 26 million or 14% of the total), the US company Cargill Americas Peru (US$ 22 million or 12%) and Sol de Palma (US$ 20 million or 11%). Only Cargill is member of the RSPO.
Colombia is the first destination to which crude palm oil is exported. Since 2013, this country has been buying this product. Of the twelve destinations of palm oil, eight are Latin American countries. Colombia’s purchases represent 68% (US$ 127 million) of the total over the past seven years, with a 129% growth in volume. Ecuador follows, although falling behind in volume of purchases: 9.4% (US$ 17 million).
Purchased made by that country increased by 2.4% since 2013. Ranking third and fourth are the Netherlands with US$ 13.9 million (the names of the companies are not specified) and Mexico with US$ 13.6 million.
The company that has purchased the most crude oil from Peru is Colombia’s Tequendama SAS (23% of the total sold since 2013). This company only bought oil for three years (2014, 2015 and 2016). Unlike refined palm oil, where three companies concentrate 70% of exports, crude oil – with the exception of Colombia’s Tequendama SAS – there is not much different in the volume of purchases made by the other buyers.
Tequendama SAS is part of the Daabon group, a conglomerate with a presence in agriculture, industry, logistics and real estate. The company is a member of the RSPO. In their 2018 report, they pointed out that since 2011 they had been processing RSPO-certified palm oil. They also indicated that starting in 2021 they would achieve the RSPO certification for 100% of the palm supply chain. The press area of this company informed that they were going to respond to our inquiries, but at the close of this report they did not answer our messages again.
In the second place we have Mexico’s Industrializadora de Oleofinos, with a share of 9% of the total exports from 2013 to 2019. This company is part of the Oleomex group, one of the largest agro-industrial companies in that country. It produces dairy products, oil, breads, soaps, and other food products. He has been a member of RSPO since August 2009. In their 2018 report, they express that they have been using RSPO-certified oil palm certified since 2015.
They also point out that only in 2028 their production based on sustainable palm will reach 100% of the RSPO standard. The company explains this deadline as follows: “In Mexico, there are about 11,500 small producers, with an average of 8 hectares per farmer, making it very difficult to organize them for certification.”
In the third place is Ecuador’s La Fabril S.A., their purchases represent 8% of the exports since 2013. Their products in the food category include oils, margarines, butters, dressings. In the field of cleaning products, they manufacture disinfectants and dishwashers. The have been members of RSPO since November 2018, through their holding company La Fabril S.A. In their 2019 report they informed that they had started working with RSPO-certified palm oil that year. 2023 is the target year to ensure the use of 100% sustainable palm products in all their supplies.
Together, Alicorp and Industria del Espino SA concentrate 58% of crude oil exports (US$ 98 million). Alicorp is the main exporter with US$ 64.4 million. Among its clients, we find Tequendama SAS, mentioned above, and the Dominican company Mercasid S.A., a producer of beverages, margarines, oils and cleaning products. Mercasid S.A. is a product of the merger of Sociedad Industrial Dominicana (SID) and Mercalia, S.A.
In 2009, Mercasid S.A. purchased Clorox brand. Other companies that are listed as purchasing from Alicorp include Ecuador’s La Fabril S.A. and the UK’s Aarhuskarlshamn UK Ltd (AAK). The latter is based in Sweden and produces margarines, butters, oils, edible ingredients and baking products, food manufacturing and retail sales.
We were unable to identify companies buying 35% of Alicorp’s crude oil exports. We only know that this represents US$ 23.3 million, and that almost half of it goes to the Netherlands and the rest to other Colombian companies.
Latest news from the jungle
There are photographs from last April of palm-laden trucks leaving the district of Nueva Requena in Ucayali. The country was in full quarantine and the members of the Santa Clara de Uchunya community took the pictures. They claim to know the drivers. The leaders we interviewed (and who prefer to remain anonymous because of the constant threats received) say that the Ocho Sur Group is beginning to transform the palm extracted from their production areas in the Ucayali region. They mention that even during the quarantine the trucks have transported some of the fruits to the San Martín region to be sold to the Romero group.
This last 30 April, in the midst of a state of emergency, the Ombudsman’s Office asked the Environmental Assessment and Control Agency (OEFA) to ascertain whether Tamshi SAC (cultivation of cocoa in the Loreto region) and the Ocho Sur group (oil palm) were operating despite the pandemic. A week later, OEFA responded indicating that both companies would be supervised. In the case of Ocho Sur, he indicated that he had a November 2019 supervision “the results of which showed the existence of suspected non-compliance, among which activities without an environmental management instrument approved by the competent authority”.
In a new communication sent on 15 May, the Ombudsman’s Office requested the OEFA to prioritize the audit against the mentioned companies and, if necessary, “impose the relevant administrative measures”. To date, there is no response from the supervisory body, which has not responded yet to our requests for information on the register of sanctioning administrative processes for the agricultural sector.
State surveillance on this issue seems mild. The OEFA administrative processes search engine has not reported any penalties. The tool was updated to November 2019 and its search criteria do not include the agriculture and irrigation sector that corresponds to the cases of palm oil companies. At the close of this report, the OEFA press office had not responded to our enquiries on the subject.
PRODUCTION. In the country there are 19 processing plants for the oil palm fruit. These are located in the Huánuco, Loreto, San Martín and Ucayali regions. PHOTO: Andina.
The Ocho Sur business group carries over the liabilities of the former owner (Dennis Melka). As we indicated, in April 2016, the RSPO ordered to stop Plantaciones de Pucallpa operations (now with another name and part of Ocho Sur) until they can show compliance with all the legal requirements in the acquisition, logging and planting of the concession area and proving not having cleared the primary forest or another area of high conservation value, and not having been notified before the start of the company’s activities.
According to RSPO, “the complaint mentions the devastating impacts on rivers and the forest ecology on which community members rely for subsistence, the destruction of community homes and the restrictions imposed on community members who want to enter the forest.” The shipibo community of Santa Clara de Uchunya indicated that more than 5,000 hectares of its forest were destroyed (half of Paris, one quarter of Montevideo).
When consulted on the possibility of Ocho Sur joining RSPO as an active member, the director of RSPO for Latin America, Francisco Naranjo, told us that the “issue of the pending complaint should be clarified” before and that it was difficult (to know) whether or not they could be accepted because the case should be analyzed and understand its relationship with Plantaciones de Pucallpa.”
OjoPúblico also consulted Ocho Sur whether they were planning to achieve a certification of compliance with sustainable palm production standards, for example by becoming an official member of the RSPO. The company’s sustainability manager, Ulises Saldaña, told us that they were working on several options “that would allow us in the near future to establish ourselves as a company aimed at promoting the growth and use of sustainable oil palm products through global standards, and RSPO was one of these options, as it covers not only the application of principles of transparency, law enforcement and regulations, best practices, environmental responsibility, resource conservation and biodiversity, etc. but, especially, responsible consideration with employees, individuals and communities, topics that we are very interested in developing.”
Mentioning the deforestation cases in which the company and its former owners were involved, the Ocho Sur sustainability manager told us that “there were no judicial issues about deforestation investigations, but fiscal investigations. We are aware that they are currently being processed before the relevant authorities”.
When asked about the activities at their processing plant in Ucayali that started operations this year, and whether Alicorp was the end-customer for the palm oil they extract, or how their product was diversifying, the manager said he couldn’t tell us because of a business strategy issue and because of the confidentiality that his customers owe and demand. He also avoided responding if they were thinking of exporting their oil and what destinations they were considering. On June 9, after the publication of this report, Alicorp sent a letter to OjoPúblico by e-mail pointing out that they had never had any commercial relation with Ocho Sur, and that their palm oil comes from 9 extraction plants that bring together 7,000 families cultivating sustainable oil palm as producers associated with Junpalma.
In Peru, there are 19 palm oil processing plants; according to Junpalma, 68% of them are in the Ucayali region. In this area of the country, by the end of last year, Ocho Sur started operations at their extraction plant with a capacity of 45 tons per hour. This volume makes them the second largest in the country, behind Palmas Group, which has three plants with a joint capacity of 140 tons of palm per hour in the San Martín and Loreto regions.
Table: Elaboración: OjoPúblico Source: Junpalma
Chart: Elaboración: OjoPúblico Source: Junpalma.
Before the palm enters the extractors, the Palmas Group supplies 86% of the production from its own plantations, but the rest (91,000 tons of fresh palm fruit bunches) comes from third parties. When we asked Alicorp about how they were ensuring that the palm oil they export did not come from deforestation, the company sent OjoPúblicoa letter to Llorente y Cuenca consulting firm. They told us that the extraction plants supplying them with palm “have committed themselves and have formally declared that they do not, or will not supply us with bunches of fresh fruit from deforested land”.
Alicorp explained in their e-mail statement that in 2018 they had designed “a responsible procurement policy to strengthen their chain management and compliance of standards by our suppliers”. They have not responded us if to date they have a registry of suppliers sanctioned or removed from their supply chain because they could not guarantee sustainable palm oil.
For RSPO director for Latin America, Francisco Naranjo, the exporting companies – members of this organization – must meet their commitments and assume “their responsibility” while reporting on their suppliers. “Alicorp should have made public who he buys from. That information is public. All members of the RSPO are obliged to provide this information to any interested party who asks them.” However, we asked Alicorp for this information, but the company did not respond until the close of this report.
For the period 2018-2019, the RSPO audited the supply chain of Alicorp. Auditor Leonardo Gomes, author of the report commissioned by IBD Certificações Ltda, explained the process to OjoPúblico via e-mail: – Leonardo Gomes: Alicorp did not buy RSPO-certified products such as palm oil. They probably bought non-certified oils but in those cases we did not record purchases.
– OjoPúblico: What do you mean when you say that Alicorp did not purchase or sell RSPO products?
– Leonardo Gomes: There were no purchases or sales of RSPO certified products, so we have no information regarding Alicorp supply base. They were audited under 2017 version of the standard.
– OjoPúblico: So in their audit, you did not detect that Alicorp had purchased RSPO-certified raw material, in any percentage?
– Leonardo Gomes: Exactly. But as I said, it does not mean that they have not bought conventional oil.
– Ojo Público: Is there a supplier list in the auditing processes? What information is taken in to account to certify the supply chain?
– Leonardo Gomes: During the audit, we find out [who are] the suppliers, but only if they are also RSPO-certified. We do not audit conventional suppliers. For the next audit, due to an update of the standard, we will do so as they will have to provide this information publicly.
– OjoPúblico: Will that new audit be conducted at the end of this year? When are you planning to conduct it?
– Leonardo Gomes: The next audit would be by the end of 2020.
Junpalma’s former General Manager, Gregorio Sáenz, believes that the palm production route is “traceable because everything goes down the same road and there are 19 oil palm extraction companies clearly defined in the country.” Saénz also points out that companies such as Alicorp must provide information about who they buy palm from and how much. “Each company reports the palm exits from the field to the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Production.”
Meanwhile, a draft land-use change regulation is being prepared at the summit of the Ministry of Agriculture. This is linked to the desire to expand the palm sector, Luis Alberto Gonzales-Zúñiga, the outgoing director of the National Forest and Wildlife Service (Serfor), explained in an interview. He talked about the recent interests and obstacles he encountered in the Ministry of Agriculture in his quest to improve controls in the forestry sector and that triggered his sudden dismissal from on 5 June, precisely on the World Environment Day.
Given the lack of capacity and willingness of the State to regulate and watch this industry better, we can only expect that the main Peruvian oil palm producing and exporting companies will self-regulate their processes and ensure that all their suppliers in their production chain meet international standards. It will take several years for this to happen. Amazon forests and their communities will continue to be at risk.
Provision that allows ship-owners to self-certify the waste is up for abuse; environment ministry just not equipped to check toxic materials at scrap-ship yards in Chattogram
The ship-breaking industry in Chattogram remains extremely dirty and dangerous for workers and the environment. The top ship-recycling country in the world has failed to regulate the clandestine business effectively, for which frequent death, injury and pollution continue to be in the headlines. An investigation by Mostafa Yousuf of The Daily Star and Margot Gibbs of Finance Uncovered in the UK exposes how the weak regulatory system gets exploited for permission to scrap vessels containing asbestos and other hazardous materials.
In 2018, aged just 43, Mazidul Haque developed severe breathing problems, consulted a doctor and was diagnosed with asbestosis, a potentially fatal respiratory disease which scars the lungs. After more than a decade working in the shipbreaking yards of Chattogram, he lost his job, and the means to support his family.
“I’ve lost hope for life,” he said.
The disease is caused by prolonged exposure to asbestos, a material once prized for its insulating properties, but banned in many countries because it is deadly to those who inhale its fibres. Its use, however, remains legal in Bangladesh.
For most of his adult life, Mazidul had been working with asbestos in the shipbreaking yards. A typical merchant vessel might contain around 10 tonnes of the material, hidden away in places like the engine room and fuel lines.
Mazidul wasn’t aware of the risks involved when he started work; he was given no training to work with the material, and wasn’t provided with equipment to prevent the fibres from entering his lungs.
Asbestos is rife in Sitakunda, where most of Bangladesh’s shipbreaking workers live and work. Furniture shops sell cheap “asbestos ovens” for as little as Tk 250 (£2.20), popular with low-wage workers.
The raw materials, say shopkeepers, are supplied by the shipbreaking yards.
The powerful shipbreaking industry, which generates around half of Bangladesh’s raw steel supply, is frequently shamed in the international media for its devastating impact on workers’ lives and the environment.
But nearly a decade after the government was forced by the Supreme Court to introduce rules to protect workers like Mazidul, an investigation from The Daily Star and Finance Uncovered, a UK journalism organisation, suggests that a major part of the regulatory system is a sham.
These rules banned the import of vessels for scrap containing a range of hazardous materials including asbestos. And they demanded that shipowners must submit certificates to the Bangladesh authorities declaring their vessels have been “pre-cleaned” of these.
Our investigation obtained a cache of 28 such certificates. Each had been submitted to, and accepted by, the ministry of environment.
But respected ship recycling experts in Europe told us the documents were worthless. One branded them “rubbish”.
Even government officials privately admitted to us the certificates are not realistic, but they insisted they do not have the means to check the declarations through meaningful inspections.
Md Shahab Uddin, minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, said the ministry has plans to set up modernised laboratories to test such toxic materials.
“As the responsibility is given to the environment ministry to check the toxic material, we are determined to do whatever is needed to do to stop any malpractice,” he said.
Of the 28 documents obtained by The Daily Star, 17 were from companies registered in secretive offshore tax havens, making it difficult to hold them accountable.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled in a case brought by the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (Bela) against the state in connection with shipbreaking regulations. Its judgment was damning: it found that documents used to import a toxic vessel for scrap in 2016 were “superficially prepared” or “fabricated”.
The findings of our investigation now suggest the issue may be widespread — with the role of offshore companies being a key aspect.
Lawyer Syeda Rizwana Hasan, director of Bela, said, “Officials have been allowing vessels to enter Bangladesh knowing full well that the country has no preparation to deal with the waste.
“It’s time to go heavily against such malpractices to ensure that cash buyers and their allies in the government are held liable if they continue to resort to their heinous tactics.”
She added, “Cash buyers are hiding behind anonymously owned offshore companies so we can’t hold them liable for the damage they cause.”
Dozens of workers have died in the yards in recent years according to local NGOs, but more still will suffer early deaths from their exposure to materials like asbestos.
Multinational shipping firms appear to have distanced themselves from these deaths in part by selling their end-of-life vessels to so-called cash buyers, many of them based offshore where their ownership is kept secret. These companies specialise in sending ships to scrap but also provide a firewall between the yards and PR-conscious shipowners.
Bangladesh is a signatory of the Basel Convention, which is supposed to stop hazardous waste being dumped in developing countries. In 2009 the Supreme Court ruled that, in keeping with this convention, ships should be cleared of their hazardous materials before they are imported for demolition in Bangladesh.
Two years later, the government imposed the import ban on toxic ships and introduced rules requiring shipowners to provide certificates showing no hazardous wastes on board.
Inspectors are then supposed to visit the ships at anchorage to check the vessels for hazardous materials before giving permission for scrapping.
But according to Rizwana, by allowing shipowners to self-certify the waste they contain, the government set up a system which was bound to fail and open to potential abuse.
And when contacted by The Daily Star, the senior government officials charged with responsibility for shipbreaking appeared to be ignorant of what the rules demanded.
In its judgment earlier this year, the Supreme Court found that the government had failed to implement this system in the case of the North Sea Producer, an ageing oil tanker previously owned by Maersk and sent from the UK to be broken up in Chattogram. The court found that the presence of hazardous materials on the vessel had been “deliberately concealed or left vague”.
It singled out a document supplied by a company based in the Caribbean tax haven of Saint Kitts and Nevis, claiming the ship contained no hazardous materials on board, including “nil” asbestos.
It was later discovered that the ship had illegal levels of radioactive waste on board, and according to documents submitted to the court, 500kg of materials containing asbestos was removed from the vessel.
The rules have been amended a number of times in the last decade, meaning that there has been disagreement over whether they required hazardous materials to be moved from the ship’s structure.
But the Supreme Court ruling in the North Sea Producer case directed the government to “stringently regulate” cash buyers and enforce the pre-cleaning system.
Maersk has yet to comment on the matter.
Interestingly, the pre-cleaning certificates obtained by The Daily Star contain identical wording to the North Sea Producer document.
Of the 28 certificates leaked to The Daily Star, half were submitted by companies based in secretive tax havens, including five from St Kitts and Nevis. Ownership of “offshore” companies like these — which stand to make million dollar profits on their deals — is a tightly guarded secret.
According to Rizwana, cash buyers’ use of anonymous companies protects their true owners from potential liability for the damage they cause.
A third of the vessels in the cache used flags of convenience like Palau and St Kitts and Nevis, which are blacklisted by European port authorities for their poor enforcement of international shipping conventions.
Many of the certificates declare: “Based on the information available, we hereby confirm that the subject vessel [is] not carrying hazardous cargo nor nuclear items on board and presently is not carrying hazardous cargo onboard. As such, the ship is safe without any non-hazardous material.”
Around half the certificates then list the materials that the ships are clear from. First on the list is asbestos, frequently stating, “Nil — based on the available information”.
Wouter Rozenveld, who runs a ship recycling consultancy which works with yards in the EU, Turkey and China, said the declarations on the certificates are “rubbish”.
Most ships headed for the beaches in South Asia were built decades before international rules banned the use of asbestos in shipbuilding in 2011.
“You’ll find asbestos in the gaskets, in the fuel lines, in the sea water lines, in the firefighting lines,” Rozenveld explained. “You cannot operate a vessel without these things. The workers who clear this will in decades die of asbestosis.”
He said it would only be possible to clean a ship completely after cutting the ship down to its bare steel, which would take months of work from asbestos-trained workers.
“To do this removal would take a team on board for three months and it would cost you millions.”
Another European expert, speaking on condition of anonymity, explained: “This whole concept of pre-cleaning, it’s expensive: it’s extremely expensive and you’d only do it if you were going to scrap the ship in a good yard.”
He added, “We would always expect a statement of no asbestos on board to be backed up by some sort of evidence: what testing or sampling have they done?”
Mohammad Moazzom Hossain, director of Chattogram’s Department of Environment, told The Daily Star that it “exerts all efforts to ensure that ships are free of hazardous materials”.
But he said the department has no means of even testing for asbestos.
This means that the offshore companies’ claims that ships are “safe” for breaking are being accepted without any reasonable chance of being verified.
AKM Shamsul Arefin, who recently retired as head of ship recycling at the Ministry of Industries, says the ministry was aware that asbestos would still likely be present in ships’ engine rooms, despite the claims made on the pre-cleaning certificates.
He said: “That is why we made it mandatory to have an asbestos decontamination room in the yard to make sure this poison does not go outside the yard.”
However, Department of Environment reports from this October-November show that many of these decontamination rooms are not functional.
Officials at the Department of Environment and Ministry of Industries, speaking anonymously, admit that they are aware that the certificates do not accurately describe the hazardous materials aboard the vessels.
But they say the problem is that if authorities impose restrictions regarding this, the shipbreaking industry would not exist: if scrutinised thoroughly, poisonous substances would be found onboard every ship.
Pre-cleaning is expensive and a regime that strictly imposed it could mark the end for Bangladesh’s beaching yards. One of the main reasons that places like Sitakunda are so popular for scrapping ships is that they are so cheap to use.
The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) is supporting Bangladesh in its efforts to bring yards up to standards set by the Hong Kong Convention, which sets out rules intended to protect workers and the environment from the damage they could cause.
Under that convention, all ships destined for demolition must have a full Inventory of Hazardous Materials, a detailed document marking the presence and location of all hazardous materials on the ship, along with a ship recycling plan agreed with the yard where recycling is set to take place.
But campaigners say these rules themselves are unacceptable as they would continue to allow thousands of tonnes of hazardous waste to be dumped each year in Bangladesh, which the country has no means to deal with. They also argue such standards would contradict Bangladesh’s own apparent ban on importing hazardous materials in ships.
Those familiar with the practices in Sitakunda say while some yards are making efforts to improve worker protections, far more is needed to satisfy the Hong Kong Convention standards.
Without these changes, workers like Mazidul Haque are likely to continue being exposed to asbestos.
The Daily Star talked to workers from five shipyards of Sitakunda about the protective gear and training they were given in their work.
Sahab Uddin says when he started working in 2010 at Khawaja Ship Breaking Yard he received no training.
“I started dismantling ships at the yard as a cutter man back in 2010 with no knowledge of the risks…. I came to learn about the risk as I lost my fellow colleagues in accidents like explosion, suffocation or fire incidents,” he said.
And although the yards now make protective gear available, the workers often remove it under pressure to work faster.
Another worker, preferring anonymity, said because the shipyards use loans to buy the vessels, they are in a hurry to pay them off quickly and avoid interest payments.
“That is why they want us to break the ship faster. The faster the ship is dismantled, the better for the owner. But it puts us at huge risk of accidents. We cannot wear proper protective gear fearing it would decelerate our speed,” he added.
Leading cash buyers Wirana and Global Marketing Systems (GMS), were contacted to comment on what basis they made declarations that the vessels were free of hazardous materials, and whether they were based on an Inventory of Hazardous Materials.
Only GMS, the world’s biggest cash buyer, which also acted as the agent for the import of the North Sea Producer, provided a response.
GMS instructed London law firm Carter Ruck to respond. Nigel Tait, a partner at the firm, said in a response that pre-cleaning certificates were based on an Inventory of Hazardous Materials provided by the original shipowners, and “reputable third party surveyors and agencies who have conducted the pre-cleaning”.
However, he also said the hazardous waste that forms part of the vessel’s structure would not be removed because it would create “safety issues while sailing”.
He said there was no legal requirement to strip back ships to their bare steel to remove all hazardous materials from the ships’ structures.
“Our client ensures that, in compliance with the Sustainable Ship and Offshore Recycling Programme, the relevant green teams (with hazmat experts) inspect the vessel and mark all potential parts/material that could contain hazardous material.”
On whether asbestos was identified, he said, “Separate asbestos decontamination rooms are provided for individual yards in Bangladesh and safely disposed of in a vertical concrete column.”
He maintained that GMS had acted legally throughout.
Now unemployed, Mazidul Haque is struggling to support his wife, mother, two sons and daughter. They are currently living on microloans, but he has no idea how he will repay them.
At the point of despair, he is now working to raise awareness about the deadly issue. He has urged the government to make sure workers are no longer exposed to asbestos.
Without that, many more workers like him will continue to suffer.
Region suffers from acute water crisis; country’s first water governance project begins from 3 districts
When Matiur Rahman first ventured into fruit farming in Chapainawabganj’s Jhilim union in 2011, the major obstacle he had to meet head on was the ongoing water crisis in the northwest.
“The nearest water source was two and a half kilometres away,” he said.
He started lifting water from the distant source — a deep tubewell installed by Barind Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA) but it dried up in six years.
“I felt helpless,” Matiur, a Roads and Highways Department driver, said.
Experts have observed people in the region are struggling to get drinking water while many paddy farmers are either diversifying to less water-intensive crops or converting their croplands to ponds and brick kilns.
The region is characterised by decreasing rainfall and depleting groundwater levels, mostly extracted for paddy farming, rice mill operations, and other industrial purposes.
“The situation is worsening as some people are withdrawing everyone’s share of the groundwater,” said a prominent hydrologist, Prof Chowdhury Sarwar Jahan of Rajshahi University.
Apart from paddy fields, at least 35 auto rice mills in Jhilim union, which covers 23.45 square kilometres of area, use groundwater round the clock, heavily affecting the aquifer, he said.
On a recent visit to union, this correspondent observed rice mills on both sides of the Amnura-Chapainawabganj road.
Mansur Rahman, general secretary of Chapainawabganj Rice Mill Owners Association, said each of the 35 rice mills of the union has at least three deep tubewells.
Mansur’s Sagar Auto Rice Mills has six. “We have no other water options for running our businesses,” he said.
Md Mostafa, a farmer of Collegepara village in Jhilim, shifted from paddy to lentil cultivation.
“Many cultivable fields, where we cropped three times a year before, are now uncultivable because of a dearth of water,” he said.
Matiur’s venture, for instance, would have been nipped in the bud, without water.
In 2016, the NGO Development Association for Self-reliance, Communication and Health (DASCOH) gave him a water-pump and introduced him to drip irrigation, a water-saving method that allows water to drip slowly to the roots of plants, either above the soil surface or buried below it.
He has now grown into one of the country’s most successful fruit farmers receiving multiple government awards in five years.
However, not all farmers in the Barind region have been as lucky as Matiur and abuse of water resources is rampant.
Unchecked industrial and agricultural use of water has depleted groundwater in a region which also saw lower than average rainfall in recent years.
On a visit to Rajshahi’s Godagari upazila on March 22, this correspondent observed the Sormongola canal, which is supposed to supply water from the Padma river to nearby agricultural fields, running dry while private deep tubewells have been installed on both sides of the canal.
Farmers The Daily Star spoke to said they were angry about having to pay high prices for water for their crops from these tubewells, while the canal ran dry.
GROUNDWATER LEVEL LOWER THAN EVER
According to Prof Chowdhury, the region’s annual rainfall has never exceeded 1,400mm in seven years till 2018, which is 45 percent less than the national average of 2,550mm.
Last year, however, the region witnessed 1,800mm of annual rainfall.
The areas of Nachol and Gomostapur in Chapainawabganj; Tanore and Godagari in Rajshahi; and Porsha, Sapahar, and Niamatpur upazilas in Naogaon are over 47m higher than sea level.
Whereas, there are areas in the same districts which are only around 10m higher than sea level, he noted.
“Paddy farming using only groundwater can have a toll on the availability of drinking water in these high and arid areas,” he said.
Groundwater provides 75 percent of water needed for rice irrigation in Bangladesh, the world’s fourth largest rice-producing country.
Bangladesh Rice Research Institute estimates around 3,000 litres of water are required to produce one kilogramme of Boro rice.
“This estimate does not even count the water use in rice mills,” Prof Chowdhury said.
Wheat and maize require around 400-600 litres of water per kilogramme production, he said.
So, grain production in the region should use surface water for irrigation, he recommended, adding a focus on less water-consuming fruit and vegetable farming can help preserve groundwater in the region.
The region’s groundwater level was only 30 feet below in the ’70s when farmers used surface and rain water for irrigation and hand tubewells for drinking water, said BMDA’s Superintending Engineer Abdur Rashid.
With BMDA installing deep tubewells in the ’90s, farmers began cultivating three crops a year turning the northwest into one of the country’s major grain-producing regions, he said.
Following BMDA’s lead, solvent farmers and businesspeople installed their own deep tubewells.
In 2012, when BMDA stopped installing fresh deep tubewells and moved to focusing on surface water, private tubewells continued to flourish for agricultural and industrial use.
Around 70 percent of the Barind region’s annual groundwater extraction of 13,710 million cubic metres is done by unregulated private deep tubewells, according to a rough estimate by BMDA recently. This amount of water would fill up around 18 lakh ponds — each 2m deep and covering one bigha.
In February 2018, the lowest groundwater level was recorded in Nachol upazila at 107 feet below the surface, a fall of over 28 feet since 2005 when the level was at 78.8 feet.
“The fall is still on,” Rashid said, adding that the levels go as low as 130 feet below the surface at the end of irrigation season.
COUNTRY’S FIRST WATER GOVERNANCE PROJECT
“Everyone has equal rights to water and an optimum use of water can ensure it,” said Md Delwar Hossain, director general of the Water Resources Planning Organisation (WARPO), an apex planning body in the water sector.
Bangladesh Water Act 2013 and Bangladesh Water Rules 2018 ensure these rights, and the government has now decided to enforce laws to identify and secure water resources, and regulate their use, the DG added.
WARPO began the process on March 19 by setting up an office in Rajshahi and inaugurating a water modelling project in Sardaha union of Rajshahi’s Charghat upazila.
Under the project, WARPO will map surface and underground water resources, measure availability and adequacy of the resources following scientific methods, and secure these, officials said.
It will also determine water demands for personal, agricultural and industrial purposes, and identify the safe withdrawal limit of groundwater and thus, regulate water use.
WARPO officials said they would declare an area as water stressed, if found any, during the hydrological investigation under the project.
According to the WARPO chief, this water governance is the first of its kind in the country.
It is initially starting in three Barind districts — Chapainawabganj, Naogaon, and Rajshahi — presumed to be most affected by water scarcity.
Following the results, the process will start in other parts of the country soon, he said.
In March 2020, the Planning Commission had sanctioned the Tk 15.34 crore project titled “Operationalising Integrated Water Resources Management”.
It remained stalled due to the coronavirus situation, until earlier this month. The project is slated to be completed in June 2023.
The project will conduct hydrological investigation and water modelling in every mouza of the three districts.
The government will provide Tk 10.24 crore while the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) is providing the remaining Tk 5.10 crore of the project funds.
The Institute of Water Modelling (IWM) is providing consultation while SDC’s partner DASCOH is assisting implementation in the Barind region.
Another Tk 300 crore project for countrywide water mapping and modelling is awaiting approval, WARPO officials said.
This project was a long-cherished demand of the region, said Prof Chowdhury of Rajshahi University.
“Its successful implementation is necessary. When we will know the exact water situation, we can make the right decisions for our agricultural and industrial development,” he said.
People living by the Kirtonkhola river in Barishal noticed in March this year that the river’s water had become unusually salty.
After an electrical conductivity test, Department of Environment officials confirmed what the locals have been saying.
They said the sudden rise in salinity may have been caused by reduced water flow from upstream and lower rainfall.
The Kirtonkhola is now another in a list of over 100 rivers flowing through the coastal region and affected by salinity due to sea water intrusion.
Saline river water also results in salinity in the groundwater which in turn increases the level of soil salinity. And that causes a significant reduction of vegetation in the affected areas, experts say.
Around 25-30 percent of the country’s arable land is located in 21 coastal districts, of which 53 percent has become saline-affected, finds a recent study by Khulna University.
According to the study, around 75 percent of land in Satkhira, 66 percent in Bagerhat, 32 percent land in Khulna, and 72 percent in Barguna are affected by salinity.
In a study by the government in 2009, salinity-affected areas increased to 1.05 million hectares from the 0.83 hectares found in the previous government study in 1973.
The 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) said rice production in Bangladesh may fall by 10 percent and wheat production by 30 percent by 2050.
But seawater intrusion into the country’s river system seems to be leaving an impact on the coastal region that is much worse than forecast by the IPCC.
While farmers in other parts of the country are cultivating up to four crops a year, farmers in the coastal region are hardly able to cultivate a single one.
“Twenty-five percent of the country’s arable land is in the coastal area, which has become saline. In most of the saline-prone areas, either people do shrimp farming or cultivate transplanted Aman rice. But now we are encouraging farmers to cultivate saline-tolerant alternative crops if they cannot grow rice,” said Agriculture Minister Muhammad Abdul Razzaq.
“In a country with only 10 decimal agricultural land per capita, you will find miles after miles of barren land in the coastal area, and that is a major setback for the country,” the minister said.
But the country is gradually trying to adapt to the situation.
Scientists from Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) have developed some rice varieties that can be cultivated in saline-prone areas.
“Our scientists have developed BRRI 67, a saline tolerant variety which will be very successful,” the minister said.
Along with this saline tolerant variety, the minister said, “We will encourage them [local farmers] to cultivate alternative crops”.
People from Patuakhali did not know how to cultivate mung beans. But for the last few years, they have been cultivating mung beans, a very good alternative crop, the minister said.
Local agricultural offices in coastal districts have taken some initiatives of farming alternative crops, the minister said.
“Once the pandemic is over, we will take up a special programme to encourage alternative crop farming along with saline tolerant rice varieties,” the minister said.
WATERMELON AND VEGETABLES BRING NEW HOPE
Kamal Bawali of Bhulbaria village under Khulna’s Dumuria upazila, a saline-prone area, used to cultivate Aman paddy on his two bighas of land. But he hardly made any profit due to the low yield of local Aman variety.
But Kamal’s fate changed last year as he and a few other farmers received preliminary training and guidelines from a local agriculture officer on how to cultivate crops in saline-prone areas.
After learning the method last year, Kamal cultivated watermelon on his land. He grew around 800 watermelons on one bigha. This year he cultivated even more on a total of five bighas of land.
He spent Tk 56,000 to cultivate watermelons. In a bumper harvest, he earned a profit of around Tk 3 lakh from watermelons this year.
Rabiul Islam Robi, union parishadchairmanof Sharifpur of Dumuria, told The Daily Star that people of the region used to put all their hopes on salt-water shrimp (bagda) farming.
Farmers had tried to grow vegetables and sowed seeds many times, but it used to be damaged due to the effect of saline water and it was not possible to produce vegetables or other crops here, he said.
But now, farmers are growing watermelons, wheat, maize, and winter vegetables from their land using rainwater.
Many people migrated from the area as they lost their livelihoods. But now the method of digging small ponds to preserve fresh water for irrigation to produce vegetables or other crops have raised hopes in Dumuria, Batiaghata, Dacope, Paikgacha upazilas of Khulna district over the last couple of years, the UP chairman added.
THE FARMING METHOD
Farmers store rainwater by digging small ponds in a portion of their land for irrigation of crops. Later they apply potash, gypsum and organic fertiliser on the land as per the rules taught by agricultural officials to grow crops.
Using this method, thousands of farmers in saline-prone areas of Khulna have revolutionised agriculture, said GM A Gafur, additional director of Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) of Khulna region.
Mosaddek Hossain, Dumuria upazila agriculture officer, told The Daily Star that all of Magurkhali union and many parts of Sharafpur and Shobhana unions were once saline-prone areas fit only for shrimp cultivation.
“Using freshwater from rainwater and using 20 kgs of potash, 15 kgs of gypsum and organic fertilisers, farmers are now producing multiple crops,” he added.
This has brought a radical change among farmers. They are now cultivating Aman, Aush, corn, watermelon, potato, onion, eggplant, gourd, tomato, pumpkin, bean, long bean, red amaranth, cauliflower, gourd, radish, etc.
According to the DAE, about 6,000 tonnes of vegetables are being produced in just these three unions. In the last three and a half years, 2,500 hectares of land – 75 percent of cultivable land — has come under agricultural cultivation in the unions through a joint venture of farmers and the Department of Agriculture.
Officially, 2,000 farmers are being trained in saline-prone areas. DoAare also providing seeds to those farmers at free of cost.
Lance Lau Hin-yi is the 11-year-old Hong Kong schoolboy who has spent nearly every Friday standing outside the gate of his school before class, raising awareness about climate change.
He says he was inspired by “climate girl” Greta Thunberg, the Swedish activist who is internationally known for challenging world leaders to take immediate action against climate change.
Lance also organises monthly beach clean-ups to promote the concept of sustainable development. He is also a regular speaker at environmental conservation events that push governments and major companies to make climate-conscious decisions and save the Earth for future generations.
Explotar combustibles fósiles, como el petróleo, gas o carbón. Usar ineficientemete la energía procedente de dicha explotación. Movilizarnos en auto o viajar en avión. Sabemos que estas acciones tienen un impacto negativo en el ambiente. Sabemos que contribuyen al cambio climático. ¿Qué ocurre con aquello que tenemos en frente nuestro en cada plato de comida?
Sin vueltas: sí, lo que comemos incide en el cambio climático. Y ello no se limita exclusivamente a los gases que emiten las vacas. Según un estudio publicado en la revista científica Science, la producción de alimentos es responsable de aproximadamente un cuarto (26%) de las emisiones globales de gases de efecto invernadero (GEIs), contribuyentes al cambio climático.
Por su parte, conforme al Grupo Intergubernamental de Expertos sobre Cambio Climático (IPCC), la agricultura, la silvicultura y otros tipos del uso del suelo, generan el 23% de las emisiones globales de GEIs.
Sobre ello busca profundizar el siguiente análisis. Aclaración mediante, el mismo no incluye la también importante variable de explotación de animales. Se centra en la contribución de los modos de producción alimenticia al cambio climático, en pos de repensar las modificaciones que pueden hacerse. La pregunta disparadora: ¿nos estamos comiendo al planeta?
Cambio climático y alimentación: el impacto detrás de la relación
Se deforestan bosques para transformarlos en áreas de explotación de agricultura y ganadería intensivas, perdiendo así importantes sumideros de carbono. Con esa intensidad se deterioran extensas áreas de suelo. El ganado digiere su comida y eructa metano. Las máquinas agrícolas, las fábricas de fertilizantes y el traslado de alimentos son posibles a partir de la explotación de combustibles fósiles.
Todas estas actividades generan emisiones de GEIs que inciden en ese problema común a esta nota: el cambio climático.
Conforme el estudio mencionado, del 26% de las emisiones globales que le corresponden a la producción de alimentos, un 31% procede de la ganadería y pesca, un 27% de la producción de cosecha (tanto para alimentar a humanos como a animales), 24% del uso de la tierra (emite más la tierra para ganadería que para alimentación humana directa) y un 18% de la cadena de suministro (procesamiento, transporte, envasado).
La transformación que estamos generando en el ambiente para alimentarnos es tal que, según un estudio de 2018, desde la civilización humana se han perdido el 83% de los mamíferos salvajes. De los mamíferos en la Tierra, el 96% somos humanos (36%) y ganado (60%), y sólo un 4% son mamíferos salvajes. Misma situación se repite con las aves: el 70% son gallinas y otras aves de corral, el 30% son salvajes.
Si todo el mundo adoptara los patrones actuales de consumo de alimentos del Grupo de los 20 (G20), centrados en la mayoría de los casos en el consumo de carnes rojas y lácteos, para 2050 se necesitarían de uno a siete planetas Tierra para poder soportarlo, según el reciente reporte “Dietas para un futuro mejor”. Los países del G20 aportan un 66% al porcentaje de emisiones de la producción de alimentación, con China, India y Estados Unidos liderando.
El informe sugiere que las emisiones per cápita relacionadas con la alimentación en los países del G20 en su conjunto debieran reducirse a la mitad para 2050.
GEIs en Argentina. Inventario del 2016. Fuente: Ministerio de Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible
Argentina, país miembro del G20, no es ajena a toda esta situación. De hecho, la agricultura, la ganadería, la silvicultura y otros usos de la tierra son la segunda fuente (37%) de emisiones nacionales después de la energía, según datos de 2016 del Inventario Nacional de GEIs. De ese 37%, un 41% corresponde a ganadería, con predominio de bovinos de carne.
Recientemente el sitio especializado Carbon Briefanalizó cuál es el impacto climático de comer carne roja y lácteos. Los resultados —contundentes—, a la vista (atención también a los amantes del café):
“ONU plantea un reto para la humanidad: comer menos carne para salvar el planeta”. “La ONU advierte que para frenar el calentamiento global hay que comer menos carne”. “Comer menos carne y otras recomendaciones de la ONU contra el cambio climático”. Estos titulares protagonizaron los medios locales e internacionales en agosto del año pasado ante la presentación del Informe Especial sobre El cambio climático y el suelodel IPCC.
Lejos estaban de visibilizar lo que decían las extensas páginas del informe, o incluso lo que los científicos habían mencionado en la conferencia de prensa de presentación: “No hacemos recomendaciones sobre las dietas de las personas, sino que damos las bases científicas respecto de las dietas que contribuyen a reducir emisiones contaminantes”. La científica climática argentina Carolina Vera salió a aclararlo.
Aclaremos: @IPCC_CH no recomienda la dieta de las personas
Sobre la evidencia científica concluye q dietas equilibradas basadas en alimentos de origen vegetal y d origen animal producidos d forma sostenible dan mayores oportunidades d adaptación y mitigación al #CambioClimaticopic.twitter.com/MuYcaehw4x
¿Cuál es la conclusión principal de ese reporte? El suelo es un recurso crítico que se encuentra bajo dos presiones crecientes: el cambio climático y los distintos usos que el ser humano hace de él, como agricultura, ganadería, deforestación. Esas dos presiones tienen un impacto circular: un suelo degradado pierde productividad y, así, se reduce su capacidad de absorción de dióxido de carbono (CO2), contribuyendo a ese cambio climático que también afecta al suelo. Por ello, se necesita de un manejo responsable.
Como aclaraba Vera, el reporte analiza ocho dietas y su potencial de reducción de emisiones para 2050. Mientras que un incremento en el consumo de alimentos de origen animal se asoció con un mayor impacto negativo en el ambiente, un incremento en el consumo de alimentos basados en plantas se asoció con un menor impacto ambiental.
Según las categorías que analiza el reporte, las dietas veganas (sin alimentos de origen animal), vegetariana (con consumo de carne o pescado una vez al mes) y flexitariana (con un consumo limitado de carne y lácteos) son las que más colaborarían en dicha reducción de emisiones.
Potencial de las distintas dietas para mitigar el cambio climático. Fuente: IPCC.
El investigador argentino y director del Instituto de Investigación del Suelo del INTA, Miguel Angel Taboada, fue uno de los autores del capítulo 6. Y dice: “El reporte consistió en una revisión importante de todo lo publicado al momento sobre el suelo. Su mayor hallazgo fue hacer un listado de posibles acciones basado en sistemas de producción alimenticia más diversos y resilientes al clima”.
Pensando en soluciones basadas en la naturaleza, Taboada ejemplifica con los sistemas silvopastoriles que integran la silvicultura, forraje y ganadería. Sus dos variables incluyen plantar árboles o criar ganado en bosques nativos. Sus beneficios: suelos más sanos, menor generación de emisiones y mejores condiciones para los animales.
En líneas generales, el reporte identifica cinco acciones con un alto potencial de reducir emisiones: incrementar la productividad, reducir la deforestación y degradación, aumentar el contenido de carbono orgánico del suelo (sin el cual el suelo se degradaría), mejorar el manejo de los incendios y reducir las pérdidas de alimentos poscosecha.
Del otro lado de la acción climática, la adaptación, señala que sistemas de cultivo diversificados y la agroecología —ambos con variedades de cultivos en distintos planes espaciales y temporales— son menos vulnerables ante los efectos del cambio climático.
“Si vas a comer carne, esta es la mejor para tu salud y la del ambiente”
Así lo afirma Pablo Grilli, biólogo y encargado de biodiversidad en la Alianza del Pastizal de Aves Argentinas, refiriéndose al producto final procedente de una alternativa: la ganadería de pastizal. Un sistema que busca producir y conservar a la vez: se lleva a cabo ganadería no intensiva como actividad productiva sobre pastizales naturales que almacenan carbono, contribuyendo con la conservación de la biodiversidad. “Sólo el ambiente sano es el que puede capturar carbono”, subraya.
Un estudio publicado este año en la revista científica local AgriScienta, comparó el balance de GEIs de dos modelos de producción ganadera en la cuenca del Río Salado, provincia de Buenos Aires: uno con uso predominante de pastizal natural en buena condición debido al pastoreo controlado, y otro con una mayor superficie de pasturas y cultivos forrajeros, mayor carga animal y producción de carne. ¿El resultado? Las emisiones generadas resultaron ser mayores en el segundo caso que en el primero. El primero secuestró más carbono como carbono orgánico del suelo. Como resultado, el balance de GEIs fue 10 veces más negativo en el segundo que en el primero, que tuvo un balance neutro.
Ganadería de pastizal, Gualeguaychú | Foto: Tais Gadea Lara
Desde la Alianza se trabaja en concientizar y darles más herramientas a los productores sobre el valor agregado de este modelo. Hoy la carne de pastizal se vende en la cadena de supermercados Carrefour al mismo valor que otras carnes premium. La cadena vio en el producto un diferencial y le paga más al productor. Cada producto lleva el sello de la Alianza con el tordo amarillo como ave protagónica.
¿Por qué una organización vinculada a las aves promueve este tipo de actividad? “La Alianza surgió porque la organización internacional BirdLife estaba muy preocupada por lo amenazadas que estaban las aves de pastizal. Los socios nos organizamos para actuar porque los estados no habían podido conservar los pastizales -explica Grilli- Conservar los pastizales es conservar toda su biodiversidad, incluyendo las aves”.
Grilli es reflexivo ante los cambios que hay que hacer: “El problema es pensar en términos binarios. Pensar en la ganadería como algo malo es un error, hay que diferenciar los tipos de ganadería. Estoy a favor de que se modere el consumo de carne, pero estoy convencido de que, si vas a comer carne, esta es la mejor para tu salud y la salud del ambiente”.
Eso que no vemos: la contribución de la comida que tiramos
En un artículo anterior describíamos una problemática ambiental tan invisible al conocimiento popular como visible en cifras: estamos perdiendo o desperdiciando un tercio de los alimentos que se producen cada año.
El reporte del IPCC consideró que la reducción de las pérdidas y los desperdicios de alimentos pueden contribuir en la mitigación. ¿Por qué? De 2010 a 2016, la pérdida y el desperdicio de alimentos a nivel mundial contribuyeron a entre el 8 y 10% del total de emisiones de GEIs. Según la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Alimentación y la Agricultura (FAO), la mayor contribución (60%) procede de los cereales y las leguminosas, seguidos de las raíces, tubérculos y cultivos oleaginosos.
¿Cómo se da esa contribución? “Por todos los recursos involucrados que se pierden: agua, tierra y energía”, explica desde Chile Sara Granados, asesora regional de FAO para América Latina y el Caribe, y agrega: “En la producción animal, que requiere una gran cantidad de tierra, hay mayores pérdidas en el procesamiento de la carne. En la de de frutas y vegetales, hay mayores perdidas en la cosecha y al inicio del procesamiento”.
La asesora de FAO subraya que los planes de acción climática (NDCs) donde los países presentan sus objetivos de mitigación y adaptación, conforme la implementación del Acuerdo de París, no tienen en cuenta la problemática del food waste. Desde la organización se viene trabajando para que ello se modifique.
¿Qué podemos hacer nosotros?
De los expertos y reportes consultados se concluyen algunas acciones que deben involucrar tanto políticas del sector público y cambios en el sector privado. Pero que también señalan la necesidad de consumidores más conscientes de sus elecciones e impacto: disminuir el consumo de alimentos de origen animal (carnes y lácteos), optar por alternativas de producción sostenible, reducir las pérdidas y desperdicios de alimentos.
En cuanto a este último punto, es importante señalar que la reducción de las pérdidas y los desperdicios podría ayudar a la adaptación al cambio climático a partir de la reducción de la superficie necesaria para la producción de alimentos. Granados explica que, si nosotros reducimos la cantidad de comida que tiramos en nuestros hogares y se promueven compost comunitarios a nivel local en ciudades y municipios, ello tendrá un impacto positivo en nuestra huella de carbono.
La clave para que todo esto ocurra es mejorar las prácticas en todas las etapas de la cadena de suministro: las técnicas de cosecha, el almacenamiento en la granja, la infraestrucutra, el embalaje, el comercio y la educación.
En cuanto al tipo de dieta que llevamos, se puede ayudar a combatir el cambio climático sin la necesidad de caer en extremos. “Todos pueden hacer una contribución, no sólo los que eligen dietas veganas o vegetarianas. No digo que se hagan veganos, pero sí que consuman menos carne”, recomendó el profesor de suelos y cambio global en la Universidad de Aberdeen, Pete Smith, en un webinario de Carbon Brief.
Todo ello considerando dos cuestiones transversales. Por un lado, como expone el reporte del IPCC: “Las transiciones hacia dietas con bajas emisiones de GEI pueden verse influidas por las prácticas locales de producción, los obstáculos técnicos y financieros, los medios de subsistancia y los hábitos culturales”.
Por otro lado, se debe tender a dietas más saludables con el ambiente y saludables para las personas. “Se deben considerar los impactos directos e indirectos de la carne roja en la salud, pero tampoco hay que reemplazarla por productos que no son saludables”, señaló en el evento online la científica para sistemas alimentarios, nutrición y salud en Wellcome Trust, Modi Mwatsama. La calidad nutricional debe ser un pilar en las transformaciones hacia dietas más sostenibles y el acceso a estas dietas debe estar garantizado a todos los grupos sociales.
Este artículo, publicado por primera vez aquí, fue compartido como parte del World News Day 2021, una campaña global que destaca el papel fundamental del periodismo basado en hechos a la hora de proveer noticias e información fiables al servicio de la humanidad. #JournalismMatters
