We’ve got our hands on a legal document that "explores the processes of consultation and policy development that are under way in the UK with the purpose of creating a national nuclear policy statement and smoothing the way for the provate sector to develop new nuclear power station capacity."

Looks like the government’s plans are open to a number of challenges, on a number of fronts, over a number of years. Interesting reading if you’re into this sort of thing.

This is part of Lake Suwakai, Runtu, where United Plantation’s contractor constructed a road and stacked wood debris in the lake, presumably when the tidal lake was at its lowest. ? Greenpeace

The first shipment of certified sustainable palm oil is due to arrive in Rotterdam any day now for a company called United Plantations. But our investigations on the ground in Indonesia reveal that Universal Plantations’ operations are far from sustainable. In fact, they fail to meet the already inadequate criteria established by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO - its a bit of a mouthful), and the certification, in this instance, looks like little more than a bit of marketing lubrication for the industry.


We’ve been pushing the RSPO for some time now to implement its currently weak standards and to make standards tougher moving forward - not least by ensuring that its members stop clearing vast areas of forest and peatland. For example, the criteria of this voluntary initiative is weak at preventing the development of plantations on peatlands even though these same peatlands are one of the largest carbon stores on earth and their protection is crucial in the fight against climate change.

In August, United Plantations was the first company to be certified by the RSPO. While the certification only applies to their Malaysian operations, all of their operations, including those in Indonesia need to meet certain minimum standards, through the so called ‘partial certification’ process. Environmental groups pushed for this condition so that big companies couldn’t certify a showcase plantation to woo buyers, while trashing forests and peatlands on their other lands.

And lo and behold, our investigation team discovered United Plantations doesn’t comply with the key standards around partial certification on its Indonesian estates. Our evidence shows that the company is embroiled in illegal practices, including deep peat conversion and land disputes to name but a few issues.

You can read our full 12-page report here (pdf), but I’ve summarised the highlights for you below to give you an idea how much further we have to go to get sustainable palm oil - and why we are calling on the RSPO to support a moratorium on forest and peatland clearing.

Failed - compliance with local law

Our field investigations found that a subsidiary of United Plantations has been clearing peatlands, including some as deep as three metres in Runtu village. Indonesian law doesn’t allow development or degradation of peatland any deeper than two metres. Operations have also failed to respect conservation areas around lakes and additionally there are irregularities in their planning permits and documentation.

Failed - mutually agreed resolutions where land disputes exist

Four community members from Runtu village in Kalimantan have been jailed allegedly for their opposition to land clearing activities by a United Plantations subsidiary. The RSPO rules for partial certification require that a mutually agreed resolution takes place when such disputes happen - their imprisonment indisputably shows that significant land conflicts still exist in palm oil concessions owned by United Plantations.

Failed - speedy plan for full certification

The RSPO requires companies that go for partial certification to have in place an "adequately ambitious and realistic" plan for certification of all their operations. While other companies such as New Britain Palm Oil have committed to achieving full certification in one to three years, United Plantations are working towards much longer timelines.

All in all it’s not a good start for certified palm oil. The case shows that there are fundamental flaws within the RSPO if certified members are failing to comply with the minimum standards, and certifiers are missing key issues like land conflict and breaches of Indonesian law.

Moreover, all members of the RSPO - certified or not - should not be allowed to keep clearing forests and peatlands. The RSPO’s going to have to take a tougher line if it wants to save the forests, the climate and its reputation.

The government would have you believe that all is well in the world of nuclear power. That the path to building more of them in the UK is smooth and care-free.

It isn’t. We know this because we’re keeping a keen eye on the whole process. A very keen eye. And Greenpeace investigations have exposed that the path is not as smooth as the government will have you believe.

Legal advice from top lawyers says that the government’s nuclear plans are open to a number of challenges, on a number of fronts, over a number of years.

The document mentions several times a "risk of legal challenge". There are, it makes clear, "several routes of challenge". Until at least 2012. For example, the government "will face further legal challenge which is capable of knocking back the programme by a year or more, if it continues to give the impression that the process is a foregone conclusion."

Or, "particularly if the target local communities show themselves as concerned at the prospect."

The legal advice also identified that the "environmental assessment is potentially a source of delay and challenge". And, they concluded, "it remains to be seen whether the new system will be able to deliver in a sensitive and transparent way which is satisfactory without delay from the courts or electoral upset."

Thanks to the lawyers for the advice.

This is part of Lake Suwakai, Runtu, where United Plantation’s contractor constructed a road and stacked wood debris in the lake, presumably when the tidal lake was at its lowest. ? Greenpeace

The first shipment of certified sustainable palm oil is due to arrive in Rotterdam any day now for a company called United Plantations. But our investigations on the ground in Indonesia reveal that Universal Plantations’ operations are far from sustainable. In fact, they fail to meet the already inadequate criteria established by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO - its a bit of a mouthful), and the certification, in this instance, looks like little more than a bit of marketing lubrication for the industry.


We’ve been pushing the RSPO for some time now to implement its currently weak standards and to make standards tougher moving forward - not least by ensuring that its members stop clearing vast areas of forest and peatland. For example, the criteria of this voluntary initiative is weak at preventing the development of plantations on peatlands even though these same peatlands are one of the largest carbon stores on earth and their protection is crucial in the fight against climate change.

In August, United Plantations was the first company to be certified by the RSPO. While the certification only applies to their Malaysian operations, all of their operations, including those in Indonesia need to meet certain minimum standards, through the so called ‘partial certification’ process. Environmental groups pushed for this condition so that big companies couldn’t certify a showcase plantation to woo buyers, while trashing forests and peatlands on their other lands.

And lo and behold, our investigation team discovered United Plantations doesn’t comply with the key standards around partial certification on its Indonesian estates. Our evidence shows that the company is embroiled in illegal practices, including deep peat conversion and land disputes to name but a few issues.

You can read our full 12-page report here (pdf), but I’ve summarised the highlights for you below to give you an idea how much further we have to go to get sustainable palm oil - and why we are calling on the RSPO to support a moratorium on forest and peatland clearing.

Failed - compliance with local law

Our field investigations found that a subsidiary of United Plantations has been clearing peatlands, including some as deep as three metres in Runtu village. Indonesian law doesn’t allow development or degradation of peatland any deeper than two metres. Operations have also failed to respect conservation areas around lakes and additionally there are irregularities in their planning permits and documentation.

Failed - mutually agreed resolutions where land disputes exist

Four community members from Runtu village in Kalimantan have been jailed allegedly for their opposition to land clearing activities by a United Plantations subsidiary. The RSPO rules for partial certification require that a mutually agreed resolution takes place when such disputes happen - their imprisonment indisputably shows that significant land conflicts still exist in palm oil concessions owned by United Plantations.

Failed - speedy plan for full certification

The RSPO requires companies that go for partial certification to have in place an "adequately ambitious and realistic" plan for certification of all their operations. While other companies such as New Britain Palm Oil have committed to achieving full certification in one to three years, United Plantations are working towards much longer timelines.

All in all it’s not a good start for certified palm oil. The case shows that there are fundamental flaws within the RSPO if certified members are failing to comply with the minimum standards, and certifiers are missing key issues like land conflict and breaches of Indonesian law.

Moreover, all members of the RSPO - certified or not - should not be allowed to keep clearing forests and peatlands. The RSPO’s going to have to take a tougher line if it wants to save the forests, the climate and its reputation.

In the next 20 years a substantial amount of the
UK’s existing electricity generation capacity will
close. How this capacity is replaced will have a
major impact on the UK’s ability to meet its
international and domestic carbon emissions
reduction targets.

To explore this issue WWF-UK and Greenpeace
commissioned Pöyry energy consultants to look
at the implications for the UK electricity sector of
meeting the UK’s share of the EU renewable
energy target. This requires the UK to produce
15% of its energy from renewables by 2020.

The report was based on the assumption
(supported by government analysis) that there
was around 76GW of connected capacity in 2007.
Of this, 22.5GW is expected to close by 2020.
Pöyry constructed various scenarios of energy
demand and renewable energy growth to
ascertain whether these technologies would be
able to meet the so-called ’energy gap’.

This report is a summary of the report Implications
of the UK meeting its 2020 renewable energy targets.

In the next 20 years a substantial amount of the
UK’s existing electricity generation capacity will
close. How this capacity is replaced will have a
major impact on the UK’s ability to meet its
international and domestic carbon emissions
reduction targets.

To explore this issue WWF-UK and Greenpeace
commissioned Pöyry energy consultants to look
at the implications for the UK electricity sector of
meeting the UK’s share of the EU renewable
energy target. This requires the UK to produce
15% of its energy from renewables by 2020.

The report was based on the assumption
(supported by government analysis) that there
was around 76GW of connected capacity in 2007.
Of this, 22.5GW is expected to close by 2020.
Pöyry constructed various scenarios of energy
demand and renewable energy growth to
ascertain whether these technologies would be
able to meet the so-called ’energy gap’.

This report is a summary of the report Implications
of the UK meeting its 2020 renewable energy targets.

This Greenpeace investigation conducted by Greenpeace Netherlands (from here on
referred to as “Greenpeace”) reveals that deforestation, deep peat conversion, land
disputes and illegal practices continue to occur in the plantation estates owned by a
company that is RSPO certified for part of its operations.

The findings in this report clearly shows the failure of the company, the RSPO
(Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) and the certification process to tackle the issue
of deforestation. How can it be that United Plantations have received their certifi cation
for plantations in Malaysia, whilst they continue ‘business as usual’ destructive
practices in Indonesia? This shows that the RSPO is failing to enforce even its own
minimum, and from Greenpeace’s point of view, insuffi cient criteria.

Today’s top green stories from websites around the world

We’ve got our hands on a legal document that "explores the processes of consultation and policy development that are under way in the UK with the purpose of creating a national nuclear policy statement and smoothing the way for the provate sector to develop new nuclear power station capacity."

Looks like the government’s plans are open to a number of challenges, on a number of fronts, over a number of years. Interesting reading if you’re into this sort of thing.

Two Greenpeace ships - one of them the Rainbow Warrior - have been impounded and their captains and 90 others arrested after three days of nonviolent direct actions in the Netherlands.

Some of the 100 volunteers occupying the construction site of a new E.on coal plant in Rotterdam.

I’ll start at the beginning. On Friday evening, nearly 100 Greenpeace volunteers pitched tents next to the construction site of a new E.on coal
plant in Rotterdam (one of eight E.on plans to build in Europe), to bear witness to
the unfolding climate disaster.

At first light on Saturday, they moved onto the
site and occupied it, stopping construction for 10 hours
before all being arrested.

The nearby Rainbow Warrior, supporting the direct action, was boarded by police on Saturday night - and then again on Sunday
afternoon - before going on to block Rotterdam harbour and stop coal ships from entering it along with another of our ships, Beluga II.

Yesterday evening, the police aggressively took control of the Warrior, forcing the captain to leave the coal port. Beluga II maintained her position to continue blockading the coal port for a while.

Both the Rainbow Warrior and Beluga II have now been impounded, and both captains (including Mike Finken who you may remember from the recent Give Coal the Boot tour in the UK) have been taken for police questioning. As our international website says: "If only the Dutch government would deal with climate change so aggressively."

More as it happens - and keep up with the latest on our international website.