Founded in 1980, WALHI has been a member of the Friends of the Earth International network since 1989. The organization consists of more than 500 local NGOs spread across Indonesia. Among other things, they are committed to indigenous rights, women's rights and the protection of nature, coast and sea. They are also suing major (international) emitters of greenhouse gases.
Translated article from Friends of the Earth:
In recent decades, major buyers (EU, US, China and Japan) have preyed mainly on palm oil, wood, gold and coal. Ironically enough, a building block of the energy transition is relatively new in the top ten headaches of the Indonesian environmental movement: nickel.
The Indonesian soil is full of it. The whole world is clamoring for the rare metal, as it is indispensable in making rechargeable batteries. In order to extract nickel ore, the entire top layer of soil and everything living on it must be scraped off. Forests, communities, ecosystems and fertile soil must give way. The processing then costs a lot of (fossil) energy and causes enormous water and air pollution.
So there is plenty to do for environmental organizations in Indonesia. The Indonesian Environmental Forum, abbreviated as WALHI in Indonesian, is the oldest and largest organization in the archipelago. Fun fact: At 41, Zenzi Suhadi is the first director who is younger than the organization itself. He is proud of his predecessors and WALHI's achievements over the past decades. For example, the organization has successfully challenged expropriations by large companies: thanks to WALHI, more than one million hectares of forest are now managed by local communities so that it is not cut down. Unfortunately, there is still much work to be done. “Sometimes it seems like Indonesia, Europe and China are having a demolition competition: who can destroy the most of our land and our communities?” We speak to Suhadi and his colleague Agus Dwi Hastutik at the environmental defense office in Amsterdam.
We need robust legislation to hold companies legally responsible for their entire supply chain,” Agus says. “At the moment there are only voluntary guidelines. If you as a company are responsible for the polluting and destructive aspects of your production chain, practices such as growing palm oil and mining nickel become less profitable. And if a link in your production process is illegal, you as a company are also punishable. This makes the exploitation of people and nature a lot less interesting. We advocate for that, also at the European Parliament in Brussels.”
It cannot be the case, argues Agus, that a so-called green transition is taking place in Europe, at the expense of Indonesia's forests, waters, corals and communities. “Destroying nature and the quality of life in Indonesia is not on the balance sheet of the companies, but they do collect the profit. Companies from the EU are also responsible for the indirect costs they cause in Indonesia.” The demand for raw materials such as nickel continues to rise. “But that means an increase in deforestation, land expropriation and pollution in Indonesia. And the local communities don't benefit at all,” according to Agus.
“We call all forms of exhausting economic activity horizontal. Consider, for example, palm oil plantations or nickel mines: if you want to produce more, you always need more land. From an environmental point of view, horizontal growth is inherently bad, there is no way to increase yields without destroying more. This form of growth is also unjust: the benefits do not reach the communities whose land and ecosystems are being destroyed. Moreover, the indirect consequences on nature and the economy are not included. Downstream, fishermen are out of work because the water is too polluted. Tourism will also decline. If you look at the whole picture, these practices are simply not profitable.”
