Jul
6
Written by:
StoryoftheDay
06/07/2011 14:16
German campaign group Rettet Den Regenvald have reported that Herakles Capital was planning a 72,000 hectare palm oil plantation in the rainforest of Cameroon. It argued that: "the forest and the animal and plant species living there would be destroyed forever. The people would also lose their land and livelihoods. ."
The company on its website has claimed that: "Herakles Farms is a member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (“RSPO”). As part of its commitment to social responsibility, Herakles Farms has agreed to subsidize up to 1 million oil palm trees on behalf of the nonprofit, All for Africa, for its Palm Out Poverty Initiative. The trees will be used to fund key social programs throughout the African continent (see www.allforafrica.org for more info)."
Find out more about palm oil and visit our palm oil free list in the positive buying section of this site.
On July 9th we received an email from Siew Peier, Membership Manager at the RSPO Secretariat stating:
"Herakles Farm - is NOT a member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. We do not have such name in our system or have received any membership application form from this company as at today. "
On July 14th we received an email from Delilah Rothenberg at Herakles Farms as follows:
In fact, the subsidiary of Herakles Farms that owns the plantations, SG Sustainable Oils, is a member of RSPO, as is evidenced on the RSPO
website: http://www.rspo.org/?q=om/264. You may compare the company addresses to confirm this. We are clarifying the discrepancy with RSPO.