Preventing Deforestation in Indonesia

This is actual a sort of follow up article to one of my previous blogs on deforestation in Indonesia.  This article discussed how the country of Norway has dropped Asian palm oil firm in support of preventing deforestation.  The Palm Oil firm was one of the companies mentioned in my previous blog as being responsible for deforestation happening in countries such as Indonesia.   According to the article, Norway’s 710 billion sovereign wealth fund has pulled out of 23 Asian palm oil companies accusing them of deforestation even though the palm oil companies have denied this.  This is a big deal as this Norwegian fund is one of the world’s biggest investors.  Norway has thus far been the leading developed nation at helping to stop deforestation not just including this recent act.  Norway had originally been receiving criticism for preventing deforestation in some countries while buying products from other countries that endorse it, thus this move by them has received a lot of praise from many different green movements and organizations.  They do argue however that Norway should work toward pulling out of other sectors causing deforestation such as logging companies and oil and gas firms something else they are heavily invested in. 

This was a very good article in that it was a great follow up on how the deforestation in Indonesia is actually facing some opposition, not just from local firms but from large companies in prominent developed nations.  It is a positive sign that countries can choose to endorse or not endorse products if their production is under questionable conditions.  This article also is good in that It briefly mentions other companies  who are cracking down on Palm Oil.  These companies include the Anglo-Dutch consumer group Unilever Pic. and the Swiss group Nestle.  Not much is said about them since that is not the focus of the article but it was interesting to read.  Also another good thing about this article was that although it praised Norway it pointed out that there was still plenty of problems associated with trying to stop deforestation.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/08/norway-forests-idUSL6N0C05AX20130308

3//8/13 12:33 PM