Can Peru stop ‘ethical chocolate’ from destroying the Amazon?

[Judi Lynn]

Can Peru stop ‘ethical chocolate’ from destroying the Amazon?

NGOs allege illegal deforestation of primary rainforest to plant cacao and oil palm

David Hill
Friday 17 April 2015 19.38 EDT


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The Tamshiyacu plantation in northern Peru where it is alleged a United Cacao subsidiary illegally cleared primary
rainforest. Photograph: Environmental Investigation Agency
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Cattle-ranching, logging, mining, highways, hydroelectric dam projects, oil and gas, soy, oil palm. . . These are what first come to mind to many people when thinking about how the Amazon is being destroyed, but what about chocolate too?

NGO Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) released a report on 7 April mainly about monoculture oil palm plantations, which it describes as a “major new threat to Peruvian forests.” The report, Deforestation by Definition, focuses on the Romero Group, Peru’s “largest economic actor”, and what it calls the “Melka Group”, a network of 25 companies recently established in Peru and controlled by businessman Dennis Melka, a major player in the destructive oil palm industry in Malaysia.

According to EIA, two “Melka Group” companies have illegally deforested an estimated “nearly 7,000 hectares” of mainly primary rainforest in Peru over the last three years, and others have acquired at least 456 “rural properties” and requested the government set aside another 96,192 hectares.

The “nearly 7,000 hectares” consist of two plantations, at Tamshiyacu in northern Peru and Nueva Requena in south-east Peru, operated by Cacao del Peru Norte and Plantaciones de Ucayali respectively. EIA states that both the Ministry of Environment (MINAM) and Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation (MINAGRI) have taken legal action in an attempt to suspend operations at both plantations, that one regional government has issued fines of approximately US$650,000 for “violations”, that there are currently 14 “open legal investigations related to both companies”, and that the Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation told a Congressional commission in October that neither company had permission to deforest, which means that neither company had permission to sell the “more than 20,000 truckloads” of timber that EIA estimates has been extracted from both areas. According to the report:

Despite claims to investors, the Melka Group has repeatedly failed to abide by Peruvian environmental management laws and policies. . . In Tamshiyacu, Cacao del Peru Norte SAC began clearing forested land in June 2013 without submitting any of the required documents or obtaining any of the approvals necessary to carry out this deforestation. . . In his presentation to the Peruvian Congress, Minister [of Agriculture and Irrigation] Benites noted that regarding the deforestation after November 2012, the company did not even fulfil the requirements in the first step.

More:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/andes-to-the-amazon/2015/apr/17/can-peru-stop-ethical-chocolate-destroying-amazon

[msongs]

1. illegally destroyed forest lands should be confiscated and held by governments nt

[Judi Lynn]

2. Yes, you're right. No one should be able to profit from them. n/t