Korean palm oil company stripped of status by the FSC

The Forest Stewardship Council has found evidence that the Korindo group has been setting fire to areas of rainforest in Papau in Indonesia. This violates the standards that the FSC has in regard to sustaining the rainforests globally.

At the end of 2020, the FSC found evidence that the company had been deliberately setting fires to clear areas of the forest for their palm oil production. 30,000 hectares of high conservation forest had been cleared.

Initially the FSC worked alongside the Korindo group to tackle this issue, focusing on the social and environmental problems it causes. However, the FSC has now decided that the group are not reacting quickly enough to their guidance so have stripped them of their FSC trademark from October.

The FSC have stated that this will give the group the time to consider its current ineffectiveness in regard to social and environmental sustainability, whilst the group itself is shocked that this has happened as they were working towards the improvements that the FSC had set.

For more on this news story, read the full article on BBC news.