In late 2023, London-based investigative journalism organization, The Gecko Project, published “Chasing Shadows,” a report that strengthened civil society efforts to keep private sector actors tied to a high risk of tropical deforestation accountable. The investigation was carried out under a Mongabay project that also was part of a reporting collaboration coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, involving a team from 28 countries.
Building on long-standing expertise, networks and reporting in Indonesia, the investigation and follow-up articles demonstrably contributed to much-needed transparency in the sustainable palm oil sector. It exposed how one of the world’s largest palm oil producers had presented itself as a sustainable company while simultaneously managing entire ‘shadow’ groups of companies with opaque ownership structures that have collectively cleared more rainforest than any other company for palm oil in the past half-decade.
Oil palm plantation in Indonesia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.
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As part of the investigation, 22 consumer goods firms and commodities traders who source palm oil from this producer received media inquiries that highlighted their exposure to this problem. As part of an external evaluation completed in mid-2024 on Mongabay’s tropical deforestation coverage, evaluators confirmed that a growing list of those firms had begun investigations and/or suspended purchases.
The evaluators also spoke to representatives of two organizations that have been centrally involved in the fight against shadow companies: Gemma Tillack, Forest Policy Director of the Rainforest Action Network, and Angus MacInnes from the Forest Peoples Programme. Both stressed the high quality and thoroughness of the reporting on an issue that is often seen as “too complex to cover” by regular media outlets, according to Tillack.
MacInnes explained that while the problem of shadow companies was known in other parts of Indonesia, the investigation added energy and impetus to move an ongoing complaint against the producer forward at the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). Filed in 2021, it had been languishing with the complaints panel, which is notoriously slow. The timing of the publication just before RSPO’s annual meeting “definitely caused a big splash,” MacInnes said.
Suddenly, the complaint that had been stalled for years moved forward and RSPO contracted an independent investigator, and the investigation is ongoing. MacInnes was also aware of the producer’s reaction: “They have now hired consultants to clean up their image because they obviously got lots of questions from buyers – that’s a sign that this reporting was particularly effective.”
Its success has since inspired other local human rights organizations in Indonesia to employ a similar strategy of letter-writing: “A colleague of mine in West-Kalimantan has just done it effectively with another subsidiary…” MacInnes said.
Tillack also confirmed that the investigation was “critical” in terms of exposing how the producer was using shadow companies to continue destroying Indonesian rainforests for new palm oil plantations. “It is also contributing to CSOs efforts to create new precedents for community users and producers to take a corporate group approach to implementing NDPE (“No Deforestation, No Peat and No Exploitation”) policies,” she said.
Bornean orangutan in Central Kalimantan. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.
More broadly, the investigation helped push for transparency policies globally. Tillack told evaluators that it has been very helpful to their efforts in pushing for increased transparency in disclosure of the extent of corporate agribusiness groups in Southeast Asia. It helped elevate the importance of transparent reporting by major commodity users on how they are responding to non-compliance in their supply chains, or by corporate groups that they do business with, she explained. Similarly, for MacInnes, the investigation provides “another body of evidence that we use to hammer home this idea that we can’t keep on allowing these secret jurisdictions to hide information, because it’s impacting the planet environmentally and socially,” he said. “The journalists involved are also bringing their expertise to a wider coalition that pushes for the adoption of the methodology of how to establish what a corporate group is, to create stronger policies on how to define common control, and things like that.”
According to the evaluators, the investigation is a “striking example of the value of investigative journalistic work and how it builds on and contributes further to civil society efforts to clean up supply chains.” In addition to providing the resources needed to do the investigation, Mongabay provided the publishing platform to draw much needed public attention to the issue.
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Banner image: Deforestation in East Kalimantan for oil palm plantations. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.
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