EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. Jakarta, 7 February 2014 PUPUNG FIRMAN NURWATHA RESIT SÖZER

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1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Review and Verification of PT Nabantindo Karya Utama of the Bumitama Agri Ltd. Compliance with the RSPO Principle 5-High Conservation Value (HCV) and Principle 7-New Planting Procedure (NPP) Jakarta, 7 February 2014 RESIT SÖZER PUPUNG FIRMAN NURWATHA

2 REVIEW AND VERIFICATION OF PT NABANTINDO KARYA UTAMA OF THE BUMITAMA AGRI LTD. COMPLIANCE WITH THE RSPO PRINCIPLE 5-HIGH CONSERVATION VALUE (HCV) AND PRINCIPLE 7-NEW PLANTING PROCEDURE (NPP) 1. Introduction On 11 March 2014, the Center for Orangutan Protection (COP), an NGO with the head office in Jakarta, Indonesia, filed a complaint against PT Nabantindo Karya Utama (PT NKU), an oil palm company in Central Kalimantan. The complaint against PT NKU was that: 1. PT NKU has cleared High Conservation Value (HCV) forests which happened to be orangutan habitats within their concession area. 2. PT NKU continued forest clearance activities in the full knowledge that there were Orangutans residing within the concession. 3. PT NKU has failed to make their High Conservation Value assessment available for inspection, in contravention of RSPO Criterion PT NKU failed to comply with Criterion 5.1 and 5.2 by failing to do an HCV assessment prior to land clearing. These complaints were processed by the RSPO Grievance Panel, and advised the holding company of PT NKU, i.e. Bumitama Agri Ltd., to carry out an independent audit to verify these complaints. Bumitama Agri Ltd. agreed to this, and as a result, a Service Agreement was made on 18 December 2013 between the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and Aksenta (PT Gagas Dinamiga Aksenta), to undertake a Review and Verification of PT Nabatindo Karya Utama of Bumitama Agri Ltd. 2. Objectives In order to facilitate the RSPO Complaint Panel s decision and ensure full compliance by PT NKU with RSPO Criteria 5.1 and 5.2 and 7.3, the RSPO shall appoint an independent HCV assessor to carry out the following task: 1. Determine the loss of HCV (including peat land) due to development activities on the concession area of the Company (PT NKU). 2. Whether the Company s activities have been compliant with the requirements of RSPO Principles and Criteria:

3 i. Criterion Aspects of plantation and mill management, including replanting, that have environmental impacts are identified, and plans to mitigate the negative impacts and promote the positive ones are made, implemented and monitored, to demonstrate continual improvement. ii. Criterion The status of rare, threatened or endangered species and other High Conservation Value habitats, if any, that exist in the plantation or that could be affected by plantation or mill management, shall be identified and operations managed to best ensure that they are maintained and/or enhanced. iii. Criterion New plantings since November 2005 have not replaced primary forest or any area required to maintain or enhance one or more High Conservation Values. 3. Review all documents including assessment reports, management plans and SOPs to ensure these documents are in compliance with RSPO Principles and Criteria and able to support the identification and management of HCV in the concessions. 4. Undertake assessment of land use change and determine whether any HCVs has been cleared based on satellite imagery and block management history. 5. Undertake a rapid assessment of the concession to identify potential HCV 1-4 sites still intact within the concessions; focusing on secondary forest areas functioning as Orangutan habitat. 6. Determine the HCV status of the forest located within the entire concessions including: i. Verifying the existence of secondary forest in the concession; and ii. Whether they have HCV potential and can support Orangutans; iii. Verify Orangutan presence in the concessions especially in relatively undisturbed areas, if any. 7. Verify whether company has an SOP on the managing the presence of Orangutans on its concession area. If there is an SOP, verify whether company has acted correctly according to its own SOP in rescuing and relocating the Orangutans. 8. Review HCV management capacity if HCV areas are identified. 9. Consult the complainant, COP, and verify the validity of the complaints submitted and other direct local stakeholders. 3. Methods To verify the complaint, three different approaches were used, namely: review of relevant documents and reports (11 documents), and maps (7 maps) and satellite images (3 images), interviews with local community, company staff, local government and NGOs (in total 36 people) and field surveys for ground truthing of maps, the presence of Orangutans and a rapid and general HCV assessment.

4 4. Results of the Verification Several important results of the verification are: 1. The area in and around PT NKU has been logged by PT Inhutani III up to Illegal logging was very intensive in this area between 2006 and According to the local community, Orangutans have not been present in this area since at least 15 years ago. A long time ago, the local community used to hunt and eat the Oragutans, and there were cases of Orangutan babies in captivity were reported from about 20 years ago. 4. COP could not provide any clear evidence of the presence of Orangutans in the PT NKU area between 2007 and The forest area of ca. 10,000 ha - which was the target of conservation effort by COP and where the COP research station had been constructed - consists of young regrowth, and was actually claimed by this local community leader and COP member (Mr Kristopel) based on the argument that he had operated illegal logging in this area in the past. We concluded that his objectives are related to compensation claims or other financial interests. 6. The same local community leader and COP member states that they have not seen any Orangutans near the COP research station since Two local hunters mentioned that they have not hunted any Orangutan in the PT NKU s concession in the last 20 year. 8. One of these hunters revealed that there are 5 to 6 Orangutans in the riparian buffer of the Bahandang River, a tributary of the Cempaga River, just south west to the PT NKU concession, outside the PT NKU s concession. 9. All eight knowledgeable company personnel interviewed claim that they never encountered any Orangutans in the area during clearing, although they occasionally found an Orangutan nest. 10. One Orangutan has been caught by a local hunter along the edge of the forest bordering the PT NKU concession to the north east (in 2008/2009), and this animal was subsequently rescued by the BOSF Nyaru Menteng/ BKSDA (Technical Unit Implementation of Directorate General of Forest Protection and Nature Conservation Ministry of Forestry) 11. The BKSDA has never received any other reports of Orangutan conflicts in this area. 12. On 7 April 2013 an HCV assessment was conducted in the PT NKU area, which resulted in the identification of a patch of secondary forest in the esatern part of the concession where Orangutans might still occur, and established an HCV area of ha for the conservation of Orangutans and other wildlife species. The Aksenta Team also found an Orangutan nest in this area, and a survey by BOSF in December 2013 concluded that probably there is at least one Orangutan left between Blocks S22-29, T22-27, U23-26 (the HCV area of PT NKU in the eastern part of the concesssion) and in the State Production Forest (Hutan Produksi) to the northeast of the concession.

5 13. The Aksenta Verification Team did not find any other areas with HCV values in the concession area of PT NKU. 14. The HCV assessment team of Sonokeling Consultancy, who conducted an HCV assessment in April 2013, states that there might be still one Orangutan left in the young regrowth fragments in the south-western part of the concession area and the Consultant has already recommended translocation. 15. One area in the extreme west of the concession (see small yellow circle on the left side on Figure 1) is suspected to harbor one Orangutan, based on interviews and field visit by the Aksenta Team. 16. PT Bumitama Gunajaya Agro legally (PT BGA) took over the PT NKU concession area on 29 April 2013, about 1.5 months after COP filed the complaint against BGA concerning the NKU area. 17. PT BGA did not do land clearing on the identified HCV areas, and the Company immediately stopped clearing after being protested by the COP. The COP reacted with the cancellation of a petition which ran against PT BGA. 5. Conclusion From the Results of the Verification above, and other findings during the verification, the Aksenta Team found that: - the COP cannot provide any concrete evidence to back up its complaints; - a thorough study of documents, a series of in-depth interviews, and several field surveys by the Aksenta Team have not revealed any evidence to verify the complaints by COP; - a retrospective assessment by Aksenta revealed that the area did not harbour a healthy population of Orangutans since at least 2007, and that there is no suitable habitat for Orangutans within the PT NKU license area, except for the HCV area in the eastern part. - Therefore it is concluded that none of the four complaints against PT NKU by COP are valid. 6. Recommendations In order to be fully compliant with the RSPO s Principles and Criteria and New Planting Procedures (NPP) with regard to the complaints, the company should follow-up on the actions below: a) Prepare a HCV Management Plan, Action Plan and Monitoring Plan. b) Execute other necessary measures to comply with the NPP. c) Carefully survey the areas covered with natural vegetation within its plantation area for contingent Orangutans, and take necessary actions according to the companies Working

6 Instruction no. BGA/WNA-LNK/IK-30/01/2013 entitled Human-Orangutan Conflict Mitigation in the Area of PT WNA and Surroundings (Penanggulangan Konflik antara Manusia dan Orangutan pada Areal HGU PT. WNA & Sekitarnya). These surveys should focus on the uncleared areas in blocks H, I, J and K, and the western part of the lisence area, including the forest patch at coordinate S E (Figure 1). d) Enlarge the riparian buffer zones for the purpose of future wildlife (including Orangutan) corridor to connect areas outside the Companies license area. We recommend the minimum width of the riparian buffer for this purpose to be at least 100m on each side of the rivers.

7 Figure 1. Map of vegetation cover in around the PT NKU area, with suspected Orangutan distribution within the PT NKU location license area, and cadastral license area.