CPO production

CPO production

13 % reduction

GHG emissions

– fuel & fertiliser

on site

from 2016

deliveRing un Sdgs:

S u S tA i n A b i l i t y RepoRt

Continuing innovative Community ConSeRvation paRtneRShipS (103-1, 103-2, 103-3, 304-1) Our most recent materiality assessment indicates that stakeholders continue to view forest conservation as well as fire and haze as material issues. At GAR we have been focussing intensively on these areas for many years and we believe that with our combination of innovative community partnerships and collaboration, we are starting to see progress in practical and effective conservation. Our initiatives in forest protection, biodiversity conservation as well as our efforts to minimise land degradation contribute to the goals of UN SDG 15 – Life on Land.

Defining conservation areas on paper is only the first step; ensuring they are properly protected on the ground requires

a workable model of collaboration and partnership with local communities and other key stakeholders such as local government. Without this, areas set aside for conservation remain prone to encroachment by parties who frequently regard the area as unoccupied land.

We have been working on conservation partnerships since 2015, when we began collaborating with local communities to formally map their villages through Participatory Mapping. We help the villages map out critical areas such as customary boundaries and land necessary for food security. This map is then lodged with and formally recognised by the authorities, serving amongst other things to clarify land tenure rights and enabling villages to gain access to government development funds for the first time.

The mapping lays the foundation for further dialogue on conservation through our Participatory Conservation Planning process. Our intensive consultative approach takes into account local community concerns, needs and aspirations including food security requirements and continued ability to earn a decent living and maintain stable quality of life.

We have rolled out mapping in over 80 villages across our concessions to date, and secured agreement with local communities in 13 villages to set aside over 7,700 hectares of High Carbon Stock (HCS) forests for conservation. This is in addition to the 72,000 hectares of conservation area in our concessions (approximately the size of Singapore), consisting of HCS forests and HCV.

Following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), we work with the villages and the local authorities to get the agreement recognised as part of Village Regulation, to ensure that the MoU has official standing and recognition.

In tandem with these efforts, we have initiated development programmes for the local communities which participate in the conservation partnership. Integrated Ecological Farming projects have been launched in 11 villages in West Kalimantan and Central Kalimantan. These aim to help the local community achieve food self-sufficiency, earn extra income as well as raise awareness about alternative farming methods without the use of fire.

Each participating family can save up to IDR300,000 per month through planting and harvesting their own vegetables. In addition, they receive about IDR500,000 per month from selling the surplus produce to surrounding villages.

We have also used this model of community partnership in our efforts to rehabilitate 2,600 hectares of degraded peatland in the PT Agro Lestari Mandiri (AMNL) concession in West Kalimantan. This project was launched at the end of 2015. To date, we have progressed with replanting over 100 hectares of buffer zone as well as the rewetting of the entire peat area. We are also working with the Tanjungpura University in Pontianak on a peat management study which focusses on peat mapping and hydrology of the area.

long-teRm fiRe pRevention (103-2, 103-3, 304-3) We remain vigilant on fire prevention and in 2017 as in 2016, we had virtually zero fires in our area (less than 0.01%

of total area affected by fires) 1 , due to strict adherence to our Zero Burning Policy. We continue to publish weekly reports on fire in or around our areas on our Sustainability Dashboard .

Meanwhile, we continued our long-term community collaboration on fire prevention with 17 local villages in 2017, through the Desa Makmur Peduli Api (DMPA) programme in Ketapang, Kalimantan and Jambi, Sumatra. The DMPA programme has generally helped to reduce hotspots and firespots since it was launched in 2016 as seen in the table below.

enViRonmentAl mAnAgement

desa makmur peduli api (dmpa) programme

all dmpa villages

jambi ketapang

hotspots

firespots

hotspots firespots hotspots firespots 2017

1 The majority of fires were started by external parties preparing land for farming