SINGAPORE – Two Singapore-listed palm oil companies, Bumitama Agri and First Resources, have been linked to plantation areas in Indonesia where fires and smoke were detected, according to an investigation by environmental group Greenpeace.
Another privately held company, First Borneo Plantations, which has ownership links to Singapore-incorporated companies, was also named in the Oct 5 report.
The report identified plantation concessions associated with the three companies where fires and smoke were detected between August and September.
Mainboard-listed First Resources has disputed suggestions that the fires originated from its plantations, saying that some had started outside its concession boundaries before spreading into areas managed by the group.
A concession is an area of land that a company has been granted the right to use or develop, with the concession holder being the entity responsible for managing the land under the terms of the agreement.
In response to queries from The Straits Times on Oct 15, First Resources said the detection of hot spots or other satellite-based observations within or near a plantation concession does not “by itself establish the origin of a fire, responsibility for its occurrence, or any deliberate use of fire for land clearing by the concession holder”.
It said such conclusions require detailed investigations on the ground and an assessment of the circumstances surrounding each fire.
This includes examining when and where hot spots were first detected, as well as how subsequent fires spread over time.
“The presence of hot spots within a concession should not, in itself, be interpreted as an indication that the concession holder caused, initiated or condoned a fire,” it added.
First Resources also noted that while it detected hot spots near its plantation concessions in West Kalimantan, many were subsequently found to be outside its operating boundaries following verification.
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