Papua, Indonesia, has the country’s largest area of previously untouched rainforest. More than 300 indigenous tribes live there, including some that have had little contact with global civilization. But the number of palm oil plantations in Papua has grown more than fourfold in the past decade, to the detriment of forests and people.
An environmental group called Mighty released an investigation into one of Papua’s palm oil producers, the Korean-owned company Korindo, on Sept. 1. The allegations against Korindo have all the hallmarks of the rogue palm oil industry: It has flouted environmental and human rights standards—even illegally burning large swaths of rainforest—and gotten away with it largely due to government corruption.
Yet two of Korindo’s major customers stopped buying from it as a result of the investigation, a hopeful sign of change in the industry.
