Europe/UK

 

 

Down to Earth No.85-86, August 2010

What is the coal relationship between Indonesia and the UK? How are ordinary people connected - from consumers and shareholders in the UK to communities suffering the impacts of coal-mining in Indonesia? This article is the result of some initial investigations into those links.

By Carolyn Marr, DTE

Down to Earth No.85-86, August 2010

The following is extracted from a special report by Roger Moody of Nostromo Research, for Mines and Communities, on social, environmental and economic aspects of global coal dependency - with specific reference to Indonesia and India. Read the full report.

Down to Earth No.85-86, August 2010

The case of Rio Tinto, BP, the Bakrie Brothers and Kaltim Prima Coal.

By Andrew Hickman, DTE

It is a sad fact that more than 10 years after the fall of Suharto and the establishment of democratic rule in Indonesia corruption, collusions and nepotism, known in Indonesian as KKN - remain key problems and challenges faced by Indonesia today.

DTE Update, May 2010

In Indonesia, oil palm plantations are associated with poverty, human rights abuses, the takeover of indigenous territory, forest and peatland destruction, biodiversity collapse and high levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Plantation expansion is being driven partly by the rising demand for agrofuels from the EU and other countries.

This update provides information on what is happening at the European end of the agrofuels story.

This video clip is of DTE's Andrew Hickman raising questions about corruption and the Kaltim Prima mine, formerly part-owned by Rio Tinto, at the company's London AGM in 2010.


Down to Earth No.84, March 2010

There was a time when public debates around palm oil centred mainly on food ingredients and cosmetics. Today the focus of the debate has shifted to the use of palm oil for electricity and heat generation as well as for transport.


In the last couple of months the UK has seen a nation-wide wave of planning applications for agrofuels-based power stations. Two energy companies W4B Renewable Energy and Vo-gen, mention palm oil as fuel source in their applications, while others have not legally ruled it out.

Down to Earth No.82, September 2009

As Indonesia pushes ahead with plans for REDD, the World Bank and others are making ill-prepared agreements on funding projects in Indonesia.