Michelin defends Indonesian natural rubber programme

Paris – Michelin Group has defended its natural rubber joint venture project in Royal Lestari Utama (RLU) in Jambi, Sumatra, amid allegations of covering up “industrial-scale deforestation.” 

“Michelin reaffirms its full confidence in the RLU Project and supports the high-quality initiatives and efforts undertaken on the ground over the past five years,” the tire maker said in a statement provided to ERJ. 

The French group said when it joined the project in 2015, large part of the land had already been “extensively deforested, devastated by fire or ravaged by illegal encroachers.”

The project, it said, had been specifically designed to address the “environmental disaster”.

“Over the past five years, major programmes have been deployed on the ground to find solutions to meet these challenges in all their social and environmental aspects,” the Clermon-Ferrand group said. 

Michelin stressed that it had sought advice from independent local and international NGOs from “the project's inception.”

The Michelin statement came in response to a 6 Oct report by US-based environmental group Mighty Earth, which claimed that it had evidence showing that some 2,590 hectares of rainforest was industrially deforested by subsidiaries of Michelin’s Indonesian JV partner over a 33-month period to January 2015.

The move, it alleged, was to make way for natural rubber plantations in the flagship rubber, wildlife and conservation-focused RLU Project.

Of this total, Mighty Earth said it found that just under 1,300 hectares of rainforest was industrially deforested in a 'wildlife conservation area', claiming that the area is now planted with “thousands of rubber trees under the RLU Project.”

The report titled “Complicit: An investigation into deforestation at Michelin’s Royal Lestari Utama Project in Sumatra, Indonesia,” stated that in April 2012, there were 3,966 hectares of “intact forest covering almost the entire case study area.”

By the time the RLU joint venture project began in January 2015, Mighty Earth said just 138 hectares of that forest remained. 

Mighty Earth said it was in talks with Michelin and RLU in Indonesia about its research since September 2019 and has requested several key social and environmental due diligence documents to be made publicly available. 

“The companies have repeatedly turned down Mighty Earth’s requests, despite the fact that public funds have been used to back the project,” it said.

In its statement to ERJ, Michelin said it would, in the interest of transparency, ask the Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber (GPSNR), of which Mighty Earth is a founding member, to investigate the matter and uncover the truth behind the allegations. 

The French group said it was committed to implementing any recommendations the panel may make. 

According to Michelin, RLU is a project to plant rubber trees and restore forests on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. 

It is being led by Royal Lestari Utama (RLU), a joint venture that Michelin set up in March 2015 with its majority partner, Indonesia-based Barito Pacific Group.