12 December 2019

POSCO International acquired the palm oil plantation company, PT. BIA in 2011 and became the controlling owner of PT. BIA. With 34,195 hectares of concession area and a CPO mill, in addition to another CPO mill in construction, PT. BIA’s operations have caused adverse impacts on forest, river and the indigenous people for whom the forest and river are a part of their livelihood.

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Throughout PT. BIA’s development of the plantation, FPIC was not implemented. For example, for the acquisition of right to use in district A, PT. BIA failed to identify the concerned people. It has been alleged that the compensation was paid to the wrong party who did not have customary ownership of the land in question. Consent was neither given collectively by the communities in accordance with their customs and traditions, which is against the FPIC. It was also reported that the indigenous people did not fully understand the implication of the transfer of the land use rights for the concession area, which shows that it was not “informed” consent. It is thus clear that PT. BIA did not implement FPIC for the land acquisition during the development of the plantation.

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Following the development of the PT BIA plantations, local residents can no longer drink the water or use it for daily use. It has also been reported that the river has become murky, and deformed and dead fish have been found. ...In addition, local residents have not been provided any information regarding water issues from the company. In this sense, the degradation of the Bian River water quality and the failure to communicate information to the affected people about the water impacts amount to a violation of the right to water.