INDONESIA -
PULP FRICTION
July 2002 – 42 mins
00:02
Sumatra. In the area surrounding the rivers Siak and Kampar locals suffer from skin diseases. The children are most affected. The itching is unbearable and leaves them no peace.
00:17
The reason for this is the highly toxic waste water, which is polluted with chlorine compounds that huge pulp and paper factories dispose of into the rivers unfiltered.
00:33
They produce pure white, tear resistant pulp - the raw material for paper - cheaper than any competitor.
00:46
As the plantations can’t supply enough wood for the hungry factory mills, vast areas of rain forest are cut down.
00:58
For more than a decade now people have been protesting against the expansion of the pulp and paper industry. But the Indonesian state is backing industrialization without any regard for the costs. The European governments, which act as guarantors for the investments, don’t listen to the protestors. Instead they continue to grant loans.
01:14
O-Ton runterziehen
01:23
The factories are taking on gigantic proportions and are destroying the environment and the very basis on which the people here exist.
01:31
But none of this counts, when it comes to making cheap white paper.
Title
PULPING THE PEOPLE – Pulp production in Indonesia
An Inge Altemeier and Reinhard Hornung Film
01:58
The river is the source of life. Many villages in the river and swamp landscapes of Sumatra, as here in the south-eastern province of Riau, are accessible only by boat. The locals depend on the river water. It is the only source of water they have. They not only wash and bathe in it, they drink from it. Through the isolation of these villages even the youngest soon learn how important the river is for their life here. It provides everything they need to live.
02:32
These tropical waters were once full of fish and shrimp.
02:40
But the balance of life and nature has been threatened for some time now, the harmony destroyed.
Since pulp and paper factories were built here ten years ago, the people have been suffering from serious skin illnesses. Especially those who live near the factories.
02:59
The children are particularly affected. No doctor can cure them.
03:10
O-Ton Frau:
“The itchy skin rash just keeps coming back. Then I buy water from the shops and wash my child with it. It helps it a bit, but I can’t afford to keep buying water, it’s just too expensive.”
03:21
Englischen O-Ton stehen lassen
03:30
„Yes I have. He says it’s from the river water. He gave me a syrup and a skin cream. But it doesn’t do much.”
03:41
The adults also suffer from these skin illnesses. The factory owners sent them to see a doctor. He couldn’t help them. There is no permanent cure.
This woman tells us that the owners of the factory know only too well that the water is causing the illnesses.
03:57
O-Ton: Frau
„In the day time the factory collects the waste water, but at night when everybody is asleep, they let it into the river. Once a week there is a terrible stench here. It’s the water we use to wash in the morning.”
04:18
And this is the waste water the woman is talking about. Only two thirds of it is filtered and redirected into the factory’s production cycle. This stinking sludge contains dangerous toxins such as dioxin and other chlorine-organic compounds.
The waste water stems mainly from the bleaching process.
04:37
The RAPP factory produces about 900.000 tons of pulp a year – using technologies of the 1980s. Chlorine dioxide is used for bleaching. The operators do not want to invest in modern technologies which prevent the release of toxins into the environment. Anyway, in Sumatra permissions to run ecologically dangerous factories are easily granted.
05:01
For the chief engineer the pollution of the water is not a problem. He disputes that it is polluted and as for the smell, we must be imagining it. He says he can’t smell anything.
05:19
O-Töne stehen lassen
05:44
Nobody shows us the illegal waste water outlets. Instead we are given a tour of the computer operated control center, equipped with the latest European hi-tech. This machinery has been bought on loans, secured by taxpayer’s money from Sweden, Finland and Germany. Without these export credit guarantees this factory would not exist.
06:09
The end product is white, tear resistant pulp. For it to be so white and still so cheap, chlorine dioxide is used to bleach it.
It is then called ECF pulp.
06:23
ECF stands for Elementary Chlorine Free. A label which sounds good and conveniently disguises the fact that it is bleached with chlorine dioxide.
Large Scandinavian companies such as the Finnish paper giant UPM Kymmene buy the pulp and turn it into paper.
06:45
That’s how pulp from Indonesia enters the European market. Consumers have no idea that the raw material for their cheap photocopying paper is this environmentally disastrous pulp from Sumatra. And the large trading companies look the other way. They fill their warehouses with it, as long as the price is right.
And anyway this photocopying paper has the ECF label and tear-resistant, bright white paper is the preferred choice in offices the world over.
07:23
Vast amounts of paper run through the printing presses of companies such as Systemex in Hamburg. Office and computer forms are produced here. A reduction of our immense paper consumption is nowhere in sight.
07:39
O-Ton: Uwe Lehmann (Systemex)
„There used to be this slogan of the „paperless office“. But that concept has long become absurd. We use more paper today than ever before and that’s because people still trust paper more than their hard drive.”
08:06
We still like to see things in black and white on paper. Who would pay a bill sent only by E-mail? Half of all the forms that Systemex produces are made from ECF pulp.
08:23
O-Ton: Uwe Lehmann
„ECF paper is simply cheaper, and wherever the standards are not so extreme, ECF paper is used.”
08:35
By extreme standards, he means the environmental standards for production. Anyone asking for totally chlorine-free paper will get it. It is known as TCF.
08:46
O-Ton: Uwe Lehmann
„In the German market and particularly here in the north people demand TCF. Totally Chlorine Free – is the only paper our customers ask for.”
08:58
Large paper factories use TCF pulp for their paper production. Germany’s biggest paper manufacturer Haindl for example has been using TCF paper since the early ‘90s. The chlorine free bleached pulp comes from Scandinavia and Germany. Although it’s more expensive, the demand is rising
09:22
O-Ton: Hr. Oberessel Haindl Papierfabrik
„If you look at the entire European paper production for newspapers and particularly for magazines, then there is still too little TCF paper on the market.”
09:32
Haindl supplies Newsweek and the German SPIEGEL. Their readers don’t want a magazine that is printed on toxic bleached paper. Environmental NGOs have exerted pressure that the largest paper consumers do not buy ECF paper.
09:49
The German publisher Gruner & Jahr, one of Europe’s biggest publishing houses uses only TCF paper. The company buys it’s paper mainly from Haindl and some other Scandinavian TCF paper producers. The printing shop has had good experiences in the last 10 years with TCF paper.
10:12
Even their high end glossy travel magazines such as GEO were able to maintain their excellent picture quality on eco-paper. Environmental awareness is part of the positive image of the company.
10:29
O-Ton: Frau Dr. Maria Hofacker Gruner+Jahr
„We have been using TCF-paper since 1993. That means that the paper we use, is made of pulp that is bleached 100 per cent chlorine free.”
10:45
This trend has not caught with the German export credit agency Hermes. It provides financial guarantees for the machines delivered and the investments made.
10:56
Germany has been supporting these ECF pulp factories.
Lorenz Schomerus was the state secretary responsible until 2000 for checking the government guarantees.
11:10
O-Ton: Schomerus BMWI
„You can rest assured that the careful consideration of the project before the loans were granted also included questions concerning the world paper market. And I can assure you that this was done in a professional way.”
11:31
An example of this professional examination is the Indah Kiat pulp and paper factory in Sumatra. It could not sell its ECF pulp due to a lack of demand. At the end of the year 2000, its parent company Asia Pulp & Paper was bankrupt. Hermes now faces a first claim of 12,7 Million US Dollars. But thanks to international export credit loans the factory can continue to operate.
12:03
And on top of that in recent years the factory has been able to increase its pulp production to over 3 million tons a year. In Europe a factory of such proportions would be unimaginable. Particularly as it lies by a river which provides people with drinking water.
12:22
Medical professor Trabani Rab from the town of Pekanbaru has been monitoring Indah Kiat’s impact on the environment for years.
12:31
We travel with him to the villages surrounding the factory. The people here depend on the river water.
12:43
During this two day visit he diagnoses over 500 cases of serious skin illnesses.
12:51
O-Ton
12:56
The professor can merely confirm that the illness is caused by the river water. He prescribes a cream to reduce the itchiness. Apart from that he feels helpless. The only way to cure the illness would be to stop using the river water, or to move away.
13:15
O Ton: Professor Trabani Rab
13:48
But the waste water that is illegally disposed of here at night, is not only a threat to the people, the entire eco-system has also collapsed.
14:04
In the Sungai Siak river the fish are dying.
14:15
This in turn is endangering the existence of the fishermen. Before the pulp factories came here, people could live well from fishing, but now there’s not even enough for their personal needs.
14:31
O-Ton: Professor Trabani Rab
15:22
O-Ton: Fischer Tasjudin
“This all comes from the river water, when it’s cloudy, we see dead fish. Indah Kiat is ruining our lives. But what am I to do? This is my home, I have to live here.”
15:32
Tasjudin shows us his garden. Since Indah Kiat has been polluting the environment here, there are no more coconuts on the trees and fruits rot before they are ripe. The fruits are smaller and have black spots in the flesh, they taste sour and are
inedible. Tasjudin is ruined.
15:53
Indah Kiat has increased its production five-fold in the last ten years. This was only possible thanks to the support of the European Export Credit Agencies. 270 Million Dollars came from Germany alone. None of the European governments have thought of expanding the waste water filtering system in accordance with the factory’s growth.
16:17
Two years later we visit the river again. At the outlet pipe where Indah Kiat lets its waste water into the river, we take a water sample.
16:30
As it is impossible to have the samples analyzed by an independent laboratory here, we send them to Germany to a water purification plant in Düsseldorf.
16:46
O-Ton Laborantin
“Hello, we have a parcel here from Indonesia. Samples we’re supposed to test for AOX.”
16:54
For the laboratory in Germany the analysis of industrial waste water is routine work.
Waste water from German industries is regularly analyzed. Every water purification plant has the necessary technical equipment to test AOX levels. AOX refers to the concentration of toxins in industrial waste water. In Germany no more than 0,1 mg of AOX per liter is allowed in industrial waste water. In drinking water the maximum legal level is 0,06 mg of AOX per liter.
17:31
The analysis of the samples from Indonesia gives us shocking results. 7,8 mg of AOX per liter are found in the water. Nearly 80 times more than the German limit.
17:46
O-Ton Dr. Marlene Robecke Klärwerke Düsseldorf
„There are often very dangerous substances behind AOX, which are quite difficult to show toxicologically. For example the well known Polychlorids and Dibenzodioxines.“
18:07
The Sungai Siak river has become a sewer. Even the Indah Kiat factory operators have in the meantime admitted that the river is polluted and have installed a groundwater pump in the neighborhood. But by now even the ground water is contaminated. The pump only brings stinking, unusable water to the surface. And this water, the man tells us, is what we are meant to drink. During the dry period the pump supplies no water at all and the people depend on the river again. The situation seems hopeless. The pulp factory has ruined the basis of life in these villages.
18:48
O-Ton Bauer
„Because there is no fish for us to sell anymore, we have no choice but to deliver wood to the paper factory. Sometimes we steal wood to then sell it to Indah Kiat.”
19:06
The pulp factory buys all the wood it can get. Because the hungry pulp mills need a steady supply. When the factory was expanded it was obviously overlooked that there are no plantations to deliver the necessary raw material. Now instead they are using wood from the rainforest.
19:31
Day and night heavy trucks transport lumber on Sumatra’s roads. They have to drive further and further to get to the forest. The areas where there is still wood are becoming smaller all the time. Thousands of square kilometers of rainforest have already been destroyed in Sumatra. Not only Indah Kiat, but also three other large pulp producers get their raw material here. Since the production started 13 years ago an area of forest almost twice the size of Washington State has fallen victim to the chain saws. And every six months an area almost the size of Chicago is added.
20:17
In their hunger for wood these factories don’t even stop short of cutting down protected rainforests. The workers are paid to chop down these giants of the rainforest -- not to protect them. International agreements are of no interest to anyone here.
Many trees are logged illegally and Indah Kiat has even been convicted by court. But the fines are ridiculous and can not stop these almighty corporations. And so another part of forest that is so vital for our global climate perishes.
20:56
What remains is dried out, barren waste land. The rainforest landscape turns to dust. The erosion is so strong that the rainforest will never grow back again. The attempt of the pulp producers to grow acacia plantations and thereby secure the wood supply, has failed. Already, after the first harvest the mono-culture has stopped growing.
21:20
What’s left is only dead land.
21:30
A disaster against which the Indonesian environmental protection groups are powerless. They can merely document the extent of the destruction.
21:40
O-Ton: Fery Irawan (Umweltschutzgruppe Walhi Jambi)
„We have noticed that they are increasingly logging in the national parks. But the pulp factories don’t do it themselves, they encourage others to do it for them. People do it out of desperation. So the factories get the wood in a way that nobody can prove that they are responsible for the illegal logging.”
22:10
This industrialization at any costs is also ruining the natural habitat of the indigenous people of Sumatra. The factories and the loggers are getting closer and closer to their last refuges.
22:23
So far they have lived from collecting rubber and bamboo, but now their baskets are empty. It is easy for the large corporations to drive the indigenous people such as the Kubu in southern Sumatra away. They know only collective land ownership and have no documents to prove that the land on which they live belongs to them.
23:00
O-Ton: Dorfältester Kubu
„They are constantly stealing our land. We have lost everything. They have just cut down our whole forest with all the rubber trees and bamboo. But what are we to do against these mighty people, we are powerless.”
23:18
Only few Kubus have stayed in their native territories. Others are retreating further and further into the forest. We travel by boat for hours. And everywhere we come across signs of destruction. Even here in the island’s interior the forest is being logged and burnt down to get raw material for the pulp factories. There are no signs of intact rainforests left. Nothing gets in the way of the corporations.
24:00
In the hope of still finding forests with animals to hunt and fruit to collect many Kubus moved into the island’s interior. Where once the thick forests served as protection against intruders. The attempt of the Kubus to save themselves and their traditional way of life has failed. They don’t know enough about farming and raising cattle and
there is nobody to show them how to grow vegetables. Apart from a few chickens and potatoes they have nothing to survive on.
24:32
As age old tradition dictates, the older Kubus show the young how to hunt. But it is a farce, as for months they have not killed anything. The young Kubu will never be able to hunt for animals, the forest is dead. The corporations have for ever destroyed the living space of the Kubu.
24:52
O-Ton Kubu:
“Paper? What is it for? I don’t know!
25:06
The ministerial officials in Europe appear to have no interest at all in the fate of the indigenous people in Indonesia. For them the only thing that counts is industrial development.
25:21
O-Ton: Lorenz Schomerus BMWI
„It can not be right that the economic development of a country that desperately needs jobs and income, is held up, only because a project causes certain hardships, that must be tolerated.”
25:50
And this is what the hardships looks like.
25:56
The children are ill and the rivers are polluted.
26:12
The air is full of fumes from the pulp factory.
26:16
The future of these people is uncertain.
In the villages nothing is as it used to be. But the hunger of the pulp mills for land is insatiable. Only a few environmentalists are trying to stop the expansion of the factories.
26:35
O-Ton: NGO Activist
“You must get ownership documents and even if they offer you money, don’t sell your land. What’s money in the bank, that is worth less every day, against the land of which you live?”
26:58
The people who live along the rivers on which the factories have settled have had bitter experiences. Often their land was simply taken away from them without any regard for their rights. The international corporations such as APP and APRIL are only interested in Sumatra as an investment that produces quick money.
27:18
An example: The expansion of RAPP in Riau, south-east Sumatra. Whole villages were depopulated and their inhabitants driven away. Only few of them received compensation.
27:30
These farmers show us over 42.000 acres of land on the map which the RAPP has appropriated and on which they have built the access road to their factory. Three villages have lost valuable farming land this way. Even now, the pulp company claims the land was not populated.
27:59
O-Ton: Dorfbewohner
„They don’t care what happens to us, they don’t even keep to the law!
Our rights don’t interest anybody. The RAPP has lots of money, these people aren’t from here, they’ve been negotiating with us for a long time now, but so far I haven’t seen any money. When we protested and tried to overthrow the containers on the building site, they sent in the military. What are we to do against such mighty people from abroad. Many people have given up out of fear. Not me! I won’t give in for a little bit of money, even if I’m the only one.“
28:43
The legal situation is clear. A document of the sultans who used to reign the province of Riau proves: the land belongs to the farmers. The Indonesian officials are not interested in that. They’re on the side of the factory owners.
29:09
Again and again the government officials use the army to enforce the interests of the international corporations. Even since the fall of the dictator Suharto that hasn’t changed. The response to protests comes from the military.
29:30
Many of the generals trained in Europe are in on the dirty business of white paper. Just like Suharto’s clan they are part owners of the pulp factories.
29:51
Freedom and justice for the farmers. “Stop PT. TEL”, the locals protest in front of the newest paper factory in south Sumatra. Under the eyes of international experts
they have been campaigning for ten years against the building of this factory. 195 families have sued the factory because the farmers want their land back. Unfortunately, they have no chance of success.
30:17
Because, for the local operators and international corporations there is no land conflict. They simply deny that demonstrations such as this one have ever taken place. They claim the land was unused and state owned. And therefore the people have no reason at all to demonstrate.
30:42
The military, they claim, is merely there to protect the factory against theft. As a kind of factory police so to speak.
30:55
The PT. TEL pulp factory was built with international money. The construction of the factory is an example of Euro-Indonesian cooperation. The foundation was laid by the German Klöckner-Werke in 1996. The German Federal Ministry of Commerce granted a loan of more than 180 Million Dollars.
31:25
Experts came from Germany, Canada and Australia, the workers from all over Indonesia. Only the inhabitants of the region were left out.
31:38
Apart from German companies, Finnish and Swedish corporations are involved in the project. The machines they supplied were also guaranteed by governmental export credits. And as usual, the family of the former Indonesian dictator Suharto was involved in the project. In this case it was his daughter Tuto. But that did not irritate the international guarantors, nor the German Klöckner- Werke.
32:04
Meanwhile, Klöckner in Germany no longer feel responsible for the project. An interview they agreed to give, has been withdrawn. For them the project is completed.
32:17
The state-owned ‘credit agency for reconstruction’ KFW in Frankfurt is involved in the PT. Tel factory with a 140 Million Dollar credit. A spokesperson justifies the granted loan:
32:33
O-Ton: Herr Heinrich Heims KfW
„These things are decided on the basis of contracts that are made. All the construction work that is needed is agreed upon in the building contract, and in the delivery and services contract. Our rights as banks are stated in a series of finance contracts. So there are a lot of contracts in which all the business terms are agreed upon in quite a lot of detail.”
33:00
The farmers, of course, have no idea of all this complex international financial architecture. They only see how things are decided above their heads. Among the people demonstrating we meet resettlers from Java.
33:20
Only a few years ago these land-less, impoverished farmers from the over- populated island of Java were resettled here in the scarcely populated southern Sumatra. They received fertile farmland to build up a new existence. A German development aid project created and over many years supported with tax payers’ money. But many houses are empty, the owners have moved to town to look for work. Only a few like Rohani have stayed here.
33:46
O-Ton: Resettler Rohani
„I resettled because I have six brothers and my family had no farmland, so we had no chance on Java. We came here with high hopes. They gave us our own fields and even ownership documents. Two years we lived here and everything went well. But then in 1992 the Barito Pacific Plantation Corporation stole our land, they stole all of it.”
34:25
This was once Rohanis’ farmland. Over night they flattened everything and planted acacias. Not only his village, but many villages of the resettlers lost their farmland this way.
34:42
This is the way German development aid money was wasted. Fertile farmland was turned into tree plantations for a pulp industry which was also built with German money. PT. TEL now rests its hopes on tree plantations, packed with fast growing acacias. But plantations on which only acacias are planted, soon wear out the soil.
After two harvests the ground is already so exhausted by this mono-culture that nothing grows here anymore. Again and again controlled forest fires were started, as a way of expanding the plantations. But the fire also serves as a weapon. If the farmers don’t want to give up their forest, it is simply set on fire.
35:26
O-Ton: Farmer
„We resisted and the people from the plantation company just set fire to our forests. That happened in 1992 and in 1997. On our own we had no chance to fight the fire. The plantation operators just watched and the fire became bigger and bigger.”
35:49
The result: The farmers have no forest anymore. But PT. TEL has enough plantation wood for its factory. Against all promises to the contrary, PT. TEL still uses chlorine dioxide to bleach the pulp. The factory has a modern machine to retrieve chemicals and even the filtering system complies with European standards. When the permission for the factory was given, it was clear according to the Indonesian Environment Ministry, that the river was much too narrow to withstand the waste water of an ECF-pulp factory. The locals fear that their living space too will be destroyed. Because experience shows that even modern machinery does not stop the Indonesian operators from directing unfiltered waste water into the river.
36:36
And indeed – PT. TEL also has eight illegal waste water outlets.
36:47
O-Ton Farmer
„Over there is the factory that makes pulp out of wood. The stinking waste water comes from them and this sewer then runs directly into the Lemantang river.”
37:02
„The water here used to be clear, now it is black. “
37:10
The environmental disaster which the locals feared, has happened here. Fruit rots before it is ripe.
37:18
O-Ton: Farmer
„Everything is ruined, and this factory has only been producing for a year. What’s going to happen when the factory has been producing here for two or three years, all the trees will be dead.”
37:33
The people are furious and in despair, they want the factory to be closed quickly.
Because they have also started to suffer from skin rashes.
37:46
O-Ton: old man
“She’s been to hospital already. They treated her skin for a month. Now a crust has formed on her skin. But as soon as she bathes in the river again, her skin will start to itch again and she’ll get rashes.”
38:05
The old man from the Lemantang river also suffers from the same itchy skin rashes, as the fisherman by the Sungai Siak river. He’s been given cream by his doctor, but the irritations still come back.
38:19
Englischen O –Ton stehen lassen:
38:25
O-Ton Villager Muara Niru
“When the factory started to pollute the river with its waste water. My skin is very itchy now!”
38:35
And this fisherman is also dependent on the river water. His wounds are incurable, but still he wants to stay here.
38:43
PT. TEL denies any connection between pulp production and the skin diseases. After all the factory is regularly inspected by a Finnish company. They have a clean conscience. That this company also declared Indah Kiat as being clean, doesn’t bother them. The production has expanded. The packaging reads “100 per cent plantation wood”, which sounds good, but is of no help to the victims who are suffering.
39:09
Those profiting from the business are in Europe, in Finland for example. The Indonesian pulp is bought by Scandinavian traders. There, in the modern, environmentally friendly paper factories it is turned into bright white photo-copying paper. It is then marketed as a Scandinavian product. The poisonous pulp production is simply outsourced.
39:33
That way it is still possible to supply the whole of Europe with ECF-paper. The business remains in Scandinavian hands. Only rarely is the origin of the pulp declared on the paper loads. And the ECF label for chlorine dioxide bleached paper says very little to the customers, who have no idea of what really stands behind the label.
39:57
But the Finnish Export Credit Agency has found out about the dirty business - it is distancing itself from further investments in Indonesia.
40:08
O-Ton Finvera Herr Topi Vesteria
“Our task is to assess risks, the risks concerning the Indonesian pulp factories have grown. Not all companies have fulfilled their duties with regard to the environment. Ecological standards are no longer being complied with, new plantations are not being set up. We have to find out what has happened. And in the meantime we are not going to guarantee any more loans for pulp factories.”
40:32
The German „Hermes“ is refusing to join the Swedish and Finnish initiative. Environmental NGOs are protesting against this.
40:40
O-Ton Barbara Happe Urgewald.
“We of course demand that the German Export Credit Agency act in accordance with the Swedish and Finnish Export Credit Agencies and make a political statement by stopping investment in pulp and paper projects in Indonesia. But the German Credit Agency Hermes sees no reason to do so.”
41:04
Protests in Europe and Indonesia have so far only led to the factory being guarded by the military day and night. The factory continues to operate. For it to keep functioning without any interruptions, a private army has been set up. It is to keep demonstrators at bay.
41:23
The men in blue also follow us, even far beyond the factory premises. We ask them why.
41:34
Englischen O-Ton stehen lassen
41:56
The mercenaries of PT. TEL are a constant threat for the people who live along the Lemantang river in southern Sumatra. Hardly anyone dares to demonstrate publicly anymore. And the few jobs in the factory offer no real living perspective for the villagers.
42:17
O-Ton: Woman
„Of what use is all this, if our health is destroyed. Day and night this terrible smell and my whole body is covered in eczema, day and night this itchiness.”
42:32
More pulp factories are planned in Indonesia. Without support from Europe these plans can not be realized. The decision lies in the hands of the European governments. One can only hope that environmentalists around the world get together to put an end to the suffering on loan.
Credits:
An Inge Altemeier & Reinhard Hornung Film
Script & Director: Inge Altemeier
Camera: Reinhard Hornung
Editor: Reinhard Hornung
Sound: Anil Rangappa / Turgay Ugur
Assistance: Steffen Weber
Commissioned by SWR
In co-operation with arte
ALTEMEIER & HORNUNG
Filmproduktion
Hamburg 2001
PULP FRICTION
July 2002 – 42 mins
00:02
Sumatra. In the area surrounding the rivers Siak and Kampar locals suffer from skin diseases. The children are most affected. The itching is unbearable and leaves them no peace.
00:17
The reason for this is the highly toxic waste water, which is polluted with chlorine compounds that huge pulp and paper factories dispose of into the rivers unfiltered.
00:33
They produce pure white, tear resistant pulp - the raw material for paper - cheaper than any competitor.
00:46
As the plantations can’t supply enough wood for the hungry factory mills, vast areas of rain forest are cut down.
00:58
For more than a decade now people have been protesting against the expansion of the pulp and paper industry. But the Indonesian state is backing industrialization without any regard for the costs. The European governments, which act as guarantors for the investments, don’t listen to the protestors. Instead they continue to grant loans.
01:14
O-Ton runterziehen
01:23
The factories are taking on gigantic proportions and are destroying the environment and the very basis on which the people here exist.
01:31
But none of this counts, when it comes to making cheap white paper.
Title
PULPING THE PEOPLE – Pulp production in Indonesia
An Inge Altemeier and Reinhard Hornung Film
01:58
The river is the source of life. Many villages in the river and swamp landscapes of Sumatra, as here in the south-eastern province of Riau, are accessible only by boat. The locals depend on the river water. It is the only source of water they have. They not only wash and bathe in it, they drink from it. Through the isolation of these villages even the youngest soon learn how important the river is for their life here. It provides everything they need to live.
02:32
These tropical waters were once full of fish and shrimp.
02:40
But the balance of life and nature has been threatened for some time now, the harmony destroyed.
Since pulp and paper factories were built here ten years ago, the people have been suffering from serious skin illnesses. Especially those who live near the factories.
02:59
The children are particularly affected. No doctor can cure them.
03:10
O-Ton Frau:
“The itchy skin rash just keeps coming back. Then I buy water from the shops and wash my child with it. It helps it a bit, but I can’t afford to keep buying water, it’s just too expensive.”
03:21
Englischen O-Ton stehen lassen
03:30
„Yes I have. He says it’s from the river water. He gave me a syrup and a skin cream. But it doesn’t do much.”
03:41
The adults also suffer from these skin illnesses. The factory owners sent them to see a doctor. He couldn’t help them. There is no permanent cure.
This woman tells us that the owners of the factory know only too well that the water is causing the illnesses.
03:57
O-Ton: Frau
„In the day time the factory collects the waste water, but at night when everybody is asleep, they let it into the river. Once a week there is a terrible stench here. It’s the water we use to wash in the morning.”
04:18
And this is the waste water the woman is talking about. Only two thirds of it is filtered and redirected into the factory’s production cycle. This stinking sludge contains dangerous toxins such as dioxin and other chlorine-organic compounds.
The waste water stems mainly from the bleaching process.
04:37
The RAPP factory produces about 900.000 tons of pulp a year – using technologies of the 1980s. Chlorine dioxide is used for bleaching. The operators do not want to invest in modern technologies which prevent the release of toxins into the environment. Anyway, in Sumatra permissions to run ecologically dangerous factories are easily granted.
05:01
For the chief engineer the pollution of the water is not a problem. He disputes that it is polluted and as for the smell, we must be imagining it. He says he can’t smell anything.
05:19
O-Töne stehen lassen
05:44
Nobody shows us the illegal waste water outlets. Instead we are given a tour of the computer operated control center, equipped with the latest European hi-tech. This machinery has been bought on loans, secured by taxpayer’s money from Sweden, Finland and Germany. Without these export credit guarantees this factory would not exist.
06:09
The end product is white, tear resistant pulp. For it to be so white and still so cheap, chlorine dioxide is used to bleach it.
It is then called ECF pulp.
06:23
ECF stands for Elementary Chlorine Free. A label which sounds good and conveniently disguises the fact that it is bleached with chlorine dioxide.
Large Scandinavian companies such as the Finnish paper giant UPM Kymmene buy the pulp and turn it into paper.
06:45
That’s how pulp from Indonesia enters the European market. Consumers have no idea that the raw material for their cheap photocopying paper is this environmentally disastrous pulp from Sumatra. And the large trading companies look the other way. They fill their warehouses with it, as long as the price is right.
And anyway this photocopying paper has the ECF label and tear-resistant, bright white paper is the preferred choice in offices the world over.
07:23
Vast amounts of paper run through the printing presses of companies such as Systemex in Hamburg. Office and computer forms are produced here. A reduction of our immense paper consumption is nowhere in sight.
07:39
O-Ton: Uwe Lehmann (Systemex)
„There used to be this slogan of the „paperless office“. But that concept has long become absurd. We use more paper today than ever before and that’s because people still trust paper more than their hard drive.”
08:06
We still like to see things in black and white on paper. Who would pay a bill sent only by E-mail? Half of all the forms that Systemex produces are made from ECF pulp.
08:23
O-Ton: Uwe Lehmann
„ECF paper is simply cheaper, and wherever the standards are not so extreme, ECF paper is used.”
08:35
By extreme standards, he means the environmental standards for production. Anyone asking for totally chlorine-free paper will get it. It is known as TCF.
08:46
O-Ton: Uwe Lehmann
„In the German market and particularly here in the north people demand TCF. Totally Chlorine Free – is the only paper our customers ask for.”
08:58
Large paper factories use TCF pulp for their paper production. Germany’s biggest paper manufacturer Haindl for example has been using TCF paper since the early ‘90s. The chlorine free bleached pulp comes from Scandinavia and Germany. Although it’s more expensive, the demand is rising
09:22
O-Ton: Hr. Oberessel Haindl Papierfabrik
„If you look at the entire European paper production for newspapers and particularly for magazines, then there is still too little TCF paper on the market.”
09:32
Haindl supplies Newsweek and the German SPIEGEL. Their readers don’t want a magazine that is printed on toxic bleached paper. Environmental NGOs have exerted pressure that the largest paper consumers do not buy ECF paper.
09:49
The German publisher Gruner & Jahr, one of Europe’s biggest publishing houses uses only TCF paper. The company buys it’s paper mainly from Haindl and some other Scandinavian TCF paper producers. The printing shop has had good experiences in the last 10 years with TCF paper.
10:12
Even their high end glossy travel magazines such as GEO were able to maintain their excellent picture quality on eco-paper. Environmental awareness is part of the positive image of the company.
10:29
O-Ton: Frau Dr. Maria Hofacker Gruner+Jahr
„We have been using TCF-paper since 1993. That means that the paper we use, is made of pulp that is bleached 100 per cent chlorine free.”
10:45
This trend has not caught with the German export credit agency Hermes. It provides financial guarantees for the machines delivered and the investments made.
10:56
Germany has been supporting these ECF pulp factories.
Lorenz Schomerus was the state secretary responsible until 2000 for checking the government guarantees.
11:10
O-Ton: Schomerus BMWI
„You can rest assured that the careful consideration of the project before the loans were granted also included questions concerning the world paper market. And I can assure you that this was done in a professional way.”
11:31
An example of this professional examination is the Indah Kiat pulp and paper factory in Sumatra. It could not sell its ECF pulp due to a lack of demand. At the end of the year 2000, its parent company Asia Pulp & Paper was bankrupt. Hermes now faces a first claim of 12,7 Million US Dollars. But thanks to international export credit loans the factory can continue to operate.
12:03
And on top of that in recent years the factory has been able to increase its pulp production to over 3 million tons a year. In Europe a factory of such proportions would be unimaginable. Particularly as it lies by a river which provides people with drinking water.
12:22
Medical professor Trabani Rab from the town of Pekanbaru has been monitoring Indah Kiat’s impact on the environment for years.
12:31
We travel with him to the villages surrounding the factory. The people here depend on the river water.
12:43
During this two day visit he diagnoses over 500 cases of serious skin illnesses.
12:51
O-Ton
12:56
The professor can merely confirm that the illness is caused by the river water. He prescribes a cream to reduce the itchiness. Apart from that he feels helpless. The only way to cure the illness would be to stop using the river water, or to move away.
13:15
O Ton: Professor Trabani Rab
13:48
But the waste water that is illegally disposed of here at night, is not only a threat to the people, the entire eco-system has also collapsed.
14:04
In the Sungai Siak river the fish are dying.
14:15
This in turn is endangering the existence of the fishermen. Before the pulp factories came here, people could live well from fishing, but now there’s not even enough for their personal needs.
14:31
O-Ton: Professor Trabani Rab
15:22
O-Ton: Fischer Tasjudin
“This all comes from the river water, when it’s cloudy, we see dead fish. Indah Kiat is ruining our lives. But what am I to do? This is my home, I have to live here.”
15:32
Tasjudin shows us his garden. Since Indah Kiat has been polluting the environment here, there are no more coconuts on the trees and fruits rot before they are ripe. The fruits are smaller and have black spots in the flesh, they taste sour and are
inedible. Tasjudin is ruined.
15:53
Indah Kiat has increased its production five-fold in the last ten years. This was only possible thanks to the support of the European Export Credit Agencies. 270 Million Dollars came from Germany alone. None of the European governments have thought of expanding the waste water filtering system in accordance with the factory’s growth.
16:17
Two years later we visit the river again. At the outlet pipe where Indah Kiat lets its waste water into the river, we take a water sample.
16:30
As it is impossible to have the samples analyzed by an independent laboratory here, we send them to Germany to a water purification plant in Düsseldorf.
16:46
O-Ton Laborantin
“Hello, we have a parcel here from Indonesia. Samples we’re supposed to test for AOX.”
16:54
For the laboratory in Germany the analysis of industrial waste water is routine work.
Waste water from German industries is regularly analyzed. Every water purification plant has the necessary technical equipment to test AOX levels. AOX refers to the concentration of toxins in industrial waste water. In Germany no more than 0,1 mg of AOX per liter is allowed in industrial waste water. In drinking water the maximum legal level is 0,06 mg of AOX per liter.
17:31
The analysis of the samples from Indonesia gives us shocking results. 7,8 mg of AOX per liter are found in the water. Nearly 80 times more than the German limit.
17:46
O-Ton Dr. Marlene Robecke Klärwerke Düsseldorf
„There are often very dangerous substances behind AOX, which are quite difficult to show toxicologically. For example the well known Polychlorids and Dibenzodioxines.“
18:07
The Sungai Siak river has become a sewer. Even the Indah Kiat factory operators have in the meantime admitted that the river is polluted and have installed a groundwater pump in the neighborhood. But by now even the ground water is contaminated. The pump only brings stinking, unusable water to the surface. And this water, the man tells us, is what we are meant to drink. During the dry period the pump supplies no water at all and the people depend on the river again. The situation seems hopeless. The pulp factory has ruined the basis of life in these villages.
18:48
O-Ton Bauer
„Because there is no fish for us to sell anymore, we have no choice but to deliver wood to the paper factory. Sometimes we steal wood to then sell it to Indah Kiat.”
19:06
The pulp factory buys all the wood it can get. Because the hungry pulp mills need a steady supply. When the factory was expanded it was obviously overlooked that there are no plantations to deliver the necessary raw material. Now instead they are using wood from the rainforest.
19:31
Day and night heavy trucks transport lumber on Sumatra’s roads. They have to drive further and further to get to the forest. The areas where there is still wood are becoming smaller all the time. Thousands of square kilometers of rainforest have already been destroyed in Sumatra. Not only Indah Kiat, but also three other large pulp producers get their raw material here. Since the production started 13 years ago an area of forest almost twice the size of Washington State has fallen victim to the chain saws. And every six months an area almost the size of Chicago is added.
20:17
In their hunger for wood these factories don’t even stop short of cutting down protected rainforests. The workers are paid to chop down these giants of the rainforest -- not to protect them. International agreements are of no interest to anyone here.
Many trees are logged illegally and Indah Kiat has even been convicted by court. But the fines are ridiculous and can not stop these almighty corporations. And so another part of forest that is so vital for our global climate perishes.
20:56
What remains is dried out, barren waste land. The rainforest landscape turns to dust. The erosion is so strong that the rainforest will never grow back again. The attempt of the pulp producers to grow acacia plantations and thereby secure the wood supply, has failed. Already, after the first harvest the mono-culture has stopped growing.
21:20
What’s left is only dead land.
21:30
A disaster against which the Indonesian environmental protection groups are powerless. They can merely document the extent of the destruction.
21:40
O-Ton: Fery Irawan (Umweltschutzgruppe Walhi Jambi)
„We have noticed that they are increasingly logging in the national parks. But the pulp factories don’t do it themselves, they encourage others to do it for them. People do it out of desperation. So the factories get the wood in a way that nobody can prove that they are responsible for the illegal logging.”
22:10
This industrialization at any costs is also ruining the natural habitat of the indigenous people of Sumatra. The factories and the loggers are getting closer and closer to their last refuges.
22:23
So far they have lived from collecting rubber and bamboo, but now their baskets are empty. It is easy for the large corporations to drive the indigenous people such as the Kubu in southern Sumatra away. They know only collective land ownership and have no documents to prove that the land on which they live belongs to them.
23:00
O-Ton: Dorfältester Kubu
„They are constantly stealing our land. We have lost everything. They have just cut down our whole forest with all the rubber trees and bamboo. But what are we to do against these mighty people, we are powerless.”
23:18
Only few Kubus have stayed in their native territories. Others are retreating further and further into the forest. We travel by boat for hours. And everywhere we come across signs of destruction. Even here in the island’s interior the forest is being logged and burnt down to get raw material for the pulp factories. There are no signs of intact rainforests left. Nothing gets in the way of the corporations.
24:00
In the hope of still finding forests with animals to hunt and fruit to collect many Kubus moved into the island’s interior. Where once the thick forests served as protection against intruders. The attempt of the Kubus to save themselves and their traditional way of life has failed. They don’t know enough about farming and raising cattle and
there is nobody to show them how to grow vegetables. Apart from a few chickens and potatoes they have nothing to survive on.
24:32
As age old tradition dictates, the older Kubus show the young how to hunt. But it is a farce, as for months they have not killed anything. The young Kubu will never be able to hunt for animals, the forest is dead. The corporations have for ever destroyed the living space of the Kubu.
24:52
O-Ton Kubu:
“Paper? What is it for? I don’t know!
25:06
The ministerial officials in Europe appear to have no interest at all in the fate of the indigenous people in Indonesia. For them the only thing that counts is industrial development.
25:21
O-Ton: Lorenz Schomerus BMWI
„It can not be right that the economic development of a country that desperately needs jobs and income, is held up, only because a project causes certain hardships, that must be tolerated.”
25:50
And this is what the hardships looks like.
25:56
The children are ill and the rivers are polluted.
26:12
The air is full of fumes from the pulp factory.
26:16
The future of these people is uncertain.
In the villages nothing is as it used to be. But the hunger of the pulp mills for land is insatiable. Only a few environmentalists are trying to stop the expansion of the factories.
26:35
O-Ton: NGO Activist
“You must get ownership documents and even if they offer you money, don’t sell your land. What’s money in the bank, that is worth less every day, against the land of which you live?”
26:58
The people who live along the rivers on which the factories have settled have had bitter experiences. Often their land was simply taken away from them without any regard for their rights. The international corporations such as APP and APRIL are only interested in Sumatra as an investment that produces quick money.
27:18
An example: The expansion of RAPP in Riau, south-east Sumatra. Whole villages were depopulated and their inhabitants driven away. Only few of them received compensation.
27:30
These farmers show us over 42.000 acres of land on the map which the RAPP has appropriated and on which they have built the access road to their factory. Three villages have lost valuable farming land this way. Even now, the pulp company claims the land was not populated.
27:59
O-Ton: Dorfbewohner
„They don’t care what happens to us, they don’t even keep to the law!
Our rights don’t interest anybody. The RAPP has lots of money, these people aren’t from here, they’ve been negotiating with us for a long time now, but so far I haven’t seen any money. When we protested and tried to overthrow the containers on the building site, they sent in the military. What are we to do against such mighty people from abroad. Many people have given up out of fear. Not me! I won’t give in for a little bit of money, even if I’m the only one.“
28:43
The legal situation is clear. A document of the sultans who used to reign the province of Riau proves: the land belongs to the farmers. The Indonesian officials are not interested in that. They’re on the side of the factory owners.
29:09
Again and again the government officials use the army to enforce the interests of the international corporations. Even since the fall of the dictator Suharto that hasn’t changed. The response to protests comes from the military.
29:30
Many of the generals trained in Europe are in on the dirty business of white paper. Just like Suharto’s clan they are part owners of the pulp factories.
29:51
Freedom and justice for the farmers. “Stop PT. TEL”, the locals protest in front of the newest paper factory in south Sumatra. Under the eyes of international experts
they have been campaigning for ten years against the building of this factory. 195 families have sued the factory because the farmers want their land back. Unfortunately, they have no chance of success.
30:17
Because, for the local operators and international corporations there is no land conflict. They simply deny that demonstrations such as this one have ever taken place. They claim the land was unused and state owned. And therefore the people have no reason at all to demonstrate.
30:42
The military, they claim, is merely there to protect the factory against theft. As a kind of factory police so to speak.
30:55
The PT. TEL pulp factory was built with international money. The construction of the factory is an example of Euro-Indonesian cooperation. The foundation was laid by the German Klöckner-Werke in 1996. The German Federal Ministry of Commerce granted a loan of more than 180 Million Dollars.
31:25
Experts came from Germany, Canada and Australia, the workers from all over Indonesia. Only the inhabitants of the region were left out.
31:38
Apart from German companies, Finnish and Swedish corporations are involved in the project. The machines they supplied were also guaranteed by governmental export credits. And as usual, the family of the former Indonesian dictator Suharto was involved in the project. In this case it was his daughter Tuto. But that did not irritate the international guarantors, nor the German Klöckner- Werke.
32:04
Meanwhile, Klöckner in Germany no longer feel responsible for the project. An interview they agreed to give, has been withdrawn. For them the project is completed.
32:17
The state-owned ‘credit agency for reconstruction’ KFW in Frankfurt is involved in the PT. Tel factory with a 140 Million Dollar credit. A spokesperson justifies the granted loan:
32:33
O-Ton: Herr Heinrich Heims KfW
„These things are decided on the basis of contracts that are made. All the construction work that is needed is agreed upon in the building contract, and in the delivery and services contract. Our rights as banks are stated in a series of finance contracts. So there are a lot of contracts in which all the business terms are agreed upon in quite a lot of detail.”
33:00
The farmers, of course, have no idea of all this complex international financial architecture. They only see how things are decided above their heads. Among the people demonstrating we meet resettlers from Java.
33:20
Only a few years ago these land-less, impoverished farmers from the over- populated island of Java were resettled here in the scarcely populated southern Sumatra. They received fertile farmland to build up a new existence. A German development aid project created and over many years supported with tax payers’ money. But many houses are empty, the owners have moved to town to look for work. Only a few like Rohani have stayed here.
33:46
O-Ton: Resettler Rohani
„I resettled because I have six brothers and my family had no farmland, so we had no chance on Java. We came here with high hopes. They gave us our own fields and even ownership documents. Two years we lived here and everything went well. But then in 1992 the Barito Pacific Plantation Corporation stole our land, they stole all of it.”
34:25
This was once Rohanis’ farmland. Over night they flattened everything and planted acacias. Not only his village, but many villages of the resettlers lost their farmland this way.
34:42
This is the way German development aid money was wasted. Fertile farmland was turned into tree plantations for a pulp industry which was also built with German money. PT. TEL now rests its hopes on tree plantations, packed with fast growing acacias. But plantations on which only acacias are planted, soon wear out the soil.
After two harvests the ground is already so exhausted by this mono-culture that nothing grows here anymore. Again and again controlled forest fires were started, as a way of expanding the plantations. But the fire also serves as a weapon. If the farmers don’t want to give up their forest, it is simply set on fire.
35:26
O-Ton: Farmer
„We resisted and the people from the plantation company just set fire to our forests. That happened in 1992 and in 1997. On our own we had no chance to fight the fire. The plantation operators just watched and the fire became bigger and bigger.”
35:49
The result: The farmers have no forest anymore. But PT. TEL has enough plantation wood for its factory. Against all promises to the contrary, PT. TEL still uses chlorine dioxide to bleach the pulp. The factory has a modern machine to retrieve chemicals and even the filtering system complies with European standards. When the permission for the factory was given, it was clear according to the Indonesian Environment Ministry, that the river was much too narrow to withstand the waste water of an ECF-pulp factory. The locals fear that their living space too will be destroyed. Because experience shows that even modern machinery does not stop the Indonesian operators from directing unfiltered waste water into the river.
36:36
And indeed – PT. TEL also has eight illegal waste water outlets.
36:47
O-Ton Farmer
„Over there is the factory that makes pulp out of wood. The stinking waste water comes from them and this sewer then runs directly into the Lemantang river.”
37:02
„The water here used to be clear, now it is black. “
37:10
The environmental disaster which the locals feared, has happened here. Fruit rots before it is ripe.
37:18
O-Ton: Farmer
„Everything is ruined, and this factory has only been producing for a year. What’s going to happen when the factory has been producing here for two or three years, all the trees will be dead.”
37:33
The people are furious and in despair, they want the factory to be closed quickly.
Because they have also started to suffer from skin rashes.
37:46
O-Ton: old man
“She’s been to hospital already. They treated her skin for a month. Now a crust has formed on her skin. But as soon as she bathes in the river again, her skin will start to itch again and she’ll get rashes.”
38:05
The old man from the Lemantang river also suffers from the same itchy skin rashes, as the fisherman by the Sungai Siak river. He’s been given cream by his doctor, but the irritations still come back.
38:19
Englischen O –Ton stehen lassen:
38:25
O-Ton Villager Muara Niru
“When the factory started to pollute the river with its waste water. My skin is very itchy now!”
38:35
And this fisherman is also dependent on the river water. His wounds are incurable, but still he wants to stay here.
38:43
PT. TEL denies any connection between pulp production and the skin diseases. After all the factory is regularly inspected by a Finnish company. They have a clean conscience. That this company also declared Indah Kiat as being clean, doesn’t bother them. The production has expanded. The packaging reads “100 per cent plantation wood”, which sounds good, but is of no help to the victims who are suffering.
39:09
Those profiting from the business are in Europe, in Finland for example. The Indonesian pulp is bought by Scandinavian traders. There, in the modern, environmentally friendly paper factories it is turned into bright white photo-copying paper. It is then marketed as a Scandinavian product. The poisonous pulp production is simply outsourced.
39:33
That way it is still possible to supply the whole of Europe with ECF-paper. The business remains in Scandinavian hands. Only rarely is the origin of the pulp declared on the paper loads. And the ECF label for chlorine dioxide bleached paper says very little to the customers, who have no idea of what really stands behind the label.
39:57
But the Finnish Export Credit Agency has found out about the dirty business - it is distancing itself from further investments in Indonesia.
40:08
O-Ton Finvera Herr Topi Vesteria
“Our task is to assess risks, the risks concerning the Indonesian pulp factories have grown. Not all companies have fulfilled their duties with regard to the environment. Ecological standards are no longer being complied with, new plantations are not being set up. We have to find out what has happened. And in the meantime we are not going to guarantee any more loans for pulp factories.”
40:32
The German „Hermes“ is refusing to join the Swedish and Finnish initiative. Environmental NGOs are protesting against this.
40:40
O-Ton Barbara Happe Urgewald.
“We of course demand that the German Export Credit Agency act in accordance with the Swedish and Finnish Export Credit Agencies and make a political statement by stopping investment in pulp and paper projects in Indonesia. But the German Credit Agency Hermes sees no reason to do so.”
41:04
Protests in Europe and Indonesia have so far only led to the factory being guarded by the military day and night. The factory continues to operate. For it to keep functioning without any interruptions, a private army has been set up. It is to keep demonstrators at bay.
41:23
The men in blue also follow us, even far beyond the factory premises. We ask them why.
41:34
Englischen O-Ton stehen lassen
41:56
The mercenaries of PT. TEL are a constant threat for the people who live along the Lemantang river in southern Sumatra. Hardly anyone dares to demonstrate publicly anymore. And the few jobs in the factory offer no real living perspective for the villagers.
42:17
O-Ton: Woman
„Of what use is all this, if our health is destroyed. Day and night this terrible smell and my whole body is covered in eczema, day and night this itchiness.”
42:32
More pulp factories are planned in Indonesia. Without support from Europe these plans can not be realized. The decision lies in the hands of the European governments. One can only hope that environmentalists around the world get together to put an end to the suffering on loan.
Credits:
An Inge Altemeier & Reinhard Hornung Film
Script & Director: Inge Altemeier
Camera: Reinhard Hornung
Editor: Reinhard Hornung
Sound: Anil Rangappa / Turgay Ugur
Assistance: Steffen Weber
Commissioned by SWR
In co-operation with arte
ALTEMEIER & HORNUNG
Filmproduktion
Hamburg 2001