26 Apr 2024, 18:15 Kuching
26 Apr 2024, 11:15 London
IN their jostling to get to the forefront of their war against the degradation of the environment, some international NGOs have turned on timber and oil palm plantation companies to score mileage and gain favour from their sponsors.
These ‘green’ bodies usually rely on information that ranges from half truths to blatant lies to run down companies involved in large-scale agriculture and logging.
To these NGOs, the ends justify the means and reports by their informants or activists need not be verified as long as they could sensationalise the issues they are championing.
Recently one of these so-called champions of the environment Upreshpal Singh working through Friends of the Orangutan (FOTO) hurled slanderous allegations against KTS and BLD, accusing them of wanton destruction of the forest through oil palm planting and logging.
Sadly Rettet den Re genwalde.V (Save The Rainforest), a supposedly credible German NGO jumped on Upreshpal Singh’s bandwagon and started a campaign to undermine the interest of the two companies.
Their allegations were picked up by Sarawak Report and posted on the portal on Feb 25, 2016…….
Save the Rainforest, Forest Hero, Friends of the Earth, Friends of the Orangutan, and many other similar organisations have sprung up like mushrooms each trying to outdo the others in their reports …..
Sarawak Report in its Feb 25, 2016 article titled ‘Germany’s Save The Rainforest Campaign Tells Chainsaw Giant STIHL to Cut Ties with KTS’ stated that a major new petition and campaign had been launched to get the KTS Group to commit seriously to environmental and indigenous concerns.
In the same article, Sarawak Report went on to write that the German NGO’s petition accused KTS of an abysmal record in environmental destruction and native encroachment in Sarawak….
This is sheer irresponsible journalism, if nothing else.
Adenan is loved by many, too many to mention. … Adenan even sang to raise significant funds to help the poor, the needy and the less fortunate.
Clare Rewcastle Brown should be ashamed of herself for trying to discredit him and suggesting that he kept a blind eye on illegal logging by certain companies.
The Borneo Post ran this major thundering front page article, followed by an inside spread, over the weekend, which lambasted Sarawak Report and other NGOs for “biased reporting” and “poor journalism”.
Perhaps in the interests of good journalism The Borneo Post ought itself to have declared the interest of its ownership in the matter?
Because, of course, the Borneo Post is owned by the self-same KTS, which also happens to be the owner of BLD Plantations, the subject of the reports so criticised by the Post’s verbose and angry writer!
Moreover, a quick check into the identity of this writer, one Wan Abdillah bin Wan Hamid reveals that, far from being an objective reporter on the staff of the Borneo Post, he is in fact the Executive Director of that self-same BLD Plantations!
No mention of this staggering conflict of interest is made at any point in this lengthy diatribe against Sarawak Report, Germany’s Rainforest Rescue, Friends Of The Orangutans (FOTO) and the local campaigners, who have been sticking up for the native landowners, whose lives have been illegally trashed by BLD.
What more sorry illustration of the fact that Sarawak continues to be controlled by a crony political and business partnership, where concessions and media licences are handed out to friends for favours?
One of the most visible pals of the supposedly reforming Adenan Satem is none other than than the boss of KTS Henry Lau, who plainly thinks he can use a newspaper in such a high-handed and frankly stupid way.
It is a shame also for those genuine journalists, struggling to make The Borneo Post a credible news source for their readers.
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