Is the Rubber Industry Dragging Its Heels on Sustainability?

May 1, 2015 | Megan Macinnes
View Original

Our recent Guns, Cronies and Crops exposé revealed the human toll of the rubber industry in Myanmar, where companies colluded with the former military junta to seize vast tracts of land from farming communities. Two years previously we showed how citizens in Cambodia and Laos had also lost land to the rubber plantations, with devastating impacts on lives and livelihoods. Stories like these abound across the Mekong region, where large-scale rubber plantations are now one of the main drivers of land grabs and deforestation. 

The launch of the Sustainable Natural Rubber Initiative this spring offered hope that the industry was beginning to respond. A multi-stakeholder initiative, it is aimed at promoting the development of best sustainability practices in the rubber sector globally, including by conserving protected forest areas, and respecting human and labour rights. The standards set out in the Initiative’s recently published draft policy, however, contain worrying holes and anomalies.