What Publishers Need to Know About Foreign-Sourced Papers: A Q&A with Green Press Initiative’s Todd Pollak
Extra: What are the human/social implications of obtaining paper from Indonesia?
Pollak: The human impacts are very severe. In the past, communities in Indonesia have been forced from their land, often with the presence of armed police or military officials, who have close ties to the paper industry. This is in direct violation of Indonesia’s constitution, which grants its people traditional land- use rights. In some cases, with the forest they depend on destroyed, the people who [are] displaced by the logging companies have no choice but to work on the plantations for exploitative wages. Much of this resulted from corruption under Indonesia’s former President Suharto, who nationalized much of the country’s forests and granted logging concessions to friends, family and political allies. Though he has been out of power since 1998, meaningful change has been slow to come.
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