New Britain Palm Oil Limited | Conserving nature and minimising environment impacts

We are committed to plantation expansion that does not result in deforestation. As a member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) we implement its Principles and Criteria across all our plantations. All NBPOL plantations and associated smallholders are RSPO certified.

However, to build on these RSPO commitments and to strengthen our commitments to socially and environmentally responsible palm oil production, NBPOL will implement a new approach to address deforestation, protect areas of High Carbon Stock (HCS), respect customary rights and to meet community needs. Towards this NBPOL has become a member of global non-profit organisation The Forest Trust (TFT) with an initial focus of assessing and defining HCS forest areas in parallel with assessment of the community’s needs within any of our new concessions.

HCV surveillance is carried out using a annual two fold approach, including the use of Satellite data, drones and ground truthing. All data is entered into GIS software (either SMART or QGIS) with a bi-annual remediation plan submitted where required and verified externally during annual audits by RSPO and Rainforest Alliance.

As of 2019 NBPOL’s progress with improving our conservation and deforestation monitoring is as follows:

SMART
NBPOL WNB Ltd. has implemented SMART methodology across the site. All HCV sites will have the methodology run once a year and updated in to the SMART reporting tool. To date 5/9 HCV sites implement the methodology with 4 planned for September. We are currently working on rolling out the methodology in Poliamba Ltd. and RAIL Ltd.

SPOT CHECKS
Spot Checks are carried out using Landsat and Sentinel imagery looking for areas that are disturbed or have changes in land use within the HCV areas. These areas are then ground truthed and any encroachment/changes man-made have remediation plans put in place. To date 5/9 Spot Checks have been carried out.

Two additional NBPOL sites, RAIL Ltd and Poliamba Ltd. will start using the methodology developed by WNB Ltd. in 2019.

Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands is home to a huge array of endemic species. NBPOL implements across all its operational sites a strict no hunting policy. The policy is also familiarised with the smallholders working with NBPOL. Our efforts to ensure this policy are verified during the annual RA SAS surveillance audits. RA SAS certified operations are required to have a hunting ban in place and to prevent wild animals being kept in captivity.

It is important to NBPOL that any development achieves an optimal balance between community development, conservation of natural values, and economic benefit and viability. By excluding from conversion the areas that store large amounts of carbon, we will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect these vital lands.

While fires have been part of the traditional land management in some of the NBPOL landscapes, since 1969 NBPOL implements a no burning policy in all its operations. Remote sensing is used to identify and monitor fire hotspots and the details of this is published on the SDP’s website: http://www.simedarbyplantation.com/sustainability/hotspot-dashboard/. The fire hotspot data are obtained from Fire Information Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and ASEAN Specialised Meteorological Centre (ASMC) websites. The information is also verified and validated by our external RSPO and RA SAS auditors.

NBPOL recognises climate change risks and endeavours to reduce its impact. Additionally to concrete initiatives such as “No burning”, NBPOL implements a fleet monitoring system to improve the efficiency of its fleet and plans to role out methane capture for all the mills. By August 2019, 2 out of the 11 NBPOL mills in PNG and the Solomon Islands have been fitted with methane capture installations.

NBPOL manages over 20 000 hectares of HCV and other conservation areas across PNG and the Solomon Islands. While significant efforts are made to maintain these areas, in some cases has to deal with encroachments. Dealing with encroachments is a complex issue and NBPOL follows PNG legislation and RSPO and RA SAS requirements.

The following cases have been registered between 2017 and 2019:

Location	Deforested area	Who is responsible for the deforestation	Current status (Assessment/eviction/ restoration)
Bilomi Plantation (NBPOL WNB Ltd.)	25 ha	External	Grievance to logging company and National Forestry Department submitted. Restoration work in progress.
Roka Plantation (NBPOL WNB Ltd.)	9.2 ha	Internal	Restoration has been undertaken – native tree species have been planted into the area.
Kafkaf Plantation (Poliamba Ltd)	10 m2	Employees	Clearing for gardens, crops removed and area restored.
Baia Plantation (Poliamba Ltd.)	15 m2	Employees	Clearing for building a house, house removed and area restored.
Lejo Forest Reserve (HOP Ltd.)	0.9 ha	Local smallholder growers living next to the forest reserve	Ongoing. Negotiations to find a solution and restore the area.
Gusap Plantation (RAIL Ltd.)	0.5 ha	Local villagers	Ongoing. 6 houses were built, RAIL Ltd. is seeking eviction orders from regional lands department.
Paddox Plantation (RAIL Ltd.)	0.25 ha	Local villagers	Closed. Local villagers illegally felled approximately 10 trees in 2018. Police arrested the loggers, RAIL Ltd. has restored the area.