FELDA and major financial institutions poised for massive rainforest destruction

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

CONTACT:  Reinhard Behrend - Rainforest Rescue - Phone 0049 40 4103804 - FAX 0049 40 4500144 - info@rainforest-rescue.org - www.rainforest-rescue.org

FELDA AND MAJOR FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS POISED FOR MASSIVE RAINFOREST DESTRUCTION

HONG KONG/KUALA LUMPUR, June 27 - Felda Global Ventures Holdings, with the help of bookrunners CIMB, Maybank, and Morgan Stanley plus Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase as underwriters, is poised to raise up to $3.2 billion this week in the world’s second-biggest initial public offering (I.P.O.) this year. This is good news for Asian markets, but devastating for rainforests, wildlife, and indigenous people.

Felda has announced it plans to use the money from the sale to go on a shopping spree, and Indonesia and Africa are at the center of its focus. Rainforest areas, the lungs of our planet, are going to be bought, destroyed and turned into huge monocultures. These actions will destroy massive areas of rainforests, take away land from indigenous peoples, and will lead us one step closer to the extinction of orangutans and other engendered species. Although Deutsche Bank is calling its approach ecologically and socially harmless, one courageous farmer, Mazlan Aliman, considers this an effort to “take away our land to cut down the rainforest”.

In addition, there is reason for suspicion that the stock market money is about to be used to buy votes for the upcoming elections. Malaysia's Prime Minister, Najib Razak, has promised each company's member $5000 from the flotation. The prime minister's party and the Felda staff are heavily intertwined.

More information and our petition: https://www.rainforest-rescue.org/mailalert/878

Rettet den Regenwald (Rainforest Rescue) was founded in 1986 in Hamburg, Germany and is committed to organizing protest actions against rainforest destruction by loggers, companies such as palm oil or mining companies and development projects. Rettet den Regenwald is a registered non-profit organization in Germany.