Dessy Aswim – The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, a self-regulating industry body, has defended four out of five of its member companies accused of contributing to forest fires in Sumatra that blanketed Singapore, Malaysia and southern Thailand in thick smoke last month.

A company accused of having nearly 100 fires burning on its land during the crisis, Jatim Jaya Perkasa, was notably absent from the organization's defence of its members' land stewardship.

The RSPO claimed that based on digital map analysis of plantations belonging to Sime Darby, Golden Agri Resources, Kuala Lumpur Kepong and Tabung Haji Plantations, there were no forest fires lasting more than 24 hours in RSPO member plantations between June 1 and 26, when the Sumatra forest fires were at their peak.

However, Greenpeace said on Friday that there were in fact more than 20 fires on plantation land owned by Bumireksa Nusasejati, part of the Malaysian-based Sime Darby group. Sime Darby had previously blamed those fires on local farmers.

Critics say the RSPO's definition of "sustainability" has not prevented member companies from clearing secondary forest or operating in peat lands, nor from buying palm fruits from farmers who operate in protected areas or set fires to clear land, such as those farmers operating on Sime Darby's land.

The RSPO is suspected to have attempted to cover up the fires on member company Jatim Jaya Perkasa's land by blaming the quality of the concession maps provided by the company.

"As of July 9, four of these five companies have submitted digital maps in a format appropriate for analysis. PT Jatim Jaya Perkasa has submitted concession information that cannot be used for precise analysis, and the RSPO has requested that the company submit digital map files in a more usable format," the organization said in a statement.

The Australian newspaper quoted the World Resources Institute's forests communications officer, James Anderson, as saying that the NGO's own independent investigation contradicted the RSPO's denial of responsibility. RSPO member companies did indeed bear responsibility for some fires in concession areas, the WRI's data analysis is reported to have concluded.