Smurfit Kappa AGM to be targeted by campaigners over Colombia lands

Smurfit Kappa may be an Irish darling of environmental, social and governance (ESG) investors. But it will find a group of unhappy eco and human rights activists camped outside its annual general meeting (agm) on Friday.

Members of Ekō, the non-profit group formerly known as SumOfUs, Latin America Solidarity Campaign (Lasc), Environmental Paper Network and People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett will be making their presence known to investors heading into the meeting as they back indigenous communities in Colombia who claim a right to occupy land controlled by the group.

A report prepared by Ekō, Lasc and others said that areas of the country where Smurfit Kappa owns 67,000 hectares of commercial forests – home to the group’s largest plantations – are the subject of contested land claims. “Peasant farmers, indigenous peoples and Afro-descendants have been displaced for centuries to the mountainous and less productive areas of the Andes as a result of colonial practices,” it states.

“The unequal distribution of land is reflected in the concentration of large areas of land with higher productivity being owned by extensive landholders, including Smurfit Kappa.”

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The report also highlights that 64 per cent of the 67,000 hectares is made up of commercial pine and eucalyptus plantations, with most of the rest being protected natural forest. It asserts that the prevalence of pine and eucalyptus “disrupts the functioning of ecosystems”.

Smurfit Kappa, which did not comment on the report or plans by campaigners to turn up outside its meeting, highlighted in a section on its forestry assets on its website that 75 per cent of the fibres it uses are from recycled sources, with the remainder from fresh wood.

It also highlighted that since 2003, its Colombian forests have operated under a management system that has been certified in accordance with the Forest Stewardship Council, a German based non-profit.