Berliner Tageblatt - US demand for RVs fuels deforestation on Indonesia's Borneo: NGOs

The recreational vehicle industry is now the biggest consumer of tropical wood in the United States, UK-based NGO Earthsight and Indonesian NGO Auriga Nusantara said in a report published late Tuesday.

They said evidence showed sheets of tropical "lauan" plywood found in Indonesia were likely being used in the floors, walls and ceilings of RVs produced by major brands like Jayco, Winnebago and Forest River.

"Nature-loving RV owners will be horrified to learn that their hobby risks destroying rainforests," said Earthsight director Sam Lawson in a press release.

"America's RV giants need to get out of the 1980s and implement the kinds of minimum sustainability standards other US corporates have had in place for decades."

Indonesia has one of the world's highest rates of deforestation linked to mining, farming and logging, and is accused of allowing firms to operate in Borneo with little oversight.

Borneo island has one of the world's largest tracts of rainforest and hosts orangutans, long-nosed monkeys, clouded leopards, pig-tailed macaques, flying fox-bats and the smallest rhinos on the planet.

Large tracts of orangutan habitat in Borneo were found to be "cleared to make way for a plantation of fast-growing timber", the NGOs said.

An Indonesian plywood company, PT Kayu Lapis Asli Murni, sourced timber mostly from rainforest in areas the NGOs visited, half of which was then exported to US firms MJB Wood and Tumac Lumber in 2024, they said.

MJB Wood is the main lauan plywood supplier to Jayco, while Tumac Lumber supplies companies such as RV parts maker Patrick Industries, "whose customers include Thor Industries, Forest River and Winnebago", the report said.

The NGOs said it meant it was "almost certain" Indonesian tropical wood was being used in the RV supply chain in the United States.

None of the companies mentioned replied to the report's authors when asked for comment, it said.

Neither the companies nor the Indonesian environment ministry immediately responded to an AFP request for comment.

A.Gasser--BTB