CITIGROUP'S INVESTMENTS DRIVE ORANGUTAN'S CLOSER TO EXTINCTION

 The Business week article below profiles Citigroup's aggressive expansion into the Asian market and particularly the ways the company exploited the human suffering of the Asian crash in Indonesia. Citigroup has a long track record of underwriting destructive activity in Indonesia and the story of what is happening to Indonesian's forests, wildlife and local communities is a clear example of why we must re-write the rules of the global economy to include environmental and human rights protections.

In the last twelve years, Indonesia has lost over forty-two million acres of tropical forest, the primary reason for this is the rapid growth of palm plantations to produce palm oil for export. Throughout the 1990s, nearly 500,000 acres were converted to palm oil plantations each year. Big investors like Citigroup have been eager to finance the destruction. In total investors have applied for the release of nearly fifty million acres for oil palm development, an area equaling one-tenth of Indonesia's total land base.

Oil palm plantations have become an increasing problem for the people, the wildlife, and the environment of Indonesia. Scientists estimate that over the last decade the population of wild orangutans has declined by nearly fifty percent. A recent study by the Bronx Zoo's Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) concludes that unless poaching and habitat destruction are stopped Indonesia's orangutan population will be extinct within a decade. Orangutans are the only great ape in Asia and are among humanities closing living relatives.

Citi is involved with one of the most notorious palm oil companies, London Sumatra (LonSum). The company is currently in the process of clearing and planting 372,000 acres of new palm oil plantations, despite resistance from local indigenous communities. To the many indigenous peoples who survive by harvesting renewable, non-timber resources such as rubber, fruit, honey, and medicinal plants the destruction of the rainforests for palm plantations means the end of their way of life. There have been many reports that LonSum uses members of the armed forces and local government officials to intimidate local people to sell their land and there is a growing protest movement against the company. LonSum has also been repeatedly accused on setting forest fires as a tactic for seizing land. In 1997 and 1998 fires scorched twenty-five million acres of land in the provinces of Sumatra and Kalimantan causing massive smog that affected the health of seventy million people across Southeast Asia. . The Indonesian authorities acknowledge that plantation companies-who use fire as a cheap and quick means of land clearing-are in large part responsible for the fires.

Citigroup began financing LonSum in 1994 and has been involved in syndicated loans (with other banks) amounting to over $300 million dollars. As of February of 2000 LonSum begin defaulting on its debts and now creditors like Citigroup have an unprecedented opportunity to change the destructive policies of companies like LonSum.

Let Citigroup know that you want them to stop funding rainforest destruction in Indonesia. Call and ask them what are they doing to help protected Indonesian's endangered orangutan population? Ask them what the social and environmental standards they apply to their lending, financing and trading? Tell them to go BEYOND THE BOTTOMLINE and STOP FUNDING DESTRUCTION!

Call : *Director of Public Affairs Mark Rogers 1-718-248-1092 (direct line) *General Switchboard 1-800-756-7047 *Cardholder line 1-800-950-5114

Email : investorrelations@citi.com

Write : Sandy Weill, CEO Citigroup Center 153 E. 53rd St NY, NY 10043