Destructive Logging Allegations

ACCOR To Meet Interhill Over Destructive Logging Allegations

ACCOR spokesman: Meeting with Interhill scheduled for next week

Representatives of ACCOR, Europe's leading hotel group, are scheduled to meet with the Malaysian logging company Interhill next week over allegations that ACCOR's cooperation with Interhill is in contravention of ACCOR's environmental and social policies.

The online edition of London-based Environmental Finance magazine quotes Evan Lewis, the Singapore spokesman for ACCOR, as saying: "ACCOR became aware of the allegations of BMF last weekend. Subsequently, we have asked for a response from the owners of the Interhill project and ACCOR representatives are scheduled to meet with Intrhill next week to obtain an understanding of the related businesses."

Last week, the Bruno Manser Fund demanded ACCOR's withdrawal from the Novotel Interhill Kuching hotel project, a joint venture between ACCOR and Interhill, a controversial Malaysian logging company. Interhill has been logging tropical rainforests in the Malaysian part of Borneo since the end of the 1980s and bears decisive responsibility for the ongoing destruction of the very basis of several indigenous communities' existence in Sarawak's Middle Baram region.

ACCOR is Europe's leading hotel provider with 150'000 employees and annual sales of EUR 7.7 billion (2008). The company has repeatedly confirmed its commitment to sustainable development and has enrolled its 4,000 hotels in the "Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Camapign" launched by the United Nations Environment Programmen (UNEP).

ENDS

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