WHO IS TA ANN?

Ta Ann Holdings is a Malaysian-based multinational logging and timber products company. Ta Ann Holdings has a track record of rainforest destruction and human rights violations in the Malaysian state of Sarawak.

The Ta Ann Group’s operations began in 1985 when a subsidiary of the Group was granted 257,604 acre concession to extract timber in the Kapit District, in the Malaysian state of Sarawak.

In recent years the conglomerate has grown substantially to be among the top five timber groups in Sarawak. The Ta Ann Group includes many subsidiaries and is worth around $US1.6billion.

The principal activities of the Ta Ann Group are in oil palm, timber concession licenses, trading logs, and manufacturing as well as the sale of sawn timber and plywood products. Japan and Europe are the main markets for structural plywood and floor base boards produced by the company.

In January 2006, Ta Ann was welcomed to Australia’s island state of Tasmania with a golden political handshake and they have since established forestry operations to sell Tasmanian wood products to customers in Japan, China and Europe.

Ta Ann’s decision to commence operations in Tasmania was likely driven by two core objectives: they were offered hardwood by the state-owned forestry company, Forestry Tasmania, at lower rates than they could access in Malaysia or Indonesia and they needed Tasmania’s ‘clean, green’ brand to access an increasingly environmentally concerned and lucrative international market.

Ta Ann Tasmania has rejected timber from plantations, staked its future on continued access to timber from native forests and has actively lobbied to stall an industry-wide transition to plantation harvesting. Ta Ann has received timber from the destruction of Tasmania’s world class forests, including timber from old growth forests, forests with recognised World Heritage values, threatened species habitat and other forests that are of high conservation value.

Ta Ann Tasmania is now the major driver of logging operations that continue to destroy large areas of old growth and high conservation value forests in Tasmania.

For more information, download these reports from the Huon Valley Environment Centre and Markets for Change

Research showing that Ta Ann Tasmania has been lying to their customers about sourcing wood. Ta Ann is now the largest destroyer of native forest in Tasmania, with large volumes of wood coming from old growth and High Conservation Value forests.

The logging of Sarawak’s forests and peatlands for palm oil plantations is occurring at a frantic pace. With globally significant impacts on greenhouse gas emissions, displacement of indigenous peoples and entrenched corruption. Huon Valley Environment Centre exposes the link between Ta Ann Tasmania and it’s parent company who is one of the largest timber companies in Sarawak, linked to practices such as these. The report documents claims by indigenous people in Sarawak, that Ta Ann have been using gangsters to threatened them, having their water poisoned by Ta Ann’s plantations and losing food supply due to logging activities.

For more than six months, Markets For Change followed timber from the ancient forests of Tasmania to the University of East London’s newly constructed Sports Dock build for use for Team USA before and during the Olympic Games of 2012. The purchaser of the timber products said it will no longer buy the Tasmanian timber from Ta Ann products.