A supplier of palm oil with links to major brands including Unilever, Nestle, PepsiCo and Mars, has been destroying rainforests in a protected area of Papua, Indonesia, a Greenpeace investigation claims.

Palm oil is a vegetable oil found in a wide variety of consumer goods. Global appetites for the commodity have been associated with large scale deforestation in areas including Indonesia and Malaysia.

Video and images gathered by the environmental campaign group’s helicopter appear to show the clearance of 4,000 hectares of rainforest within the PT Megakarya Jaya Raya concession between May 2015 and April 2017.

The company which owns the land in question, the Hayel Saeed Anam Group (HSA) is a Yemeni-owned conglomerate with palm oil supplier subsidiaries. Deeds seen by The Daily Telegraph appear to show the land is held in names of members of the Saeed family which owns HSA Group.

One HSA subsidiary, Arma Foods, is a direct supplier to Mars, PepsiCo and Unilever. Another, Pacific Oils and Fats is listed as a supplier for Nestle. Pacific Inter-Link is also an HSA subsidiary with links to Unilever.

The area in which Greenpeace and a second group, Aidenvironment, claim to have documented the clearance of forest includes peatland.