A worker shoulders palm fruits in Indonesia, one of the top palm oil providers, along with Malaysia.
(Yusuf Ahmad /Reuters)Photos (1 of 1)
Sizing up palm oil
Palm oil is in everything from fuel to cosmetics. Is it a solution or a problem?
By David Grant | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor/ November 2, 2009 edition
It’s lurking, unlabeled, in hundreds of household products from lip gloss to baby formula to potato chips. While it doesn’t sound (and need not be) nefarious, activist groups worldwide argue that the production of palm oil is currently harming rain forests in Southeast Asia, orangutans, and the environment.
But the American Palm Oil Council calls it “nature’s gift to the world.”
So, which is it?
Made from the flesh of fruit from oil palm trees, palm oil stepped into the void when towering oil prices put pressure on companies worldwide to find alternative sources for products from biofuel to shampoo. Demand for the oil surged by an average of 2.2 million metric tons worldwide each year between 2000 and 2009.
Although palm oil saves money, when carbon-rich peatlands in nations such as Indonesia and Malaysia are drained and turned into palm oil groves, the environmental impacts are enormous, says a 2009 United Nations Environment Program report.
The report notes that because of the additional release of carbon sequestered in peatland as a result of some forms of palm oil farming, its combustion “generates 3 to 9 times the amount of CO2 produced by burning coal.” The upshot? A carbon debt “requiring 420 years of biofuel production to repay.”
Another loser in increased palm oil production is the orangutan, which lives exclusively in the palm oil meccas of Borneo and Sumatra and inhabits lowland areas near rivers that are also favored for palm oil plantations. Zoos Victoria in Australia estimates that palm oil development causes the deaths of up to 50 orangutans per week.
To help prevent loss of orangutan habitat and the adverse environmental effects of most current palm oil production, environmental groups, palm oil producers, and companies that use the oil have banded together to form the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). Its goal: to advance the production and use of sustainable palm oil.
This may be the start of a solution, but “it’s not going far enough,” said Leila Salazar-Lopez, rain forest agribusiness campaign director for the Rainforest Action Network, during a panel on palm oil policy in Boston. “We applaud companies that are members of the RSPO but we need further action.”
Companies can buy sustainable credits to help support farmers who produce ecofriendly palm oil, but the small supply so far makes this unfeasible on a large scale, says Jeffrey Hollender, executive chairman of Seventh Generation, which makes environmentally friendly household products. As a result, sustainable palm oil is unavailable as a pure product. Instead, it’s mixed with regular palm oil. Consumers have no way of knowing how the palm oil in products they buy was produced.
Solid dialogue between the palm oil industry and environmental activists is important and has been aided by the existence of the RSPO, says Serge Wich, a researcher at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa, a conservation group. “I think that we need to have a constructive dialogue with the palm oil industry,” he says. “If we’re going to say the palm oil industry is the problem, and we’re not going to provide constructive solutions, then that’s not going to help.”
Editor’s note: For more articles about the environment, see the Monitor’s main environment page, which offers information on many environment topics. Also, check out our Bright Green blog archive and our RSS feed.
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Comments
2. Barton | 11.02.09
So, you essentially set up the story as an impartial look at palm oil production and then repeat the anti-palm oil line?
How about some reporting?
3. Palm Oil Truth Foundation | 11.03.09
The Palm Oil Truth Foundation has been a lonely voice in the wilderness, pointing out for some years now that the anti-palm oil campaigns are clearly a well funded and well planned proxy trade war cleverly disguised as legitimate environmental concerns!
The mainstream media has been mindlessly lapping up the hype and regurgitating them ad infinitum. It is certainly heartening that the media is finally waking up to the dubious nature of Greenpeace and FOE’s claims!
The total world acreage planted with palm oil is less than 1% of the world agricultural area. It is certainly a stretch for the agitators to allege that palm oil is responsible for “massive deforestation” that is contributing 20% of global carbon emission and causing global warming!
More likely, the fact that palm oil is fast becoming the most popular edible oil in the world could be the real reason behind the discomfiture of its competitors with palm oil’s growth that triggered this agitation in the first place.
The Palm Oil Truth Foundation is compelled to ask whether the real motives behind the anti-palm oil movement could be motivated by the fact that palm oil is:
1. the most productive of all edible oils with a yield of 4-5 metric tons per hectare, up to 10 times that of its competitors
2. inherently healthful as it is naturally rich in anti-oxidants like tocotrienols, Co Q10 and beta-carotenes (which is why the oil is naturally red in colour)
3. the cheapest cooking oil in the world due to its incredible yield and because of its price advantage is now increasingly popular as a feedstock for biodiesel.
It is time that the main stream media wake up to the fact that these anti-palm oil campaigns are really cleverly disguised proxy trade wars, as palm oil is inherently the most efficient and sustainable of all oilseeds. In fact, it is so efficient in sustainability terms that we should consider replanting palm oil on land currently used for planting other oilseeds such as soy, canola and sunflower (weather permitting), if environmental conservation is truly a genuine concern. After all, just 1% of world agricultural area planted with palm oil is generating so much concern amongst its competitors!
Visit the Palm Oil truth Foundation website to learn more: http://www.palmoiltruthfoundation.com
4. Survival International | 11.03.09
Orangutans are not alone in being threatened by the expansion of oil palm plantations. The Penan tribe and other indigenous peoples in Sarawak, in the Malaysian part of Borneo, are seeing their forests cleared to make way for oil palm. The Penan rely on the forest, and without it they cannot hunt or gather food. Many are having difficulty feeing their families.
Survival International is campaigning for the recognition of the Penan’s rights to their land, and an end to oil palm plantations and other developments on their land without their consent. For more information see http://www.survivalinternational.org/penan
5. Expat | 11.03.09
This short article barely touches on the human rights violations, the displacement of people, the environmental devastation and other consequences of palm oil plantations throughout the Global South. In places like Columbia, for example, US government aid is being used to assist military and paramilitary groups to kill campesinos or otherwise dislodge them from their lands so that the palm oil industry may replace forest and small farms with its monoculture crop.
Haven’t we learned anything from history? Today’s international system, in which a few countries — the self-described “G8,” for example — dictate economic terms to the many post-colonial developing countries, arose out of the sugar cane industry. It is a system of extreme income inequity, exploitation, and constant war.
Palm oil would be the new sugar cane if we in the Global North allowed ourselves to lulled by its promoters into thinking that we arre good green citizens by using palm oil instead of petroleum in our daily lives.
Instead, we should be rethinking our economic system and social relations. Rather than replaying the sad old story from the last two centuries, let’s look forward to a new era where we work to support ourselves locally by our own labor, and globalize freedom and democratic ideals.
What a great way to save the orangutangs!
6. Kesi Guevara | 11.03.09
The most ridiculous argument in favor of palm oil expansion is that it is somehow good for the ‘developing world’. This is a complete farce. The poor farmers are not improving their lot in life because of palm oil. At best, they become migrant laborers on mega plantations– earning so little money that they are still living well below the poverty line years later. The profits from palm oil go to wealthy global investors. Indigenous people are duped out of their land and then forcibly removed by the corporate thugs. Then even poorer people are brought in from outside areas to work the plantations.
Those opposed to palm oil expansion are in no way trying to deny the poor the right to develop. The same people who are trying to stop forest destruction are in favor of other types of compensation for keeping the forests standing– either through REDD, carbon trading or local investment in agricultural practices that maintain the integrity of standing forests– such as sugar palms instead of oil palms. This investment is meant to go to local people– not just politicians and businessmen in Jakarta, Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur.
This is not a conspiracy to keep down any one group of people. It is a global problem that needs to be dealt with NOW. Proponents of palm oil expansion are fond of saying to Western NGOs, “You destroyed your forests so we can destroy ours!” But this tactic will simply result in a planet in which we all suffer. This is not about development and equity for the poor inhabitants of Kalimantan and Sumatra. The palm oil conglomerates and timber barons don’t give a damn about the poor inhabitants of the forests of Kalimantan and Sumatra which they are destroying. They care only about instant cash flow from felled timber and short term profits. Twenty years on and Borneo will be a lifeless desert. The capital will have long since stopped flowing. Local people are only chattel in the spreadsheets of companies such as Asia Pulp & Paper, Wilmar and Sinar Mas– slaves for their industrial plantations. Don’t you dare call this development, you lying thieves!
Don’t lose the forest for the trees…
Save the forest. Save the planet. Save yourselves.
7. Hilda Binaround | 11.03.09
Some years ago I saw fields in Costa Rica being cleared and planted by big corp. in new palm oil trees. Just before arriving, I read a study that said palm oil should not be used in food products. Now I see it as a common ingredient listed in many foods.I think that report was published in 1992. So it is with corn syrup, ‘imitation’ honey and other ways to adulterate, cheapen, our foods, and make smaller packages, thus raising profits, at the consumers detriment.
8. Dennis | 11.04.09
1% of the world’s agricultural area is a heck of a lot of land. The so-called “Palm Oil Truth Foundation” is being disingenuous by using a misleading “statistic” like that. Certainly it would not be a problem if it was replacing other oil producing crops, and It’d be great if it were reforesting land that had previously been cleared for cattle grazing. BUT: it’s being cut out of virgin rain forest and destroying valuable wildlife habitat.
Prejoritive language is another red flag: they label their opponents “agitators” & other things, make claims, but skirt the real issues.
Not to mention Palm oil is not that healthy: it is well documented to raise cholesterol levels (it’s better than some oils and worse than others).
9. Palm Oil Truth Foundation | 11.06.09
With due respect to Dennis, 1% of world agricultural area is STILL 1% of world agricultural area. It means that 99% of the total world agricultural land is planted with crops other than palm oil. At the risk of sounding facetious, how is that disingenuous and a misleading use of statistics?
No offense was ever intended, but if palm oil, which is planted on 1% of world agricultural area can be accused of causing 20% of global carbon emissions, we’re afraid that those organizations making such incomprehensible assertions cannot be described in any other way except as unmitigated agitators!
Do check out this article “The Truth about Palm Oil” at:
http://www.palmoiltruthfoundation.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=329&Itemid=811
This article in non-pejorative language shows that tons of scientific studies have been conducted and published in peer reviewed journals showing that a palm oil diet lowers plasma cholesterol levels and boosts HDL (good) cholesterol.
10. Rob Filyk | 11.10.09
Let’s destroy our virgin rain forests and convert prime agricultural land so that we can make biofuel from palm oil. That’s just such a great idea.. while we’re at it let’s further destroy the world’s ability to produce food by growing corn for biofuel and other biofuel-producing crops because that makes so much sense too…oh yeah- we’re doing that already.
11. dan strayer | 11.16.09
Very convenient to express oil in tons instead of barrels. If palm oil weighs 7 lbs per gallon, roughly 15.5 million barrels of it are produced each year. The U.S. uses about 20 million barrels a day. And this says nothing for the rest of the world’s use. So, the total contribution made by palm oil starts to look very small in comparison to conventional sources or as a potential partial replacement for the depletion of those sources. If mankind is willing to do that kind of damage in order to acquire oil now, imagine the scene in a few years when oil goes over $100 and climbs from there.
12. Ron Scheurer | 11.17.09
Another short term technological fix that simply leads to another long term technological disaster; all ultimately due to an over extended and unsustainable human population.
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1. redapes | 11.02.09
Around 90% of the global supply of palm oil comes from Indonesia and Malaysia, and this has come at a tremendous cost. The forests of Borneo and Sumatra are being burned to the ground– releasing so much carbon into the atmosphere that Indonesia now ranks only behind China and US in carbon emissions– and it is barely industrialized. The UNEP estimates that the forests of Indonesia are being cleared at a rate of 6 football fields per minute every minute of every day.
The palm oil industry is guilty of the most heinous ecological atrocities imaginable, including the systematic genocide of orangutans. The forests of Borneo and Sumatra are the only place where these gentle, intelligent creatures live, and the cultivation of palm oil has directly led to the brutal deaths of thousands of individuals as the industry has expanded into previously undisturbed areas of rainforest.
When the forest is cleared, adult orangutans are typically shot on sight. Or if bullets are not available, these peaceful, sentient beings are beaten, burned, mutilated, tortured and often eaten. Babies are torn off their dying mothers so they can be sold on the black market as illegal pets to wealthy families who see them as status symbols of their own power and prestige. This has been documented time and again.
Visit the Orangutan Outreach website to learn more: http://www.redapes.org