Say No to Palm Oil published in The Friendly Word, the bimonthly magazine published by Quakers in Ireland:
Palm oil comes from the mesocarp of the palm fruit, grown on the African oil palm tree (Elaeis guineensis). In the mid-twentieth century Elaeis guineensis was introduced to Malaysia from Nigeria. Though palm oil trees now grow throughout Africa, Asia, North America, and South America, most palm oil is produced in Indonesia and Malaysia. Malaysia was the world’s largest producer until Indonesia, with its huge land area and low labour costs, became lead producer in 2007. The palm oil industry already occupies over eight million hectares of land in Indonesia, land that used to be home to mammals, livelihoods to indigenous people and a gigantic carbon sink storing carbon dioxide.
Palm oil production is responsible for serious environmental and human rights violations such as deforestation, habitat degradation, climate change, indigenous rights abuses, child labour and animal cruelty. Children weed fields, carry heavy loads of palm fruit and spend hours stooped over while picking the fruit from the ground. Cuts and bruises from climbing thorny oil palms are commonplace, and often children receive little or no pay for their work. According to the World Wildlife Fund, an area the equivalent size of 300 football fields of rainforest is cleared each hour to make way for palm oil production. This clearance destroys ecosystems and diminishes biodiversity. Many species, including the orangutan and Sumatran tigers, are being pushed to extinction. The orangutan plays a vital role in the regeneration of the rainforest. Large undigested rainforest seeds, which pass intact through the orangutan’s gut, are ripe for germination.
The predicament of the orangutan and the Sumatran tiger is indicative of the fate of thousands of other species in South-East Asia. A third of mammal species in Indonesia are believed to be endangered because of the unsustainable development of palm oil. As well as the serious loss of animals due to habitat destruction many are injured, killed or displaced during deforestation. The roads, built to allow plantation workers and equipment into the forest, provide easy access to poachers and wildlife smugglers. Mother orangutans are also often killed by poachers and their babies sold as pets or used in wildlife tourism parks.
Rainforest clearance contributes twofold to climate change. The enormous loss of trees during clearances greatly increases greenhouse gas emissions. There are less trees to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by photosynthesis and to act as carbon sinks. The removal of the native forests frequently involves burning of invaluable timber and forest undergrowth. These fires emit vast quantities of smoke, thereby releasing additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Corporations are allowed confiscate land owned by indigenous people. With plantations destroying the rainforests which local people depend on, communities have no choice but to become plantation workers. Instead of being able to sustain themselves independently, indigenous communities become reliant on the palm oil industry for their income and survival, leaving them vulnerable to the vagaries of the world market price of palm oil.
Environmentalists are sceptical about sustainable palm oil and the benefits of the RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil), a not-for-profit organisation, founded in 2004, to unite stakeholders from all sectors of the industry. The environmental community believe that the RSPO and its guidelines have not done enough to stem deforestation. The scepticism of the environmental community can be channelled to ensure that the RSPO standards are raised and adhered to. Certification is not perfect, but to ensure that requirements for certification are onerous, NGOs can, and must, continue dialogue with the RSPO.
Awareness raising is crucial. Iceland supermarket announced that it will stop using palm oil in its own branded products by the end of this year. The company said they were made aware of the environmental issues of using palm oil by campaigners from the environmental organisation Greenpeace. The fact that companies cite making a commitment to work towards using RSPO certified palm oil for their products demonstrates an awareness of the crisis, an awareness no doubt raised through the advocacy and campaigning of customers and environmental NGOs.
A proposal by the International Civil Aviation Organization to achieve “carbon-neutral growth” by using biofuel in airplanes, likely from palm oil, prompted outrage from both NGO’s and civil society. ‘Carbon-neutral growth’ could never be achieved whilst guzzling palm oil which is greatly increasing carbon emissions through its production.
A letter signed by ninety-six civil society groups warned that using biofuels on a vast scale would lead to an enormous expansion of palm oil plantations, and thus to more land-grabbing and food price volatility, more deforestation, more biodiversity destruction, more agrochemical use, and pollution of freshwater, without reducing the climate impacts of aviation. A petition against the plan was signed by more than 180,000 people. The International Civil Aviation Organization has listened. There is constant need for campaigning by civil society and NGOs to safeguard our planet. Voices on the other side are loud and persistent. As a condition for Indonesian purchases of Boeing and Airbus planes from US and French companies, the Indonesian trade minister wanted the U.S. and French governments to allow the construction of palm oil jet fuel plants in their countries using Indonesian palm oil.
As well as the obviously outrageous proposals there are the myriads of everyday products which contain palm oil or its derivatives, including biscuits, crackers, chocolate, confectionery, margarine, pizza dough, candles, shampoo, cosmetics, cleaning agents, washing detergents and toothpaste. Millions of tons of palm oil are produced annually. We all can play our part through reading labels and informing companies. We all need to keep the momentum.
www.worldwildlife.org/pages/which-everyday-products-contain-palm-oil