No Palm for Oil

Demand for palm oil is growing - and fast. At the moment, most of it ends up in hundreds of food products - from margarine and chocolate to cream cheese and oven chips - although it's also used in cosmetics and increasingly, for use in biodiesel. But the cost to the environment and the global climate is devastating - to feed this demand, tropical rainforests and peatlands in South East Asia are being torn up to provide land for oil palm plantations.

Our consumption of palm oil is rocketing: compared to levels in 2000, demand is predicted to more than double by 2030 and to triple by 2050. Over 70 per cent ends up in food, but the biofuels industry is expanding rapidly. Indonesia already has 6 million hectares of oil palm plantations, but has plans for another 4 million by 2015 dedicated to biofuel production alone. 

Commitments from various governments to increase the amount of biofuels being sold are pushing this rise in demand, because they're seen as an attractive quick fix to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By 2020, 10 per cent of fuel sold in the EU will be biofuel and China expects 15 per cent of its fuel to be grown in fields, while India wants 20 per cent of its diesel to be biodiesel by 2012. The irony is that these attempts to reduce the impact of climate change could actually make things worse - clearing forests and draining and burning peatlands to grow palm oil will release more carbon emissions than burning fossil fuels. 

But this phenomenal growth of the palm oil industry spells disaster for local communities, biodiversity, and climate change as palm plantations encroach further and further into forested areas. This is happening across South East Asia, but the problem is particularly acute in Indonesia which has been named in the 2008 Guinness Book of Records as the country with the fastest rate of deforestation. The country is also the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, largely due to deforestation. 

Much of the current and predicted expansion oil palm expansion in Indonesia is taking place on forested peatlands. Peat locks up huge amounts of carbon, so clearing peatlands by draining and burning them releases huge greenhouse gases. Indonesia's peatlands, cover less than 0.1 per cent of the Earth's surface, but are already responsible for 4 per cent of global emissions every year. No less than ten million of Indonesia's 22.5 million hectares of peatland have already been deforested and drained. 

Industry efforts to bring this deforestation under control have come through the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). It was set up in 2001 to establish clear ethical and ecological standards for producing palm oil, and its members include high-street names like Unilever, Cadbury's, Nestlé and Tesco, as well as palm oil traders such as Cargill and ADM. Together, these companies represent 40 per cent of global palm oil trade. 

But since then, forest destruction has continued. Many RSPO members are taking no steps to avoid the worst practices associated with the industry, such as large-scale forest clearance and taking land from local people without their consent. On top of this, the RSPO actually risks creating the illusion of sustainable palm oil, justifying the expansion of the palm oil industry. 

Greenpeace investigations - detailed in their report Cooking The Climate - found evidence that RSPO members are still relying on palm oil suppliers who destroy rainforests and convert peatlands for their plantations. One member - Duta Palma, an Indonesian palm oil refiner - has rights to establish plantations on land which theoretically is protected by law. 

The world was hoping that the proposed Moratorium on the invasion of peatland and it's conversion to palm oil plantations would go some way to redress the balance. Sadly, that was not to be. If you look at the maps and the figures, a tiny percentage of peatland is proposed as protected area. The rest will fall under the axe and chainsaw (the red area above). Indonesia's forests are an expendable luxury it seems, in the face of corporate greed and consumption. Susilo Bambang Yudhyono, Indonesia's president did the bare minimum when presented with the chance to take a big step and save vital habitats. He opted for profit, not preservation.

Source: Greenpeace