Palm oil 'decimating' wildlife, solutions elusive - report

Information and Discussions on Endangered Ecosystems
User avatar
Sprocky
Posts: 7121
Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 12:29 pm
Country: South Africa
Location: Grietjie Private Reserve
Contact:

WWF calls for legal action in Indonesia forest clearing

Post by Sprocky »

Posted by Flutterby on Wed May 02, 2012 2:32 pm

WWF calls for legal action in Indonesia forest clearing
Posted on 30 April 2012

Banda Aceh – WWF is calling on Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment and police to investigate and take strict legal action against the perpetrator of the recent clearing of land known to house around 200 critically endangered orangutan in Aceh’s Tripa peat swamp.

Initial findings from the task force investigting the violations indicate several laws have been broken by the landowner, including the use of fires to clear land, clearing peat land deeper than 3m, and conducting land-clearing activities prior to the issuance of a permit.

“The area is home to about 200 critically endangered Sumatran orangutan. WWF is calling for a follow-up investigation and legal action to prevent further clearing and stop incidents like this from reoccurring in the future,” said Dede Suhendra, WWF-Indonesia’s Program Leader in Aceh. “WWF-Indonesia is prepared to help the Government further investigate the case,” Dede added.

“WWF urges all oil palm companies operating in the Tripa area to implement best management practices on sustainable oil palm plantations to protect this very important peat swamp,” Dede continued. “WWF Indonesia also calls on central and regional governments to halt new permits for oil palm plantations and conduct strict assessments to identify high conservation value forest and the presence of endangered species.”

The Tripa peat swamp forest area is located in southwest Aceh Province. It is a primary habitat for Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii) and Sumatran tigers (Panthera tigris sumatrae). Massive land clearing for oil palm plantations since the 1990s has significantly decreased the orangutan population in the area.

Data on the Leuser Ecosystem collected by the Save Tripa Swamp Coallition, shows that the cleared area consists of close to 62,000ha of peat swamp forest owned by five palm oil companies. Around 35,000ha of this have been cleared following the rapid expansion of palm plantations since the signing of Aceh’s peace agreement in 2005.

A recent investigation by the International non-profit organisation PanEco, which specialises in nature conservation in Indonesia and Switzerland, reveals that over 1,000ha of land – the rough equivalent of 2000 soccer fields - was cleared for palm oil plantations between March 21 - 25th 2012, with a disastrous impact on the estimated 200 Sumatran orangutan living in the area.


Sometimes it’s not until you don’t see what you want to see, that you truly open your eyes.
User avatar
Lisbeth
Site Admin
Posts: 67231
Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 12:31 pm
Country: Switzerland
Location: Lugano
Contact:

Palm oil 'decimating' wildlife, solutions elusive - report

Post by Lisbeth »

2018-06-28 06:44
AFP

Image
A palm oil plantation in Nagan Raya, Aceh province, Indonesia. (Dita Alangkara, AP, File)

alm oil production has "decimated" animal and plant life in Malaysia and Indonesia and threatens pristine forests in central Africa and South America, a leading international conservation group warned on Tuesday.

Habitat loss due to expanding plantations has pushed some of the planet's most iconic species – including orangutans, tigers and some gibbons – to the brink of extinction, the International Union for the Conservation for Nature (IUCN) said in a report.

A certification system designed to ensure sustainability is "far from fulfilling its potential", it noted.

"Palm oil is decimating Southeast Asia's rich diversity of species as it eats into swathes of tropical forest," said lead author Erik Meijaard, head of the organisation's Oil Palm Task Force.

But banning new production in the tropics would only shift the problem elsewhere as consumer demand for vegetable oil soars, the report cautioned.

"When you consider the disastrous impacts of palm oil on biodiversity from a global perspective, there are no simple solutions," said IUCN Director General Inger Andersen.

"Half the world's population uses palm oil in food, and if we ban or boycott it, other more land-hungry oils will likely take its place."

Rapeseed, soy and sunflowers require up to nine times as much land to produce an equivalent amount of oil.

All told, 193 animals and plants threatened with extinction on the IUCN's Red List of endangered species were found to have been harmed by the lucrative crop.

Rapid expansion

Monoculture palm oil plantations sustain only a small fraction of the plant and animal life found in the tropical forests they supplant.

In Borneo – the world's largest palm oil producing region, with 8.3 million hectares planted as of 2016 – half the rainforests lost from 2005 to 2015 were destroyed by plantation development.

Worldwide, palm oil plantations – three-quarters of them industrial-scale – cover 250 000km2, an area roughly the size of Italy or the US state of Arizona.

More than 90% of current production is in Indonesia and Malaysia, but plantations are expanding rapidly in central Africa and parts of Latin America as well.

"Because palm oil is grown in the species-rich tropics, this could have catastrophic effects on global biodiversity," the report's authors warned.

Certification 'falling short'

Areas into which the crop is poised to expand are home to more than half the world's threatened mammals, and two-thirds of threatened birds.

Oil palms, native to western Africa, produce 35% of the world's vegetable oil, most of which is consumed in India, China and Indonesia.

Three-quarters of all palm oil is used for food or cooking oil, with the rest found in cosmetics, cleaning products and biofuels.

In 2017, more than half of the palm oil used in Europe ended up in the gas tanks of cars and trucks, according Transport & Environment, a Brussels-based environmental watchdog group.

One solution promoted by environmentalists is to shift production away from intact tropical forest.

"There are three million hectares of degraded land in Kalimantan," the Indonesian portion of Borneo, noted Andrew Steer, President and CEO of the World Resources Institute in Washington D.C.

"Palm oil plantations are not evil in themselves – the issue is where they have been put," he told AFP.

"If they are located on these degraded lands rather than pristine forests, it will also help the climate and local economies."

The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) – a voluntary certification programme set up in 2003 that covers about 20% of global production – has only yielded "limited conservation improvements", the IUCN report said.

"The RSPO is still failing to ensure its members protect rain forests and produce palm oil responsibly," Greenpeace International said in a comment. "Brands cannot rely on RSPO."

Palm oil development contributes to climate change and pollution when deliberate forest-clearing fires release CO2 into the atmosphere and lung-clogging smog into the region's air. The process can foul local water supplies as well.

A 2016 study in Environmental Research Letters found that tropical forest fires set the previous year caused more than 90 000 premature deaths in Indonesia, and several thousand more in neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia.

https://www.news24.com/Green/News/palm- ... t-20180626


"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." Nelson Mandela
The desire for equality must never exceed the demands of knowledge
User avatar
Lisbeth
Site Admin
Posts: 67231
Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 12:31 pm
Country: Switzerland
Location: Lugano
Contact:

Re: Palm oil 'decimating' wildlife, solutions elusive - report

Post by Lisbeth »

Do not buy products with Palm Oil among the ingredients


"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." Nelson Mandela
The desire for equality must never exceed the demands of knowledge
User avatar
Flutterby
Posts: 44150
Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 12:28 pm
Country: South Africa
Location: Gauteng, South Africa
Contact:

Re: Palm oil 'decimating' wildlife, solutions elusive - report

Post by Flutterby »

:yes:


User avatar
Richprins
Committee Member
Posts: 75829
Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 3:52 pm
Location: NELSPRUIT
Contact:

Re: Palm oil 'decimating' wildlife, solutions elusive - report

Post by Richprins »

They had the chance to do it in ordered fashion, so ..... them! :evil:


Please check Needs Attention pre-booking: https://africawild-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=322&t=596
User avatar
Lisbeth
Site Admin
Posts: 67231
Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 12:31 pm
Country: Switzerland
Location: Lugano
Contact:

Re: Palm oil 'decimating' wildlife, solutions elusive - report

Post by Lisbeth »

Could palm oil be the next "plastic"?

BY JOE SHUTE - 08 August 2018

Image

As one supermarket boss pledges to stop using the environmentally harmful palm oil, Joe Shute asks, should you too?

Last November the managing director of British supermarket chain Iceland made a visit to the Kalimantan rainforests in Borneo. Richard Walker, 37, whose parents founded the frozen food firm in 1970, says he wanted to see the impact of the palm oil industry at first hand.

He recalls encountering a “horizon to horizon monoculture” of palm trees where pristine rainforest once stood. Illegal deforestation and draining of peat bogs were further expanding the plantations, which manufacture an oil now used in a staggering 50 per cent of all supermarket products, from the cereal to the soap aisle.

Walker’s conclusion was stark: “I do not believe such a thing as sustainable palm oil exists.”

Following that trip, Iceland has now announced it will be removing palm oil from all of its own-brand products by the end of 2018 (replacing it with other vegetable oils). It is a move which will cost the company around £5m (R86.8m) but Walker insists it is the right one.

Much like plastics – on which Iceland also took the lead among British supermarkets earlier this year, pledging that its own-branded products would be plastic-free by 2023 – a utilitarian substance has now turned into a global scourge.

And Walker, backed by high-profile campaigners such as BBC presenter Chris Packham, says there is a moral imperative to act: “We have this great oil which is being used and abused and put into everything, and it is just not right.”

Iceland may seem an unlikely supermarket to lead the way on palm oils. Its reliance on processed foods (of which they are an all-pervasive constituent) resulted in it being named and shamed in a survey by the environmental charity Rainforest Foundation UK for its use of palm oils.

According to Walker, however, once informed about palm oil and its effects on the environment, 85% of its customers supported a decision to remove palm oils altogether.

But how can we all reduce our reliance on palm oil, 62 million tons of which were consumed globally in 2015 – a figure set to double by 2050?

Everyday items from biscuits and bread to shampoo and washing detergents rely on vast amounts of palm oil, of which the EU is the world’s third biggest consumer.

Palm trees are native to the forests of West and Central Africa where indigenous communities have relied upon the oil for food, medicine and manufacturing products for centuries, but use has exploded in recent decades as the lubricant of the global production chain.

Swathes of rainforest amassing some 6-10 million hectares have been cleared across south-east Asia to accommodate vast plantations. Such sustained habitat loss has had disastrous impacts on animal populations – orangutans and Sumatran rhinos, elephants and tigers, which rely on the habitats being destroyed by palm oil plantations, are now listed as critically endangered.

Indonesia and Malaysia, which produce more than 85% of the world’s palm oil, are the only remaining home to wild orangutans, of which fewer than 80,000 survive today.

This impact on biodiversity has been exacerbated by the draining and burning of peat bogs upon which the rainforest stands, releasing vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.

“It is a double whammy effect,” says Simon Counsell, director of Rainforest Foundation UK. “Essentially pretty much any wildlife living in the forest will have lost their habitat under these carpets of palm oil plantations.”

An association of industry and NGO members has been working together since 2004 under the auspices of a “Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil” (RSPO) to improve the sustainability of palm oil production. However, critics claim this has done little to halt the environmental destruction. And while there is now a legal requirement to display palm oil in products, the abundance and myriad uses for the ingredient means it can often be obscured under as many as 200 different names; palm kernel oil, palm fruit oil, hydrogenated palm glycerides, sodium kernelate and Elaeis guineensis are some of many examples.

“The problem is there are many derivatives of palm oil,” says Counsell. “It’s become a highly pervasive ingredient. Very often it’s impossible to recognise which products it is in.”

How palm oil has permeated your weekly shop:

Cosmetics

Palm oil and its derivatives lurk in an astounding 70% of global cosmetics, where they serve as emulsifiers and surfactants. Lipsticks rely on palm oil as it holds colour well, doesn’t melt at high temperature and has virtually no taste.

Soap and shampoo

Palm oil is used as a conditioning agent in shampoo. Unilever, which buys more palm oil than most other consumer-goods conglomerates, for use in products like Dove soap and Pond’s cold cream, recently committed to tracing its entire supply to sustainable sources by 2019. Other companies, such as L’Oreal, also pledged to follow suit.

Bread

Palm oil is widely used to make bread due to its solidity at room temperature, making it cheap and easy to bake with on a large scale. A survey by the Rainforest Foundation (updated in 2017) found Tesco, Asda and Morrisons all using palm oil in their in-store bakeries.

Ready meals

Among Iceland’s palm oil offenders – from which they have already removed it or are in the process of doing so – were ready meals such as luxury chicken makhani masala, chicken stew and dumplings and its luxury beef wellington. Palm oil forms 20% of the weight of a packet of instant noodles. It is also added to frozen pizza dough.

Chocolate

Palm oil is used to create its smooth and shiny exterior. Last October Nestlé, Mars and Hershey were accused of breaking pledges to stop using “conflict palm oil” from deforested Indonesian jungles. The firms say they have committed to improving its traceability.

Washing detergent

Palm oil is refined to create soap, washing powder and other cleaning products. Studies have recorded palm oil in 30-40% of cleaning products.

Puddings

A vast array of puddings and desserts rely on palm oil. Among the list of products Iceland says it has removed palm oil from, or will do so by the end of 2018, are mince pies. Palm oil is used in ice cream to make it smooth and creamy and in mass-produced biscuits. – The Daily Telegraph


"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." Nelson Mandela
The desire for equality must never exceed the demands of knowledge
User avatar
Richprins
Committee Member
Posts: 75829
Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 3:52 pm
Location: NELSPRUIT
Contact:

Re: Palm oil 'decimating' wildlife, solutions elusive - report

Post by Richprins »

@#$


Please check Needs Attention pre-booking: https://africawild-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=322&t=596
User avatar
Flutterby
Posts: 44150
Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 12:28 pm
Country: South Africa
Location: Gauteng, South Africa
Contact:

Re: Palm oil 'decimating' wildlife, solutions elusive - report

Post by Flutterby »

This is a horrible industry!! :-(


User avatar
Lisbeth
Site Admin
Posts: 67231
Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 12:31 pm
Country: Switzerland
Location: Lugano
Contact:

Re: Palm oil 'decimating' wildlife, solutions elusive - report

Post by Lisbeth »

There is nothing wrong with the palm oil in itself, it the way that it is grown ruining all other types of crops 0*\


"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." Nelson Mandela
The desire for equality must never exceed the demands of knowledge
User avatar
Lisbeth
Site Admin
Posts: 67231
Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 12:31 pm
Country: Switzerland
Location: Lugano
Contact:

Re: Palm oil 'decimating' wildlife, solutions elusive - report

Post by Lisbeth »

The human cost of palm oil development


September 11, 2019 3.44am BST | Aksel Tømte


Image
Palm oil development is not just about the economy but also needs to consider social and environmental costs. www.shutterstock.com

The oil palm industry likes to present itself as a success story in fighting rural poverty in tropical countries, an image supported by a recent article in The Conversation. Is it true?

The answer depends on the areas we look at and the methodology we apply. There are indeed case studies that find that farmers who get involved in the palm oil economy on favourable terms can greatly improve their economic situation.

However, as numerous case studies also show, communities that encounter the oil palm industry on less favourable terms can be impoverished by the arrival of the palm oil crop, and lose control over their lands and livelihoods.

Positive development, not just development

Palm oil brings about huge changes to the communities directly affected. It changes who control lands and resources and nearly all aspects of the local economies – where people get food, water and housing materials, and how they spend their money.

Take, for example, Sarapat Village in Central Kalimantan in the middle of Borneo island.

Previously, its inhabitants used to cultivate rice and vegetables, drink river water, fish and bathe in the river, tap rubber and find building materials in the forest.

In 2007, a palm oil company established itself in the village.

Community leaders agreed to reject any plans for palm oil development, but the plantation company nevertheless started clearing forests and farmland to make way for oil palms.

Image
Cleared land for palm oil plantation in East Barito of Central Kalimantan. Aksel Tømte, Author provided

After the plantation had been established, the river got polluted by fertiliser, pesticides and waste from the plantation. Thus, it was no longer suitable for fishing, drinking or personal hygiene.

The majority of the population lost the lands they used to live off. They had to switch from being farmers and fishermen to day labourers at the nearby plantation.

Most became dependent on the market to fulfil their basic needs.

Looking at contexts such as in Sarapat Village, any meaningful comparison of welfare levels must look beyond monetary indicators or number of formal jobs.

Two recent studies have applied methodology that does exactly that, and assessed changes in welfare levels using a range of indicators.

In a forthcoming study, The Institute for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights compared welfare in 12 villages in Sumatra, Sulawesi and Kalimantan. It found that while incomes were higher in some of the villages cultivating oil palms, the access to food, water and health was better in villages not (primarily) cultivating this crop.

An international group of academics compared welfare levels in various kinds of villages in Kalimantan and produced similar findings.

The social impacts may have been more positive in other areas – for example, in some parts of Sumatra (see link above).

In an opinion piece published in May 2019, Marcus Colchester of Forest Peoples Programme suggests the question we should ask ourselves is not if palm oil brings development or not, but what circumstances will enable the most positive development.

Land conflicts and dispossession

These issues brings to the fore the question of how to minimise the most negative impacts – including land conflicts and dispossession.

Palm oil now covers about 14 million hectares of land in Indonesia. Plantation companies control most of this land.

The way corporations gain control over lands plays out in different ways, but tensions are common. The Consortium for Agrarian Reform (KPA) registered 1,771 land conflicts in Indonesia between 2014 and 2018, with 41 people killed, 546 assaulted and 940 farmers and activists facing criminal prosecution.

Oil palm plantations account for the largest number of cases, compared to other industries.

Reasons for this high number of conflicts include the high level of corruption in the sector (which the Anti-Corruption Commission has confirmed), the lack of transparency on palm oil concessions (such as the executive government’s refusal to release data on use rights), biased and unpredictable law enforcement, and limited community participation in the processes leading to plantation development, as in the previously mentioned example of Sarapat Village.

Farmers may also lose their lands through market-based processes. For instance, when people more or less voluntarily sell their land to manage debt or extraordinary expenses.

This is well documented, for example, in the research of Tania Murray Li of Ecosoc Institute.

Protect small-scale farmers

Large-scale development schemes are often based on the assumption that global agribusiness corporations are more effective than small-scale farmers. It’s a view that seemed to underlie the recent article in The Conversation.

However, research finds this is not the case. International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology for Development, also known as the World Agriculture Report, made by more than 400 scientists from a variety of disciplines working together for four years, debunks the myth that industrial agriculture is superior to small-scale farming. On the contrary, the report finds small-scale farming is superior in economic, social and ecological terms.

Family farms produce about 80% of the world’s food. For the sake of farmers’ welfare, for ecological sustainability and for food security, policies should seek to maintain small-scale farms and increase their security of tenure.

In Indonesia, this could mean strengthening transparency and the rule of law, including by releasing data on use rights.

It is also important to acknowledge local land ownership – individually or collectively – independently of any plans for plantation development.

Further, policies should establish more inclusive decision-making processes at a local level, even if that may delay investments, so that local communities have more of a say on whether plantation development takes place and under what terms.

Aksel Tømte
Head of Business and Human Rights at Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, University of Oslo


Disclosure statement
Aksel Tømte does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.


"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." Nelson Mandela
The desire for equality must never exceed the demands of knowledge
Post Reply

Return to “Endangered Ecosystems”