Deforestation - Palm Oil

Hello everyone,

Hope you’re all having a good day.

Easter is fast approaching us, and with it brings a host of yummy chocolate goodies. Unfortunately many of these chocolate goodies come with a price, not just the regular jack up that stores do for bunny shapes, but the excessive amounts of palm oil being used.

What is palm oil?

Palm oil is produced by harvesting the fruits of oil palm trees and is a vegetable oil.

Why is palm oil bad?

The actual product itself isn’t bad, having no ill effects on people that consume it. The problems that come from palm oil are created from the way in which we produce the oil in an unsustainable manner. The industry of creating palm oil has massive ramifications affecting climate change, deforestation, animal welfare and human rights.

How does palm oil cause deforestation?

Oil palm plantations are a huge industry that many countries are adopting because they are an easy plant to grow and they have a high yield of the oil. The high yield and ease of which it is produced means that it is extremely cheap for governments and companies to purchase it, which has now led to
the fact that almost 50% of supermarket products now contain palm oil.

At the start of the 20^th century 250,000 tonnes of palm oil were being exported out of South East Asia with the majority coming from Malaysia. In the 1970’s Indonesia started to produce palm oil and have now become the leading producer of palm oil, with 60,000,000 Tonnes being exported from Indonesia and Malaysia. When this all started oil palms were planted in areas of open grasslands but it eventually got to a point when there was none left and so what was a country to do when they had to meet a higher demand? They chose the very simple option of clearing rainforests to make way for more palm oil plantations. In the picture on the right you can see a huge palm oil plantation from Malaysia that exists nowadays and yet go back a few decades and this view would have been a natural rainforest.

At current rates it is estimated that 300 football pitches of rainforest are being cleared every hour to make way for new plantations! This enormous amount is what is causing all the problems associated
with palm oil.

What does this deforestation mean for the planet?

There are multiple threats that we face from the deforestation that is going on. The top 3 are from climate change, animal welfare and human rights so I will address each of these separately.

               1)      Climate change:

          The biggest increase of climate change caused by the oil palm plantations happens in the initial stage of deforestation, the clearance. When a new plantation is being created the rainforest or other plants on the chosen land have to be cleared to make way for the oil palms. Most of the trees and plants are chopped down and felled which creates a lot of plant material. So to get rid of this material the companies that own the plantations burn the material until it is no more, in fact they will also scorch the land to make sure that it is completely clear. This creates a huge climate change problem for us because the burning plant material releases vast amounts of carbon dioxide (CO₂) into our atmosphere.

          As well as the burning causing gases to be released the areas chosen for palm oil plantations generally don’t actually look at the quality of the soil medium that they are grown on which has led to many of them being planted of swampy peats. Peat is created when the land is below the water table and leaves and other plant matter fall to the ground and don’t rot away. The process by which this happens traps vast amounts of CO₂ in our soil, so much so that if you removed all of the CO₂ from peat it would equal the same amount of that produced by burning nine years’ worth of fossil fuels. Now, oil palms do not grow well on peat and generally are more prone to diseases, so the companies remove the peat by draining the swamps water and by digging the peat up; both of which release CO₂ into the atmosphere.

                2)      Animal Welfare:

          The animal welfare rights happen throughout the deforestation process. The biggest problem that the animals in the forests face is from their homes being destroyed when the trees are cut down and unfortunately, many are killed by the fires that are used to clear the forest. It is also not just homes that are destroyed though, it is also animal food sources without which the herbivorous species may face extinction which also has a knock on effect to the predators that feed on them.

          The animals also face the problem of habitat fragmentation which is where the forests become isolated and the animals cannot travel to new territories to find new resources. The fragmentation also limits the genepool of animals found in the forests which leads to many species inbreeding and become susceptible to genetic disorders and diseases.

          Furthermore, many of the species that are found in the forests are commodities that are often found in eastern medicines. With the plantations development roads have to be created which makes it easier for poachers and wildlife traffickers to find and acquire rare species. Often the animals they find are taken in order to sell them into the illegal pet trade and for their pelts and body parts. Unfortunately, because this is an illegal trade there is no regulation so the animals that are caught are stuffed into cages barely big enough to move in. Many of the animals that are heading towards the pet trade will never make it there because the conditions that the animals are stored in are awful.

          The Congo Basin is of particularly high concern for animals at the moment with these animals being at the highest risk:

               






               









               




          3)      Human Rights:

          Humans also face threats from the palm oil trade in the countries where the plantations are found. In many cases the land that is used is taken from the indigenous people found on the land however the plantations provide a substantial income to the countries government so they turn a blind eye when people are kicked off their land.

          For the “lucky” few that are allowed to carry on living on their land they still face problems that can affect their quality of life. One of the biggest problems is food insecurity because the palm plantation can clear out the plants they require for food and also the animals that originally lived in the forest that they hunted. Whilst some of the plants provided food, some of them are even more valuable and are used by many indigenous people as natural medicines. In fact many of our western medicines are derived from these same plants without which we may lose the cure to our next big outbreak.

What is the future of these plantations?

At our current rate the world consumes around 60,000,000 tonnes of palm oil and by the year 2050 the amount is set to double to between 120 and 156 million tonnes. Yet, we are currently destroying rainforests just to keep up with current demand so to reach these new higher quantities the only option will be to clear more forest to make way for plantations.

At the moment the main exporters of palm oil are Indonesia and Malaysia, but an emerging palm oil producer can be found in the Congo basin. In order to meet our increasing demands for palm oil the deforestation rate is set to double by the year 2020, only 3 years’ time from now. The Congo Basin has millions of hectares of land and all of it is at risk from deforestation if we don’t act now, but there are things that you can do to help.

What can you do?

There are huge strides that need to be made in regards to palm oil and a large proportion of these need to be dealt with by the governments where the palms are grown but much of it can be dealt with by people like us. This biggest thing you can do as an individual is make yourself aware of what foods and products you buy that have palm oil in them and whether the palm oil they use comes from a sustainable source. By boycotting products that do not use sustainable palm oil we can force large companies to have to change what they put in their products and thus reduce the amount of palm oil the world uses. A fantastic guide for this comes from the Rainforest Foundation UK which ranks major brands on their palm oil sustainability, a link to this can be found at the end. I thoroughly recommend looking at the chocolate section as it has some surprising revelations as to who’s bad and who’s good especially leading up to Easter and it may change your mind as to which companies you buy your eggs from.

Many organisations also rely on donations so you can donate money to help them fight the larger palm oil fights. These same organisations also have some influence with government and government organisations and so many petitions are set up to change the laws and regulations to create a more sustainable palm oil industry.

More information on palm oil can be found online with more in depth looks at the industry and what you can do to help.

As always keep trying to be the force for change.

Heyze.


p.s. here is the palm oil guide:

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiwz9nU-O_SAhViJsAKHUU5D5QQFggnMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rainforestfoundationuk.org%2Fmedia.ashx%2F38436-Rainforest-Foundation-UK-Palm-Oil-Guide-2016.pdf&usg=AFQjCNHbE9er6_I5_mtDVqPVxxLHcq7f-A&sig2=pbqBONFjB7YLMezStQ14kQ