Palm Oil – The Problem

What’s the Problem with Palm Oil?

 

palm oil fruit
Palm oil fruit
Credit: AFP Getty Images

How much palm oil do you eat? And how can you tell?

Palm oil is found in 40-50% of household products that you probably use and eat. It is used most commonly in baked goods, chocolates, shampoo, cosmetics, cleaning agents, washing detergents and toothpaste.

OK, so what’s all the fuss about? What is palm oil, and what’s the problem with it?

The problem

Palm oil is edible vegetable oil from the African oil palm tree which flourishes anywhere that’s hot and humid.

  • The industry is linked to major issues such as deforestation, habitat destruction, climate change, animal cruelty and indigenous rights abuses.
  • 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.
  • Palm oil is very high in saturated fat, more so than sunflower or canola oil.

85% of all palm oil comes from Indonesia and Malaysia, but very little of it is sustainable.

“An area of 300 football fields of rainforest is cleared each hour for palm oil production”

Impacts on People

Palm oil plantations are often promoted as a way of bringing development to poor, rural regions. In reality, the industry often has devastating impacts on the people in these areas. Often, governments allow corporations to take the land owned by indigenous peoples for their own financial benefit.

The palm oil industry is also linked to major human rights violations, including child labour. Children are made to carry large loads of heavy fruit, weed fields and spend hours every day bent over collecting fruit from the plantation floor. Heat exhaustion and cuts from climbing thorny oil palms are commonplace in this damaging workspace.

With plantations destroying the rainforest land that the local people depend on, locals often find they have no choice but to become plantation workers. It’s low-income work in poor conditions. No longer able to sustain themselves, they become reliant on the success of the palm oil industry for their income and survival – yet they have no control over the world market price of palm oil.

Why would governments allow this to happen?

Benefits of Palm Oil

The benefits of the oil palm are difficult to ignore.

  • Palm oil is very profitable – it yields more oil per hectare than any major oilseed crop.
  • The palm tree can produce fruit for more than 30 years
  • Palm oil plantations providing much-needed employment for poor rural communities.

These are great benefits, but they come at a huge cost to people, the environment and animals.

Palm Oil and Climate Change

rainforest burning for palm oil
Rainforest being burnt, to make way for palm oil plantations

Ironically, palm-oil biodiesel was once supported as a solution to climate change – a low-carbon alternative to burning fossil fuel-based gasoline in vehicles. But now we realise that palm oil can contribute far more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than it helps to avoid.

Deforestation for palm oil production contributes significantly to climate change.

Rainforests acts as “carbon sinks”, storing carbon rather than releasing it into the atmosphere. Deforestation has major environmental impacts including releasing carbon and contributing to climate change.

Often, the invaluable timber of ancient rainforests is burnt, emitting immense quantities of smoke into the atmosphere and making Indonesia the third highest greenhouse gas emitter in the world.
Much of Indonesia’s rainforest is found on peatlands – carbon-rich forest debris that is too wet to decompose. When peatland is drained for oil palm production, it emits about 8 times more carbon dioxide than tropical forest without peat bogs.

What is the connection between orang-utans and oil palm?

Orang-utans live in areas that are perfect for palm oil plantations – their home is being destroyed on a massive scale. Over 90% of orang-utan habitat has been destroyed in the last 20 years.

palm oil plantation orang utan reuters
This used to be their home. Now it’s a palm oil plantation. Borneo. Credit: Reuters

Forest fires are set deliberately to clear land for plantations. Not only do fires destroy orang-utan habitat, but thousands of these slow-moving apes are thought to have burned to death, unable to escape the flames.

Orang-utans are sometimes shot as pests by plantation owners or farmers.

Government data has shown that over 50,000 orang-utans have already died as a result of deforestation due to palm oil in the last two decades. This either occurs during the deforestation process, or after the animal enters a village or existing palm oil plantation in search of food. Mother orang-utans are also often killed by poachers and have their babies taken to be sold or kept as pets, or used for entertainment in wildlife tourism parks.

We share 96% of our DNA with orang-utans! They are highly intelligent.

The orang-utan is cute and adorable, and no animal should face destruction of its home. But the orang-utan is also a keystone species – it plays a vital role in maintaining the health of the ecosystem. Some rainforest seeds in Indonesia for example, can only germinate after they have been eaten by an orang-utan, so the rainforest needs orang-utans for its survival.

The orang-utan is not the only species affected by palm oil development; their situation represents the story of thousands of other species facing the same fate in South-East Asia.

Other animals

There are over 300,000 different animals found throughout the jungles of Borneo and Sumatra, many of which are injured, killed and displaced during deforestation.

In addition, palm oil development increases accessibility of animals to poachers and wildlife smugglers who capture and sell wildlife as pets, use them for medicinal purposes or kill them for their body parts. The destruction of rainforests is therefore not only a conservation emergency, but a major animal welfare crisis as well.

Areas of Africa are now being cleared for palm oil plantations and Africa’s great apes are having their habitat destroyed.

palm oil kills orang utansLarge-scale deforestation is pushing many species to extinction – orang-utans and Sumatran tigers could soon become extinct in the wild, for example. One third of all mammal species in Indonesia are considered to be critically endangered thanks to palm oil destruction.

Wildlife have been found buried alive, killed from machete attacks, guns and other weaponry.

Road networks that are constructed to allow palm oil plantation workers and equipment access to the forest also increase accessibility of these areas to poachers that are looking for these kinds of valuable animals. This allows poachers to comfortably drive to an area to sit and wait for their target where previously they may have had to trek through inaccessible areas of forest.

What Next?

OK, now we know what the problem is.

What about sustainable palm oil – it’s better, right? Maybe – see why here.

And how can we avoid palm oil? Read more here.


Tags

orang-utan, palm oil, palm oil problem, why palm oil is a problem


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