While doing the research for a Los Angeles Times op-ed about the dangers and prevalence of palm oil, I came across a great new website from the Rainforest Action Network. It lists hundreds of products that contain this orangutan-killer. (In case you haven't been following palm oil coverage on Grist and elsewhere, rainforests -- the homes of the orangutans and many other rare creatures -- are being destroyed at the fastest rate in history in Indonesia and Malaysia to make way for palm oil plantations, accounting for between four and eight percent of annual global greenhouse-gas emissions.)
The site, The Problem with Palm Oil, is valuable for two reasons: First, it allows folks to green their home by getting rid of climate-killers like Oreo cookies, many Entenmann's baked goods, Body Shop soap, and Kit Kats -- and replace them with the many equally affordable (and healthier) alternatives like Lever 2000 soap (ironically made by Unilever, the biggest palm oil consumer in the world). After my article was published, I received an email from Andrew Butler of Lush Cosmetics, in which he reports has "eliminated the vast majority of palm oil we use" and is "working with Friends of the Earth to gather signatures in our stores asking [Members of the European Parliament] to vote against targets to increase the use of biofuels in road transport." Every food and cosmetics product I looked at had mainstream, equally affordable (and often tastier/better) alternatives that didn't contain palm oil.
The website also represents an example of a growing trend in online environmental organizing -- savvy groups are mobilizing their activists to participate in research projects, saving tons of time and money that can be used for purposes other than research. RAN is asking for "Supermarket Sleuths" to investigate products that do (and do not) contain palm oil (Greenpeace recently launched a similar effort on sustainable seafood). I participated myself, uploading the results of my research for the palm oil article (which was also featured on NPR's cool new show, the Bryant Park Project) and saving my friends at RAN a bunch of time.
If you've got a few minutes next time you're at the supermarket, you might want to help out; there are way more products that contain palm oil than the Supermarket Sleuths have found yet.
Simple people
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Comments
View as Flat
GreenEngineer Posted 7:44 am
27 May 2008
My impression has been that the deforestation is being driven 99% by the huge increase in demand caused by biofuels (mostly for Europe). If (if) that is the case, then wouldn't it be a much more relevant thing to focus on than beating up cosmetic manufacturers for an infinitesimal contribution to the problem?
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Jon Rynn Posted 7:58 am
27 May 2008
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Brihannala Posted 8:26 am
27 May 2008
Deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia-- far and away the largest producers of palm oil-- has been going on for decades, driven by market demand and the IMF's structural readjustment policies.Even before biofuels came on the market, palm oil was causing massive rainforest destruction.
America's consumption of palm oil is set to increase with increased demand for palm oil biofuels... but the vast majority of the demand still comes from food and cosmetics. Taking on both of these uses of palm oil is the only real way to make a dent in our consumption of this rainforest destroying oil.
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Jon Rynn Posted 8:44 am
27 May 2008
...but while I'm here, I'd like to point out that the global palm oil industry has been busy destroying ecosystems for over one hundred years. In fact, it was one of the first exploitations of ecosystems that was not for luxuries -- sugar, tobacco, coffee and cocoa being the big offenders, for hundreds of years now -- that were also the basis for slavery and near-slavery.
I believe margarine was the first big use of palm oil. As far as I know, it has always been a monoculture crop that has been bad for the ecosystem and the people in whose land it is located.
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redapes Posted 8:57 am
27 May 2008
To learn more about how you and your readers can help save them, please visit the Orangutan Outreach website: http://redapes.org
Keep up the great work!
Richard Zimmerman
Director, Orangutan Outreach
Reach out and save the orangutans!
Richard Zimmerman
Director, Orangutan Outreach
http://redapes.org
Reach out and save the red apes!
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caniscandida Posted 4:24 pm
27 May 2008
This is from the site of the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, in their page on palm oil:
<<
Borneo is home to 13 primate species, 350 bird species, 150 reptiles and amphibians and 15,000 plant species.
Sumatra is home to Sumatran rhinos, clouded leopards, Sumatran tigers, Asian tapirs, Sumatran elephants, and thousands of other species.
>>
Orangutans of course get top billing and much more attention. But gibbons are present on both islands; there are four genera and thirteen species of these smaller apes, distributed throughout Southeast Asia, but not doing especially well in most places.
The Sumatran rhinoceros is the smallest of the rhinos. They walk delicately through the forest. But sometimes traps are laid for them; their horns are smallish, but apparently still considered collectible.
(The somewhat larger Javan rhinoceros, pretty close kin to the Indian rhinoceros, is at this point restricted to two tiny populations, one at the west end of Java, the other in southern Vietnam, so they are probably not bothered by palm oil plantations -- though they have other things to worry about.)
The clouded leopards of Sumatra and Borneo are actually a separate species from the mainland clouded leopards, and are for now being referred to as "Bornean clouded leopards."
There are populations of both Asian elephants and tigers on Sumatra, both dwindling. Like the rhinos, these animals are small, smaller than others of their kind on the mainland. And as with the rhinos, poaching is a problem for them, as well as habitat loss.
Malayan tapirs are beautiful animals with soulful frightened eyes. Their watermelon-striped calves are among the most beautiful babies in the animal kingdom. There are conservation efforts under way on the mainland in Malaysia. On Sumatra, at least it has worked in their favor that the human beings, who are Muslim, do not hunt and kill them for food, believing they are pigs -- an accidental benefit of religion.
As for the smaller animals, such as birds, reptiles and amphibians, it should be remembered that very often their ranges are small, so that concentrated deforestation in even a limited area could bring one or another of those species to the edge of extinction.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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Ron Steenblik Posted 5:38 pm
27 May 2008
So to speak of "the problem of palm oil" is to miss a basic point: it is the problem of global demand for oils and fats that is ultimately at the root of pressure to convert forests to palm-oil plantations or soybean farms.
These are only my personal opinions.
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Glenn Hurowitz Posted 11:23 pm
27 May 2008
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Ron Steenblik Posted 1:24 am
28 May 2008
Total production of edible oils was around 125 million metric tons (142 billion litres) in 2007, and could rise to 129 million metric tons (147 billion litres) in 2008. One-third of that is palm oil.
I cannot find recent figures for rendered animal fats and greases, but this source estimates that production was around 15.6 million metric tons in 2005. Let's assume that increased to 17 million metric tons (around 19 billion litres) in 2007 and will be at about the same level in 2008. That would put total global production of vegetable oils and rendered animal fats and greases at around 146 million metric tons (166 billion litres) in 2008.
Biodiesel would thus account for 7.6% of total global production of vegetable oils and rendered animal fats and greases. Round up for straight vegetable oils (SVO) used as a fuel, and let's say the total use for fuel comes to roughly 8%.
It would appear, therefore, from USDA-FAS statistics, therefore that biodiesel production has accounted for some 1/3 of the 25-30 million tonnes (approximately 25%) increase in demand for vegetable oils and rendered animal fats and greases since 2003/04.
That may not sound like much, but at a time when demand for competing crops for land is also growing, it is significant.
These are only my personal opinions.
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Ron Steenblik Posted 1:28 am
28 May 2008
(It would be nice if there were an edit option here.)
These are only my personal opinions.
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Jonas Posted 3:32 am
28 May 2008
Do the people who have created the site also include an overview of what they will do with these millions of poor farmers? Any relocation plans? Any alternative livelihood schemes?
Or do they just don't care about People and only about Orang Utans?
I'm all for phasing out palm oil monoculture, but only when such a phase-out is socially sustainable.
Let's not forget that the European and American people behind this site live in a culture that destroyed its own biodiversity centuries ago.
What's their advise to the millions of small farmers who depend on palm oil?
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caniscandida Posted 5:21 am
28 May 2008
Let us trust that the best thinkers among us ("best" in the best sense of the word) understand the complexities of this corner of globalization, and understand as well that stopping deforestation in those countries will require positive changes for everyone, starting with the poorest, the most vulnerable, those most easily overlooked.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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Jon Rynn Posted 5:25 am
28 May 2008
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Jonas Posted 8:39 am
28 May 2008
Think of it, you have to relocate people, build a brick wall around the forest, invest in highly efficient agriculture and cities... else there is no way to protect these forests.
I don't buy the utopian ideas about idyllic agroforestry schemes now being pushed by the brilliant minds you seem to be referring to. The people on the ground reject them en masse.
You have to be able to offer them at least as much as they can make by being palm oil farmers, an activity that is a guarantee for staying out of poverty permanently.
And real brilliant minds (those who publish in such journals as Nature and Science) have said that your best minds have it all wrong.
Conservationists should become palm oil farmers themselves, according to scientists in Nature: Cashing in palm oil for conservation
These scientists, as several others, have said that this type of anti-palm oil campaigns is actually pretty dumb, anti-productive and could result in social misery on a very large scale.
The people of "the problem with palm oil" don't seem to have clue about the complex development issues surrounding this economic sector.
The same is true for proposals to protect rainforests by valueing their carbon content. Such top-down schemes like "avoided deforestation" (AD) or REDD literally threaten to destroy entire communities. And these communities are already resisting these Euro-American schemes, coming from some abstract outside entity, managed by some corrupt state.
People will only except realistic alternative livelihoods that offer them just as much wealth as they can derive from palm oil farming.
I'm a realist, and I get angry when the worst best minds out there want to protect Urang Otans at the expense of human beings.
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Jon Rynn Posted 8:42 am
28 May 2008
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Brihannala Posted 8:44 am
28 May 2008
The other type of plantation-- known as plasma plantations-- are small-- generally about 2 hectares-- and are owned by the community members. These are supported by the company, who loan money to the smallholders for seedlings and pesticides. Then the core plantation buys all the palm oil from the smallholders-- which means that they can control the price.
In the core plantations, workers make less than a livable wage, and only a few people in a community can make a living. In the plasma plantations, the workers are held in debt peonage to the core plantations. They can almost never make a profit, and it certainly does not provide real income and support. What it does mean is that these communities have lost their forest and any traditional ways of supporting themselves, and do not have a real way of making money through their plantations.
(Also, for transparency's sake, I work in the Rainforest Agribusiness campaign at the Rainforest Action Network and played a big part in developing The Problem With Palm Oil . org.)
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Jonas Posted 8:49 am
28 May 2008
Modernity is now what they themselves aspire to (ask any ordinary citizen in any developing country what they want: a car, a nice appartment, a fridge and a laptop).
If we Euro-Americans don't like it, we should set the example first and deconstruct our own modernity.
If, on the contrary, we want to force anti-modernism on these other peoples, we just keep being colonizers, repeating colonization by other means ("you developing world people, you listen to us, don't even dare to become like us, don't become modern, don't achieve what we achieved, we order you to revert back to your pre-modern state").
It would be neocolonialist to forcefeed our post-modern views to these people.
And neocolonialist it is because some conservation schemes are already being imposed with the barrel of the gun. Literally.
Conservationists with AK-47s:
Up on a hill, between the Echuya forest and the Bwindi Park, community leader Sembagare Francis recalls: "One day, we were in the forest when we saw people coming with machine guns and they told us to get out of the forest. We were very scared so we started to run not knowing where to go and some of us disappeared. They either died or went somewhere we didn't know. As a result of the eviction, everybody is now scattered."
Conservation refuguees:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7390917.stm
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Jonas Posted 9:04 am
28 May 2008
In West and Central Africa, virtually all palm oil is produced by entirely independent small holders. But these small holders actually make more money when they are so lucky to be able to participate in outgrower schemes for large companies. That's why, when such a company arrives in West Africa, the local farmers rejoice, because their incomes improve instantly and a whole range of key infrastructures comes along.
But even in the two models you refer to for Indonesia and Malaysia, smallholders are making more money than in any other agricultural sector (aside from benefiting from the crucial development infrastructures which bring health, education, mobility, etc...). Which explains why there are so many people taking up palm oil farming, indepentently, but preferrably as outgrowers.
Moreover, the palm oil sector as a whole has been the key driver of Malaysia's economy, contributing more than any other economic sector except oil and gas. So on the macro-economic scale, palm oil has helped the society there as a whole.
Maybe an interesting perspective:
Palm oil boycott an unrealistic approach to conserving biodiversity
Rhett Butler, mongabay.com
April 15, 2008
Boycotting palm oil produced in Southeast Asia in an "unrealistic" and "ineffective" approach to conserving the region's fast-disappearing rainforests, said a Princeton University researcher speaking at a conference on the sustainability of palm oil. Instead, NGOs should focus on engaging and working with the palm oil industry to reduce its impact on the environment.
Addressing the first International Palm Oil Sustainability Conference in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, Princeton biologist Dr. David S. Wilcove said that the palm oil industry is too important to the economies of Indonesia and Malaysia to justify blanket import bans on the edible oil used in food, cosmetics, industrial products, and biodiesel. The palm oil industry contributes to health, education, and infrastructure in rural areas.
"In the context of its tremendous economic importance, it must be recognized that the notion of boycotting palm oil is impractical and unrealistic. It is simply not an approach that will work."
While the economic gains from palm oil are substantial, Wilcove said they come at the expense of biological diversity. Still Wilcove was hopeful that increasing awareness of environmental issues among oil palm producers and innovative partnerships could reduce the worst outcomes for biodiversity in the region. He said that small measures to increase species richness could have unintended benefits for palm planters, although such measures would not be sufficient to prevent the loss of many species.
Mongabay.
The rest of the article shows on how to possibly go about.
Palm oil is just too important economically and socially.
Just imagine Malaysians or Indonesians calling for a boycott of American or European goods key to their economies, just like that, an entire sector. It's outright paternalistic.
I refuse to be a green imperialist. Sorry, I'm with the people from the developing world here.
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Jon Rynn Posted 9:09 am
28 May 2008
As far as "conservation as colonialism" is concerned, I have to say I did laugh out loud at that one -- as for the bbc story, the understanding of how indigenous peoples are actually allies in conservation is now taking hold, as the article explained, and you can always point to some anecdote somewhere to try to argue against a particular policy. But as Paul Hawken explains in his book "Blessed Unrest", indigenous peoples are now at the forefront of global efforts to save the planet from extermination.
I had to laugh at the "conservation as colonialism" line because it sounds like something a conservative (that is, a right-wing person) would say about conservation -- in both your case and their's, "progress" is being opposed, and since "progress" helps everybody, opposing progress hurts people.
Now, I have nothing against technological development, in fact I think it is critical to getting the planet out of this mess, but the whole idea of "conservation", the way I understand it, is that conservation is a win for both humans and nature; by preserving nature, you preserve the basis for human survival. Marx and most other 19th century thinkers didn't seem to understand this.
Another reason I had to chuckle is because in the US, many marxists-turned-conservatives have perfected the art of hurling the term "elitist" at liberals, a term that up until now has been very effective, which is weird because the conservatives are defending wealth and power. But it occurs to me that this use of the concept of "elitism" was brought over from marxist discourse, and has about as much usefullness -- that is, practically none, because it doesn't help to construct a positive alternative. end of rant.
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Jon Rynn Posted 9:11 am
28 May 2008
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Brihannala Posted 4:19 am
29 May 2008
Of course I am not against development, but I am for development that empowers communities and results in real benefits. When a community begins to grow palm oil, a small number of community members do not get a living wage and many more people are left without any sort of work at all. When communities are pressured into growing palm oil, they are rarely told the whole truth. Communities are promised that they will get schools, health care facilities, you name it, in order to entice them to accept palm oil. They are promised profit sharing deals that amount to nothing more than lies. As an example, check out this case study from Papua New Guinea: http://www.ran.org/campaigns/rainforest_agribusiness/spotlight/case_studies/kararata_mini_estates/.
The argument against the expansion of palm oil leading to economic development nationally is also seriously flawed. This sort of classic trickle down economics just doesn't work for communities living in rural areas of Indonesia and Malaysia. First, the majority of profit goes out of the country to the ADM, Bunge, and Cargills of the world. The money that does stay in the country is generally captured by the business elites, with only minimal money making in to the government. Indonesia's and Malaysia's governments are famously corrupt, and little to no real development happens in the rural areas where palm oil is grown.
What communities need is a way to control the income that they make in their local areas, and to be able to decide for themselves how they want their development to look like. And although I agree that it will certainly include modern conveniences like motorbikes and tvs, I think we have seen from movements around the world, that people also want to have the water they drink and the air they breathe to be clean. What is clear is that palm oil plantations, which destroy the environment and don't bring development, are not the answer.
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lrobertson Posted 6:19 am
02 Jun 2008
We as consumers have a responsibilty not only to shop safely but environmentally. What we do does eventually effect others, maybe just not as fast as we like.
Liz
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dhwert Posted 2:13 am
04 Jun 2008
I highly recommend the link Jonas posted: "Cashing in palm oil for conservation". It is up and is free, so go read it and then see whether the "prohibition" mindset offered by so many big enviro-NGOs (and this original post) is really the only option.
C'mon, people. Think broadly, and don't get so caught up in the emotional "save the ___" mentality that you think that complex problems driven by huge consumer demand can be solved simply by demonizing a product (and, in turn, a livelihood for many). What are the alternatives? Soy? Heard of Brazilian rainforests? Olives, canola? Is there a lot of unused land just waiting for more acres of these crops? What effects will shifting increased production to these crops do to other crops and available land?
The point I get from the food crisis and oil crisis that we're seeing is that it all comes back to overpopulation and overconsumption. So until Rainforest Action Network and Greenpeace and the rest spend 95% of their time working on those issues with the demographic that causes the biggest impact (their members? and other Americans/Europeans?), their "campaigns" to stop economic activity in developing countries will continue to look like so much neo-colonialism.
I am so tired of "conservationists" that can't seem to do anything but run "campaigns" and call for boycotts and be oppositional. For gosh sakes, use all that youthful energy and creativity to do something new, something that works, something that might help all the parties involved. Koh & Wilcove's proposal would do that. Heck, RAN doesn't even need to think creatively; they could just follow the Koh & Wilcove proposal, run palm-oil plantations in a model sustainable manner, and use the revenues to protect more primary forest.
Until NGOs in rich countries put up the funds to both help developing countries economically and protect the lands that they (and I) consider worth protecting, I'm afraid I can't respect or support their efforts.
Dave
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2wheeler Posted 12:34 am
09 Jul 2008
The real value of other NGOs who "campaign" on these issues is to educate consumers who can then send those signals through the market and politics about what they favor, in this case, sustainability and conservation of species from the top primate on down. That is not euro-colonialism, that is enlightened living for a small planet that is pushing the limits of its carrying capacity.
Moving toward sustainability with hopefulness, one revolution at a time.
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Frank Law Posted 3:29 pm
21 Aug 2008
I've lived in Malaysia for the past 25 years and your article is so factually flawed that its easy to see why Westerners froth at the mouth when writing about this issue.
For one, Malaysia is the world's largest producer of palm oil and can still boast of 65% forest cover after more than a century planting palm oil - certainly much more the 20 or so per cent forest cover found in ALL the countries in the industrial West. That's because, for decades now palm oil planters in Malaysia has been planting only on legitimate agricultural land and because palm oil is the most high yielding oil seed in the world yielding in excess of 4.5 metric tons of oil per hectare compared to the less than 0.5 metric tons of competing oil seeds like soy, corn, sunflower and rapeseed. You see, palm oil is so productive that there is no necessity to destroy the jungle to set up plantations.
It is indeed laughable for you to allege that "the homes of the orangutans and many other rare creatures -- are being destroyed at the fastest rate in history in Indonesia and Malaysia to make way for palm oil plantations, accounting for between four and eight percent of annual global greenhouse-gas emissions." Whilst it's true that the most recent estimate for the Sumatran Orangutan is around 7,300 individuals in the wild , the Bornean Orangutan population is estimated at between 45,000 and 69,000. How can the homes of the orang utan and other rare creatures, by any leap of logic or stretch of imagination, be "destroyed at the fastest rate in history?"
I follow the Palm Oil Truth Foundation's website from time to time. I now understand why this site claims that the preservation of western hegemony is the only reason for these irrational attacks against palm oil.
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