Brihannala’s Recent Comments

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  "Green Imperialism"

  Jonas: While there are some small scale production that is helpful to communities in Africa (where palm oil is a native plant), over 90% of world production comes from Indonesia and Malaysia. When we are talking about issues surrounding palm oil expansion, we are necessarily talking about those countries.

  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: 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.
  On New website shows which shampoos, foods kill lovable primates posted 1 year, 6 months ago 25 Responses

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  the role of Indonesian farmers

  In response to Jonas' comment: There are two main ways that palm oil is farmed in Indonesia. The first is through core-- or inti-- plantations which are owned and run by a company. Some local people are hired as harvesters and as people who clear the land, but this only supports a few people in a larger community.

  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.) On New website shows which shampoos, foods kill lovable primates posted 1 year, 6 months ago 25 Responses

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  the relative volume is the problem

  Although demand for industrial scale biofuels-- or agrofuels-- is the leading cause of expansion of palm oil plantations, the vast majority the vast majority-- over 90%-- of palm oil still goes to food products.

  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. On New website shows which shampoos, foods kill lovable primates posted 1 year, 6 months ago 25 Responses