Talking Points: Palm Oil

Written by Wild Asia on 28 Jan 2010 with 8 comments. Contribute!

The Palm Oil Debate

Palm oil has a bad reputation. It has been accused of anything from the cause of climate change to being a bad food product. How much of it is actually true, and how much is just hot air? Most importantly, if the industry is as bad as some people say, is there hope for change?

We've decided to open the debate through Talking Points as we believe that it is only through open discussion that we can find solutions to our most pressing environmental and social concerns that plague our world today.

Here, we've summarised three main viewpoints:

Viewpoint A	Viewpoint B	Viewpoint C
The palm oil industry is necessary for economic development. As one of the main income earners for many developing countries, it should be supported.	Oil palm cultivation is destructive for the environment, wildlife and indigenous peoples. It should be gradually phased out.	Oil palm cultivation is here to stay and we should engage its stakeholders. It can be made to be less damaging to the environment and can co-exist with wildlife and people.
Palm oil is one of the main income earners for developing countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and Colombia. It is helping these countries reduce poverty.	The forest in which orang-utans live on are being burned down to give way for oil palm plantations and the numbers of orang-utans are dwindling.	The palm oil industry is not going away. It is the mainstay of many developing economies. What we must do is to engage the industry players and educate them to practice sustainable agriculture.
Poverty reduction can help reduce green house emissions. Poverty forces people to exploit the environment in harmful ways, for example, clearing forests for agriculture.	Oil palm expansion in Borneo has caused land conflict with indigenous peoples who co-exist with the forest.	The Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) has established a recognizable set of values that can be practiced. It sets an international standard for plantations to produce palm oil in an environmentally sustainable and socially responsible manner.
The Bali Mandate requires that climate change strategies should support economic development. The palm oil industry is helping economies develop.	A study by the German government found that the oil palm trees are actually responsible for accelerating climate change. The production of palm oil releases much more CO2 than could be saved by the oil in the form of 'biodiesel'. Furthermore, monocultures dramatically reduces biodiversity.	Oil palm plantation managers can employ consultants to conduct the Environmental Impact Assessment of oil palm cultivation prior to any planting, ensuring there is minimal environmental damage in its land utilization.
Palm oil is contributing to sustainable fuel in the form of biodiesel.	Environmental groups argue that Roundtable Sustainable Palm Oil is riddled with loopholes and accused RSPO and WWF which is a member of the roundtable of greenwashing. Greenpeace maintains that RSPO does not adequately address ecological and social issues.	Consumers and palm oil buyers can play a role in ensuring the suppliers are getting from producers who are RSPO certified. This will put pressure on those who have not yet changed their operations to be more environmentally and socially responsible.

What do you think?

We would love to read your comments!

Sources

Deforestation Watch, UNCTAD, Ideas for a Cooler World, Mongabay.com, World Growth, Palm Oil Blog, Malaysian Palm Oil Council, Malaysian Insider, Food Navigator, Wild Asia

Talking Points

This article is part of our Talking Points series.

Talking Points is your space. It's a forum for you to voice out your thoughts on the most pressing concerns of our times. Each month, we offer a topic that is contentious, an issue that is often divisive to the movement, a debate that is difficult to simply take sides. Climate justice, development and its social cost, biodiversity depletion, indigenous people's rights and land conflicts are some of the topics that we would like to examine critically, with your participation.

Other features in this series:

Comments (8) hide

5 older comments | show

Michelle Desilets

Guest

Friday, 12 February 2010 at 10:42 AM:

As a long time member of the RSPO and an even longer time as a conservationist, I support Viewpoint C mostly, except that I do not approve of the use of palm oil for bio-fuels. I support a moratorium on the clearing of ANY forest or peatland for oil palms.

reza

Wild Asia Staff
05-Jun-2004
Posts: 20

Friday, 12 February 2010 at 3:42 PM:

I guess viewpoint C does seem the sensible approach only if there are limits. Setting those limits has been the problem though. I also see the scale of developments to be wayyy ahead the pace of "no go" ie conservation landscape maps (if there are many more to come). We need a way to educate and engage at a far quicker pace than we do now if we are to get anywhere...

Rika Nauck

Guest

Friday, 12 February 2010 at 5:17 PM:

A balanced approach as depicted in C would be the one to choose in any environmental issue. The problem in any balanced approach however is, that the world is not black and white, but comes in all shades of grey. The question will always be: Where to draw the line on a particular issue? The only way to determin this is a democratic one, and democracy needs time. The discussion on how to catch and process Tuna for example started decades ago, the control system may show the one or the other hiccup once in a while, but it is in place. The palm oil discussion is relatively new, and I only can hope that we have the time to get regulations in place before it is too late!

Jutta Poetz

Guest

Tuesday, 09 March 2010 at 2:31 PM:

I believe in conflict resolution along the lines of viewpoint C, Involving all stakeholders will find solutions that are acceptable to all even though developing them requires time and compromise. Ultimately all of us need to find a way to co-exist without one party dominating another, and the debate around palm oil is perhaps the first global case in the arena of sustainable agriculture that can set either a good or bad precedent. Engagement, debate, and finding a common platform that allows the existence of profitable economic interests to the tune of also respecting the environment and the needs of people is the only way forward. Unfortunately, in a world built on the principles of power dynamics and favour-banking the above represents the road less travelled.

reza

Wild Asia Staff
05-Jun-2004
Posts: 20

Friday, 12 March 2010 at 10:45 AM:

"... limits ... not for biofuel ... democratic ... debate ... " I guess one arena I can't my head around is that fundamentally, its the economic drivers that will dictate what is planted and where. As long as oil palm is part of an industrialized food/oil chain ... I fear, that we simply cannot force this tide for development to wane. A significant price drop might. Interestingly, a respected London-base analyst was interviewed recently and he did say that the expanding palm on base will be its own downfall it the future as this price high will not stay forever. Its something I don't think markets regulate fast enough ... so Govt actually needs to step up to control how much is planted and where. If anything this will actually help the price and economic bottom line. There may be a win win for both conservationists and the economists....just not the capitalist!

Tina

Guest

Thursday, 08 April 2010 at 10:35 AM:

Firstly I am not against palm oil as a product nor the economical spin off to the regional and local indigenous economies. Where my question is raised is how effective are Roundtable RSPO as a single governance body? in Borneo we have seen the impact of the earlier palm oil farming establishment to the native wild life and destructions of the forest by logging, slash and burn. There should be separate private corporate body assigned as independent consulting to the local people, goverment and the stakeholder. This environment professional consultant will document studies and make available to everyone, before any activities begin. Maybe allow for the animal relocation, selection of the young tree potential for future timber to re-grow. studies the impact for local fish and river system etc.
I Have visited at least two palm oil factories and housing provided for the workers in Sarawak. The standard pales in comparison to the multibillion dollar profits that are made by the stakeholder

cheahst

Guest

Wednesday, 14 April 2010 at 10:37 AM:

palm oil or any other agri based industry is not the villain, rather its the thinking & planning that needs re-thinking.
we should start with a conservation budget, not monetary, but sustainable viability of the eco-system or species.

Too often land is taken up for agriculture & development first, then the scraps designated for conservation, unfit for any other economic purpose. It is also often touted as safe sancturies whereby token captured wildlife is often relocated, to die a solitary death in exile in an unsuitable habitat.

we cannot recreate a viable eco-systems, but we can manage agriculture based on land suitability, ie agri based industry should actively select and promote the types of agriculture suitable for the arable land AFTER setting aside land designated for conservation.

this is the conservation budget that needs to be considered to sustain a viable healthy population of the species concerned and the eco-system in general.

1) population size required to s

cheahst

Guest

Wednesday, 14 April 2010 at 10:40 AM:

conservation budget that needs to be considered to sustain a viable healthy population of the species concerned and the eco-system in general.

1) population size required to sustain the eco-system (maintain sustainable genetic pool)
a good starting point would be estimate based on the viable pop size of the top predators or top of food chain, eg tigers, or orang utan, or elephants, etc
2) land area required to sustain the population (contiguous area; fragmented areas are useless as the population would be trapped on isolated 'islands')
3) arable land available = total land area available - (land for conservation + x% reserve based on total land area available)
4) actual arable land utilized should be capped at y% of arable land available. y% may include buffer zones to minimize impact and enable easier enforcement agaisnt enroachment.

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Wild Asia
Wild Asia is a Malaysian-based social enterprise working to support environmental and social initiatives in Asia. We have been online since 1998. We have grown over the years but our focus has stayed the same - innovating and working to solve the problems that impact on our wild places. We have been... more inside »

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