We might not realise, but we use oil from plam trees almost every day – and at potentially great risk to both the environment and indigenous peoples. Sanjida O’Connell reports,

The Independent - Monday 16 December 2002

Every year we eat 20 million tonnes of oil. We use it to wash our hair, soap our bodies, clean the floor; it’s in candles, cream, cosmetics and cake and most of us have no idea that it’s there. Palm oil, usually labelled vegetable oil, occasionally olein, is a booming industry. The oil comes from the fruit, both the outer flesh and the inner kernel. Oil palms produce higher yields per hectare than any other oil-seed crop and are currently second only to soyabean oil in the world's total production of vegetable oils. Currently over 6.5 million hectares worldwide are planted with this miraculous palm. In Indonesia alone, the world’s second largest oil palm exporter, a million hectares a year are being converted to oil palm plantations. As the global demand for palm oil will reach 40 million tonnes by 2020, it is little wonder that new countries are keen to join in large-scale oil production. A report just published by WWF highlights the trouble with this ‘green oil’: monocultures of oil palms are causing increasingly serious problems for both local people and the environment, wiping out vast tracts of rainforest and threatening endangered animals, such as the orang-utan and the Sumatran rhino.
The oil palm is indigenous to West Africa and is interwoven with the continent’s cultural traditions. The oil is used for cooking, lighting candles, burning, and as a medicinal ointment. The fermented sap is drunk as palm wine, the leaves become brooms, matting, roofs; cakes of palm rind, left after the oil has been pressed, are fodder for cattle - even the dead tree trunks become home to bumble bee larvae, a prized delicacy in parts of Cameroon.

Today oil palms are clones, planted in vast monocultures where rainforest once stood. Studies in Malaysia and Indonesia have shown that 80 to 100 per cent to the species that used to inhabit the tropical rainforest, cannot survive in oil palm plantations. The few species that do persist become pests since they no longer have access to their usual food source, and have no remaining predators. Richard Perkins, agriculture expert at WWF and member of Unilever's Sustainable Agriculture Advisory Board, says that one of the problems is that oil palm plantations restrict the migration of large, endangered animals, such as rhino, orang-utans and elephants. He is working with industry to try and ensure that companies plant palms on areas that are not of high conservation value. “As soon as you start biting into forests you lose species, but we direct companies to plant in areas that are less damaging. There is going to be some loss, but by working together we could minimise that,” he says.
“This is not a problem for us because we are not expanding into the jungle,” says Mabath Chandran, chief executive of the Malaysian Palm Oil Association (MPOA), “We own 1.3 million ha of rubber plantations, which we are converting into oil palm plantations.” The problem countries, according to Chandran, are Indonesia and Papua New Guinea as they are eating into virgin rainforest. According to the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) oil palm plantation companies were responsible for 80 per cent of the forest fires that swept through Indonesia between 1997-8. The latest figures from WWF indicate that Indonesia has lost an area the size of the Netherlands to forest fires, and that burning of pristine rainforest still continues today.

Papua New Guinea still has 75 per cent of its original forest intact, but as the seventh largest palm oil producer in the world, and the third largest exporter (mainly to Europe) this will change. Currently it’s forests are home to 200 species of mammals and 200,000 types of plants; they contain the world’s largest butterfly, the biggest orchid, the longest lizard, and the smallest parrot, as well as being the home of many indigenous peoples. The government plans to turn 3,000 ha of forest into oil palm plantations.

Oil palm monocultures give rise to soil erosion as the forest clearance leaves soil bare and exposed to tropical rainstorms. Erosion, in turn, causes sedimentation of the waterways, affecting drinking water and fish. Effluent from oil processing can have an impact on water quality too; for every ton of oil processed. 2.5 tons of waste are released into waterways. According to Ricardo Carrere, Uruguay’s representative of the World Rainforest Movement (WRM), and editor of ‘The Bitter Fruit of Oil Palm’, few companies adhere to laws regulating pollution: land contaminated by this effluent is no longer fit for agriculture and it can find its way into the sea, polluting coral reefs and other types of marine life. As one Malaysian oil palm worker said to Carrere, “Logging companies destroy our forest and leave. Plantation companies destroy our forest and stay.”

The cultivation of oil palms can result in indigenous peoples losing their land. For example, the Dayaks of Kalimantan are seeing their way of life being destroyed by plantations as they are driven from their land by force. Dayaks from the village of Lempunah near Samarinda were reportedly offered lump sums to exchange their land for shares in an oil palm plantation. When they refused, the village was razed by fires, which are alleged to have been started by men on behalf of oil palm companies. Once their crops had been destroyed, the people had little choice but to cede their land, and it is claimed that they are only being paid a few cents a day.
Oil palm cultivation is continuing to expand. “Oil palm can be lucrative, profits are assured by cheap labour, cheap land, lack of effective environmental controls, easy availability of finance and a short growth cycle,” says Carrere. Governments, overwhelmed by foreign debt see palm oil as a cash cow; unfortunately the money does not trickle down for plantations are generally owned by large companies, such as Unilever and supported by organisations like the World Bank. “Governments seem to have learned nothing from previous experiences with ‘miracle’ crops. The falling prices of coffee, cacao, and bananas have a simple explanation – the widespread promotion of a certain crop in as many countries as possible. The result is oversupply and competition between and within countries, but the burden is carried by local workers whose incomes get increasingly lower,” adds Carrere.

The news is not all bad though. “The main theatre of action is Indonesia,” says Perkins, “Malaysia is shot to bits, but there is still a lot to play for in Indonesia.” Even so, Unilever is establishing a sustainable palm oil plantation in Malaysia at their company Pamol. Liquid effluent from the processing plant is used as water and fertilizer for the trees; plants that fix nitrogen and thus fertilize the soil are grown between the trees, insects and owls are encouraged to keep down pests and steep hillsides are left as natural forest, which decreases erosion, and provides a wildlife refuge. “We want to use our influence to make palm oil plantations more sustainable,” says Trevor Gavin, a spokesperson for Unilever, “We’ve been collaborating with the Malaysian Palm Oil Board, and we want to extend our plans to Indonesia.” As Unilever accedes, there are only a handful of big companies involved in the oil palm industry and to get them to change will be an uphill struggle. "WWF doesn't want the consumer to boycott palm oil because that would damage co-operation with producer interests in those countries we're trying to work with," says Perkins. A boycott would, in any case, be impossible since palm oil is in so many commodities. “Consumers should speak to their supermarket and ask how their palm oil is produced. Investors could ask their bank if their funds are being used to finance the destruction of high conservation value areas. This is a call to awareness, not to action,” adds Perkins.

But, according to the EIA and WRM, the final threat is the introduction of genetically modified palms. Malaysia is creating GM oil palms that will produce “the kind of oil, flavour, and scent the detergent and cooking oil manufacturers, the chocolate makers, the beauty industry, the perfume designers and salad makers desire,” says Chandran. Palm oil contains 40 per cent saturated fat, which is bad for the arteries, and the MPOA is developing a palm that will contain higher levels of healthy unsaturated fats. But he adds, “Because they are tree crops, the time lag is huge. It’ll be fifteen years before we plant the first transgenic palm.” It’ll be the world’s most healthy palm oil – good for our hearts, perhaps less good for our souls.

WRM: The bitter fruit of the oil palm
http://www.wrm.org.uy/plantations/material/oilpalm.html