Palm Oil

Selling by the bag - Palm Oil (camera-phone)

 

Unsustainable palm oil is the single greatest threat to the future of gibbons and orangutans in the wild. Forest clearance for oil palm plantations is moving at an incredible speed. When George Bush visted Indonesia recently he pledged support for the Indonesian palm oil industry in support of the development of biofuels... does he know the impacts of palm oil on natural forest? Does he know that by clearing natural forest for oil palm the carbon released is 65 times greater than the amount of carbon that can be fixed annually by those plantation trees? These figures just don't add up when the max lifespan of an oil palm is about 30 years...

 

This is a serious worry.

 

Why do politicians keep screwing things up?

 

There's a whole load of degraded land in Indonesia that would benefit from oil palm development, but whilst many in the industry are willing to clear forest for windfall timber revenues then the industry continues to have a net negative impact on global climate, biodiversity and often land rights of traditional people. All these problems on a supermarket shelf.

 

You might not know this but palm oil is present in 1 in 10 UK supermarket products. It is often labelled as vegetable oil, so you can't avoid it.

 

There is some hope here: www.rspo.org

Find out more here: www.protopage.com/films4conservation

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