PALM OIL: PANACEA OR ENVIRONMENTAL NIGHTMARE
Compiled by Ruth Rosenhek from Wetlands International and various other sources

Just a few years ago, politicians and environmental groups in the Netherlands were thrilled by the early and rapid adoption of "sustainable energy" achieved in part by coaxing electrical plants to use biofuel, in particular, palm oil from Southeast Asia.

Spurred by government subsidies, energy companies became so enthusiastic that they designed generators that ran exclusively on the oil, which in theory would be cleaner than fossil fuels like coal because it is derived from plants.

But last year, when scientists studied practices at palm plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia, this green fairy tale began to look more like an environmental nightmare.

The drive for "green energy" in the developed world is having the perverse effect of encouraging the destruction of precious tropical rainforests.   Oil palm plantations destroy bio-diversity and are associated with human rights violations and worker exploitation.   Millions of hectares of rainforest in Borneo, Sumatra and Malaysia have been cleared to accommodate oil palm plantations.   Companies are now turning to peat swamp forests, the preferred home of the orangutan, one of man's closest relatives. 

Peatlands store more carbon than any other terrestrial ecosystem. Peatlands cover over 400 million hectares of land, which is only about 3% of the global surface of land and fresh water. However, they store huge quantities of organic material, equivalent to approximately 2,000,000 million tonne CO2; comparable with 100 years of the current emissions of fossil fuels. The lowlands of humid tropical forests in Asia areas are endowed with extensive peatlands; in these areas the peat soils store 30 times more carbon comparable than stored above ground in normal rainforests.

Millions of hectares of peatland rainforests are being logged and drained, particularly for oil palm and pulpwood plantations. The situation is exacerbated by annual peat fires covering millions of hectares.   This leads to huge emissions of carbon dioxide fuelling the greenhouse effect.   It is estimated that the great forest fires in Indonesia of 1997-1998 resulted in carbon emissions equivalent to 30-40 percent of all emissions from burning fossil fuels in the world that year. Indonesia is now considered one of the major carbon polluters on the planet.

New alarming figures about Indonesia Wetlands International and Delft Hydraulics have calculated the emissions from peatland areas in Indonesia on the basis of soil and land-use data, including comparison of comprehensive field data on peat depth and carbon contents. This recent study shows that over the last years, there has been an average annual emission from peatlands of an alarming 2000 Million tonnes CO2 including 600 Mt from decomposition and 1400 Mt from fires. This is more than the CO2 emissions from India or Russia and almost three times the German emissions on an annual basis.

Unrestrained biofuel expansion will accelerate, not slow down climate change, as rainforests and peatlands are converted to energy crop monocultures and release their carbon in the process.    Recently a new biodiesel plant has opened in Darwin.   Most of the palm oil it will use for its biodiesel is being imported from SE Asia. More than 26% of all Indonesian oil palm concessions are on peatlands, and similar figures apply to Malaysia. It is estimated that production of one tonne of palm oil will result in an average emission of 20 tonnes of CO2 from peat decomposition alone - not taking into account the emissions from fire and other CO2 emissions during the production cycle.

The rampant deforestation associated with the spread of oil palm plantations has had a devastating effect on animal species.   The orangutan, Sumatran tiger, Sumatran rhino, Asian elephant and numerous other incredible species are threatened with functional extinction in the wild within the next two years if nothing is done to curb destruction of the rainforest. 

the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) promises to "promote the growth and use of sustainable palm".   Unfortunately, the RSPO is a relatively new and voluntary organisation and has yet to implement the criteria by which oil palm plantations will be deemed sustainable.   Even more serious, the RSPO has not determined how the criteria will be enforced or monitored. 

The Kyoto protocol, allows western countries to reach their emission targets by helping to reduce the emissions in the third world countries (Clean Development Mechanism). However, the Protocol excludes the emissions from soil and (degraded) vegetation and limits itself to reducing emissions from industry, housing, traffic and agriculture. As a result there is little or no attention for peatland degradation, a huge cause of global warming.

What we need is:

* mandatory and demonstrably effective certification schemes for sustainable palm oil and timber be established to protect the remaining precious tropical rainforest from further destruction.

* Australia to ban imports of palm oil and timber that are not from demonstrably sustainable sources.

* Contracting Parties of The Climate Convention (UN-FCCC) should ensure that the CO2 emissions from peatland degradation are taken into account in climate change mitigation strategies.

* An alternative finance mechanism should be developed to trigger and support peatland protection and restoration as an urgent action by nations within their suite of climate change strategies.

The RIC is working with several other NGOs - Borneo Orangutan Society, Great Ape Survival Project, Humane Society International, Australian Orangutan Project and Australian Conservation Foundation - on a palm oil campaign in Australia. Our aim is to halt the expansion of palm oil plantations that are ecologically and socially destructive.

Part of the campaign will focus on consumer awareness -- palm oil is used in margarine, bikkies, chips, shampoo and often labelled only as vegetable oil or other derivatives   -- pressuring food companies to halt the importation of destructively sourced palm oil.

We are also now raising funds to support grassroots efforts to protect rainforests and peatlands in Indonesia.

Remote forest communities in Indonesia only receive information about oil palm plantations from companies who promise them the seven wonders of the world. For most communities in Indonesia whose lands have already become oil palm plantations, the experience has been a tragedy in terms of the collapse of their local economies, the impacts on their traditional knowledge and culture, the impacts on local water drying up and being polluted, the loss of tenure over land, and the vast increase of conflicts. We are working with local communities to help give them an opportunity to obtain information, to think through these impacts, and to think about all the opportunities they could develop when managing their resources themselves. When communities have this opportunity they can decide for themselves what they want to do. The vast majority decide to reject the plantations, and although by law this is not easy to do, once clusters of communities decide to reject plantations, they are able to force companies to close down their operations.

Good News Update: Recently the Dutch energy company Essent decided to stop using palm oil. Also the State Secretary of Environment openly regretted the hundreds of millions of subsidies spent on palm oil. This was a direct result of the figures published by Wetlands International on the climate effect of palm oil plantations in tropical peatlands.

Public pressure raised by amongst other NGOs, Wetlands International, resulted to an end of the support of the Dutch Government. Environment State Secretary Pieter van Geel, said that, now he knows the tremendous impact of palm oil production on global climate change and reforestation, he regrets supporting this form of energy. The Dutch parliament yesterday fully supported a policy change.

Let's spread this awareness! If you would like to volunteer to work on the palm oil campaign, please contact Ruth on rainforestinfo@ozemail.com.au or (02) 66897519.

Why Asian palm oil will cause 2 to 8 times the greenhouse gas pollution than the fossil fuel it replaces http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/resources.php#calc2