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The deadly side of palm oil

February 23, 2008
BRIAN PAYTON THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR BORNEO (Feb 23, 2008)

Our addiction to junk food threatens rainforest

In this age of trans fat awareness, the makers of processed foods have
been reducing or eliminating that artery-clogging evil, giving us one
more reason to indulge. North America's confectioners are achieving
this feat with a simple switch to palm oil -- a non-genetically modified
food that grows under a tropical sun.
According to the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public
Interest, palm oil, although less harmful than oils containing trans fat,
still promotes heart disease. It's also unhealthy for wildlife.
More than 80 per cent of the world's palm oil is produced in former
tropical rainforests on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, the only
habitat of wild orangutans, Sumatran rhinoceroses, pygmy elephants,
and an ark's worth of endangered and endemic species. Between
1985 and 1997, these islands lost 60 per cent of their rainforest,
contributing to what the ordinarily staid World Bank refers to as "a
species extinction spasm of planetary proportions."
Demand for palm oil is forecast to double by 2020, requiring about
3,000 square kilometres of new land every year -- in part to support
our addiction to junk food. When one thinks of oil-producing regions,
Borneo does not immediately spring to mind. The world's third largest
island is divided among three nations: Malaysia, Indonesia and the tiny
sultanate of Brunei, which has become rich on old oil money.
It is Malaysia, however, that leads the new and emerging oil economy.
The hour-long drive from the city of Lahad Datu to the jungle is a
monotony of oil palm plantations, and trucks laden with ripe palm fruit,
the colour of corn and rubies.
Dr. A. Christy Williams, one of the world's foremost authorities on
Asian elephants, leads a team of a dozen researchers tracking pygmy
elephants by satellite.
The tracking provides the first raw data about how pygmy elephants
use their habitats. Beyond question, Williams says, the biggest threat
researchers are seeing to the continued existence of pygmy elephants
is the conversion of their habitat to industrial agriculture -- specifically
oil palm plantations that, in many parts of Borneo, stretch beyond the
horizon.
"When people are flying over the jungle at 40,000 feet," Williams says,
"they need to be aware that the package of coffee creamer they're
opening is directly linked to the survival of such species as pygmy
elephants, tigers and orangutans. What they buy and consume is
actually driving deforestation in a country far away -- because that
coffee creamer contains palm oil."

What are confectioners switching to palm oil?

Not long ago, palm oil appeared to be a dietary and ecological wonder.
Native to West Africa, the commercial variety of oil palm (Elaeis
guineensis) yields up to 10 times more oil than other major oil crops. A
perennial plant, it fruits throughout the year and has a productive
lifespan of 25 years.
Palm oil seems tailor made for industrial food processing and baking,
because, like butter, it is semi-solid at room temperature. It also
increases the shelf life of packaged foods without requiring trans fatproducing hydrogenation.
Palm oil has long been a staple of Asian pantries, and European
nations have rapidly adopted its use (along with palm kernel oil) in the
manufacture of an astonishing array of processed foods, soaps,
shampoos, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, in addition to biodiesel.

Why is palm oil used as oil crop?

How is palm oil affecting wild life?

Why is there a demand for palm oil?

Where is most of the palm oil produced?

Why is Dr. Williams tracking the elephants?

What is the biggest threat to the elephants?

What is the relationship between your coffee creamer and the

orangutans?

What can you do as a consumer to protect the elephants ,

tigers and orangutans?

What products do we make from palm oil?

Until recently, North American producers preferred domestically grown

soy, corn and canola oils. All that changed with the new labeling
requirements. Suddenly, the world's largest economy developed a
taste for palm oil.
Oil palms have been cultivated in Borneo since the 19 century, but it
was only after the collapse of the rubber and logging industries in the
1990s that the crop gained real traction. Rising unemployment and
continued immigration of workers, particularly from Indonesia, was
creating political problems. The growing demand for palm oil was seen
as an economic salvation. Grown sustainably, palm oil could be part of
a global ecological solution. Grown as a monoculture, however, palm
plantations are essentially biological deserts, suitable for only a tiny
fraction of Borneo's astounding biodiversity.

What were some alternatives to palm oil?

What are the effects for the following actions

Collapse of rubber and logging:
Unemployment and more immigration:
Growing palm oil:
What does sustainably grown mean?

Why does monoculture lead to biological deserts?

In Malaysia, fully 62 per cent of cultivated land is covered in oil palm

plantations. The industry also destroys habitat by fragmenting the
Bornean rainforest. Elephants and other large animals require
unhindered access to large areas of forest to locate food and water.
The plantations, as large as 250 square kilometres, block migration
patterns and isolate populations from one another.
In an air-conditioned office in downtown Kota Kinabalu, Darrel Webber
leans back in his chair. The WWF-Malaysia project manager has just
returned from several days in the field and hasn't had time to shower.
Before joining the WWF, he worked for multinationals in the oil and gas
industry, as well as for Pepsi, so he knows how to speak the language
of commerce. Sustainable development, he says, should be "win-win."
He bristles at the idea that Malaysians are standing idly by as their
forest, orangutans, rhinos and elephants disappear.

Why is habitat fragmentation a problem?

Why is Webber an asset to WWF (World Wildlife Fund)?

Why is sustainable development win-win ?

What is the current situation in Malaysia? How do you know?

Analysis and reflection

1: Do you agree or disagree with the following statement and why? Use information from the article above.
Palm oil is far better for people than oils containing trans fats, therefore growing palm oil is justified for the well-being of the entire
population.

2: Based on the animals that live in Borneo (ex: orangutans, pygmy elephants, etc.), what Biome on the planet would thousands of
square miles of Palm oil trees seem like to them? Give a reason for your answer?