Palm Oil Nation
Jonathan Cook

When we buy processed food, one in ten of the products on offer contains palm oil. It is the second most widely used vegetable oil in the world. UK imports, for example, doubled between 1995 and 2004 to 914,000 tonnes. Palm oil is used in all sorts of food products like ice cream, chocolate, margarine, cakes and biscuits. It can be found in toothpaste, soup and detergents as well as in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. It also makes very good deep frying oil due to its stability at high temperatures and its bland taste. Few of us can – hand over heart – say that we have not recently consumed palm oil as most of us every day do so in blissful ignorance.
Palm oil has so many applications that it is hardly surprising that demand is rising around the world and were it produced ethically and with full regard for the environment that would not be a problem. However this is not the case. The two biggest producers are Malaysia and Indonesia who between them accounted for 90 per cent of the 34.9 million tonnes produced in 2006. Indonesia has well over 5,000,000 hectares under palm oil plantations and its government is considering expanding this by a further 1.8 million hectares (approx. 6950 sq miles) which is currently pristine rainforest.
Another potential use for palm oil is as a bio fuel. Malaysia has already introduced it, phasing out the use of conventional fossil fuels. Europe is considering palm oil for electricity generation and as a replacement for diesel. If a single palm oil based power station was built in the UK our imports of palm oil would double. It is widely forecasted that the increased demand for bio fuels could lead to a predicted 16 million hectares of palm oil plantations in Indonesia by 2020. That’s an area equivalent to the size of England and Wales combined.
The problem with palm oil production is that the trees are mainly grown where tropical rainforest once stood. The main reason for this is because the plantation developers can clear the forest, and sell the timber, recouping their set up costs. This may make very good business sense, but palm oil plantations support 80 per cent less biodiversity than the rainforest that stood before them. Species like the Sumatran Orangutan, native to Indonesia, have lost 87 per cent of their natural habitats and the palm oil industry is close to destroying what little remains. It s widely accepted that if current trends continue orangutans will be extinct within just 12 years save for the few in captivity.
It doesn’t have to be this way. There are less environmentally damaging options such as large tracts of land within Indonesia that are suitable for palm oil plantations but which are not covered by precious tropical rainforest.
Our dilemma as consumers is that there is no way of our knowing if the palm oil in the products and foods we buy comes from a sustainable source, and it is most likely that it does not. Most products label the ingredient palm oil simply as a vegetable oil so many us may be innocently supporting the rape of the rainforests. Very few UK companies it seems know where their palm oil has originated from. And it won’t be until we can join together and pressure our government to pass legislation for clear and comprehensive ingredient labelling on all food products that the truth will out. It is only through public pressure and awareness that we have any chance at all of saving these precious rainforests and the many species that they support for future generations.

Tasmanian Logging
Not a million miles away in Tasmania enormous tracts of rainforest are being cleared to feed Japan’s insatiable hunger for wood chips used in the production of paper. Massive trucks loaded with logs thunder through the island which, it seems, the Australian government cares little about beyond its cash contribution to the country’s exports. We are talking here about the wanton destruction of the Tasmanian wilderness which, once razed at huge cost to the native fauna and flora, will never recover.
What can we do about Palm Oil?
Write to and email our MPs, pressure groups, supermarket head offices, food manufacturers, campaigning charities and the media to bring this issue to the fore. Let’s lobby for full and accurate labelling on all food products and, until that is enforced, buy only those products that we can defi nitely know are palm oil free.
And for Tasmania’s rainforests?
Write to and email the Australian Embassy in London, the Australian government and international campaigning charities and the media to express our extreme dismay at what the Australian government is allowing to happen.
These issues have been raised by several Connect readers and the resulting article combines their views and insights.