Coconut oil ‘a threat to more species than palm oil’

COCONUT oil production threatens more species than palm or olive oil, according to a study.

University of Exeter researchers found that coconut oil production affects 20 threatened species of plants and animals per million tons of oil, because it is mostly harvested from tropical islands rich in unique species. This compares with 3.8 species threatened by palm oil and 4.1 by olive oil.

The environmental costs of palm oil production, which has driven mass deforestation in South East Asia and contributed to the decline of orang-utans, is relatively well known, researchers said. “The outcome of our study came as a surprise,” admitted lead author Erik Meijaard, of Borneo Futures in Brunei Darussalam, who also works on orangutan conservation for a palm oil firm.

“Many consumers in the West think of coconut products as both healthy and their production relatively harmless for the environment. As it turns out, we need to think again about the impacts of coconut,” he said.

Coconut cultivation is believed to have contributed to the extinction of a number of island species, including the Marianne white-eye bird in the Seychelles and the Solomon Islands’ Ontong Java flying fox.

Prof Douglas Sheil, of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and the author of the study – published in the journal Current Biology – said: “Consumers need to realise that all our agricultural commodities, and not just tropical crops, have negative environmental impacts.”

There are other costs to palm oil, including greenhouse gas emissions associated with burning forests and peatlands to grow it.

The study suggests merely switching from palm oil to alternatives may not be a straightforward improvement for the environment.