The palm oil debate
Found in thousands of foods and household products, the demand for palm oil is fuelling the destruction of rainforests. We talk to Greenpeace about the issues involved
In the rich green swathes of the world’s rainforests, home to some of the rarest, most fascinating flora and fauna on Earth, there’s a big problem.
As many as 8.8 million hectares of natural forest are being lost every year. The reason? The production of palm oil, a type of vegetable oil that’s now present in as many as 50 per cent of all products we see on our supermarket shelves – from shampoo to biscuits, lipstick to margarine. While experts have been concerned about palm oil for many years, the frozen food specialist Iceland recently moved the conversation on by announcing it is to become the first supermarket to ban palm oil as an ingredient as it removes it from all its own-label food by the end of this year. Iceland claims that this will reduce demand for palm oil by more than 500 tonnes per year. It’s this demand that campaigners say is the major issue in driving ever increasing destruction of rainforests for palm oil, which is found in the fruit of oil palms. Alison Kirkman, from Greenpeace, who campaigns on palm oil says that in itself it’s not bad. “It grows quickly and efficiently, compared to some other vegetable oils, it’s very versatile and it’s cheap for companies to buy,” she explains. “But demand for palm oil has increased so significantly in the past 20 to 50 years that more land is being deforested, mainly in Indonesia and Malaysia, to make room for more palm oil plantations to keep up
with the rapidly increasing demand. And the easiest way to do that is to clear vast swathes of rainforest for the new plantations, which is where it becomes destructive.”
This destruction has so far seen the numbers of Bornean orangutans halve since 1999, with only 70,000 to 100,000 of these wonderful animals now remaining. Sumatran tigers are also in danger of becoming extinct in the wild in less than three years thanks to deforestation in part caused by palm oil production, while some species of rhino, elephant, leopard and monkey who live here are also in grave danger. What’s more, the fires used to clear the rainforests for new plantations are releasing massive quantities of polluting carbon into the atmosphere. This contributes hugely to the world’s greenhouses gases and, in turn, climate change. So what can be done? The experts are somewhat divided on whether palm oil should be banned altogether. This is because there’s a worry that if food producers stopped using palm oil completely, demand would switch to another vegetable oil, which when grown in vast quantities could have even more devastating effects on the environment and especially rainforests. Alison says: “We’ve never called for a boycott or ban, instead we want big corporations to only buy palm oil from traders who can 100 per cent guarantee that it has been grown without causing deforestation, destruction of peat land or the exploitation of workers.”
To help with this, Greenpeace recently challenged 16 big brands to publish which traders they bought palm oil from, and is now encouraging major corporations to drop known forest destroyers from their supply chain.
In 2010, members of the Consumer Goods Forum, a global network of major retailers and manufacturers, signed a pledge to achieve zero deforestation by 2020, but Alison reveals, two years away, many corporations are nowhere near getting rid of their bad habits. Nevertheless, she thinks Iceland’s move may signal a big shift in behaviour as customers become more aware of the problems around palm oil and demand change. “If companies want to avoid being shunned by their customers in favour of palm oil-free alternatives, and the industry wants to shield itself from more blanket bans, it’s time to reform,” she says.