Orang-utans face a $20 death warrant
June 5, 2007
The palm oil industry is bad news for these apes, writes Julian Lee.
Twenty years ago the words “dolphin safe” changed the way we thought about tuna. Now environmentalists are hoping one of man’s closest relatives in the animal kingdom, the orang-utan, will do the same for a widely used but hidden commodity - palm oil.
Rising demand for the highly versatile oil in products such as biscuits, potato chips and soap, and now as a biofuel, has led to a rush to establish oil palm plantations.
The forests that are home to the orang-utan are disappearing at the equivalent of 300 football fields an hour, pushing the already endangered species to the brink and into conflict with the people whose livelihood depends on the oil-bearing fruit.
The burning fires from the land cleared for plantations is responsible for roughly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, the United Nations says.
The irony that palm oil is regarded as an eco-friendly alternative to crude oil is not lost on the coalition of environmental groups that is running a campaign to raise awareness of the problems of palm oil production.
Ange Palmer, of the Palm Oil Action Group, says the campaign is not calling for a boycott but wants oil to be produced by plantations that do not encroach further into forests that are home to orang-utans and other endangered species, such as the Sumatran tiger and Asian elephant.
“We want to send the message to Australian companies that it is unacceptable for them to import palm oil unless it’s from a sustainable source,” she says.
“We would like companies to acknowledge this as an issue, outline publicly their position [and] say what they are going to do about it,” says Palmer, whose organisation represents the Australian Orang-utan Project, the Rainforest Information Centre, Friends of the Earth and the Borneo Orang-utan Society.
Companies such as Goodman Fielder account for 70 per cent of all palm oil imported from Malaysia. The company refines it and sells it to companies such as Arnott’s and Smith’s to use in their products. About 200 million litres will be used in biodiesels in Australia this year.
But the clock is ticking. A United Nations report, The Last Stand of the Orang-utan, estimates that 98 per cent of forests in Malaysia and Indonesia could be gone by 2020. Indonesia plans to double the 6.5 million hectares under plantation in the next five years, and Europe’s goal to cut greenhouse emissions by 20 per cent partly by relying on cars using biofuels, could deliver the final blow.
Leif Cocks, a conservation biologist and the president of the Australian Orang-utan Project, is pessimistic about the orang-utan’s future. There are about 7300 apes left in Sumatra, putting the species on the World Conservation Union’s list of critically endangered animals. About 50,000 orang-utans survive on Borneo.
Once the land - and their habitat - is cleared, the apes are left with little food, forcing them to eat the oil palm shoots and putting them in direct conflict with the plantation owners. Five thousand orang-utans are killed a year, most often by plantation workers eager for a $20 bounty placed on them by the plantation owners.
“The apes and the plantation owners are competing for the same bit of land, the flat fertile plains,” Cocks says. “Most national parks are of little value economically as they are in highland areas. The areas that are of most value to man are also the greatest value to the apes.”
Environmentalists and about half the palm oil industry are pinning their hopes on a scheme that will see their oil, or the products made from it, labelled as having come from a sustainable source. More than 140 plantation owners, producers, manufacturers - among them Goodman Fielder, retailers and non-government organisations have joined the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. Members promise to not clear valuable forests for new plantations, to respect the rights of indigenous land owners and to put in place measures such as nature strips or corridors which wildlife can use to pass through their plantations.
Yet the verification process is still being finalised, which is delaying the availability of certified ethical palm oil products and fuels.
Julian Lee is a Herald journalist. His book about ethical living will be published by Random House in February next year.
Source:
http://www.smh.com.au/
