By Tracie D.
It’s been about 2 years since I watched a video of a mother orangutan with her baby attached to her, barely clinging to life due to the palm oil industry. That image is seared in my mind forever. That’s the day I removed palm oil from my life. It’s in a lot… soaps, cosmetics, lotions, foods, biofuel, you name it, seems like it’s made its way into everything. Here’s a quick run down on the issues with palm oil…
“The establishment of palm oil plantations has been a disaster not only for endangered wildlife such as orangutans and tigers (in Sumatra) but has also exacerbated conflict with local communities in Indonesia over traditional land rights. Local people have been evicted from their customary land holdings and local communities impoverished, leading to much conflict with palm oil concession companies.” (1)
Don’t be fooled by the greenwashing of the palm oil industry…
“With the endorsement of organizations from five continents, Friends of the Earth International and World Rainforest Movement publish an open statement denouncing the failure of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) to eliminate the violence and destruction that oil palm plantations cause in the territories where they are established.” (2)
“Since its inception 14 years ago, RSPO the has been a tool that served the corporate interests of the oil palm sector. The RSPO certification scheme allows the oil palm industry to expand while greenwashing the destruction and human rights violations it is responsible for.” (2)
“Those living on the fertile land that the corporations choose to apply their industrial palm oil production model, pay a very high price. Violence is intrinsic to this model: violence and repression when communities resist the corporate take-over of their land, sexual violence and harassment against women in and around the plantations, child labour and precarious working conditions that go hand-in-hand with violation of workers’ rights, exposure to excessive agrotoxin application and loss of communities’ food sovereignty.” (2)
“The Roundtable’s certification principles promote this structural violent and destructive model. And whereas the RSPO raises a smokescreen hiding this violence from consumers and financiers, governments often do not take measures to stop the expansion of plantations and the growing demand for palm oil—because they assume the RSPO will offer a seeming guarantee of sustainability.” (2)
(1) https://orangutan.org/rainforest/the-effects-of-palm-oil/
(2) https://wrm.org.uy/other-relevant-information/press-release-organizations-denounce-the-rspo-for-greenwashing-the-oil-palm-industrys-destruction-and-violence/
