Palm Oil: Environmental destruction, stolen land

Palm Oil: Environmental destruction, stolen land

How we’re destroying the environment and human rights , one snack at a time.

A delegation from the Supplychainge project consortium went to Indonesia during the summer of 2016 in order to investigate the palm oil supply chain. The result is a report that offers a summary of background information about palm oil and its problematic.

The huge expansion of oil palm plantations in Indonesia has led to major problems, as it demands large areas of land. Almost inevitably, it is linked with the displacement of people, smallholder farming and valuable ecosystems. This report offers a summary of background information about palm oil. How and where is it grown? What makes palm oil different from other vegetable oils? How much of it is used in what products, and why? What are the consequences for the local people and the natural environment – and what are the possible solutions, from boycotts to certification?

In order to offer a tangible insight into the topic from the consumer perspective, we’ve also had a look at the palm oil situation on our own shelves back home. We picked out a product that’s quite innocent in itself – the biscuit  – and investigated how many types of biscuits contain palm oil, and if they use certified palm oil Besides information from specialist literature, scientific studies and talks with experts, this report is also largely based on a study visit to Sumatra, Indonesia. We visited four regions and spoke with members of the local government and villagers who are involved in conflicts relating to palm oil.

The environmental problems reported by our interviewees are the clearing of rain-forests, the drainage of peat lands, fires, massive water consumption by the palms and associated problems for agriculture, and pollution of rivers by oil mills.

The social problems we encounter include the displacement of smallholder farming, which has been carried out for generations in certain areas. Land and land rights are a defining issue in most of our conversations.

Further problems are the discriminatory employment practices of the plantations towards the local population, precarious working conditions, and poor wages for very strenuous work. We also heard reports about corruption in the granting of concessions, and a failure to monitor compliance with laws and regulations. Often there is simply no monitoring of what is happening, and of what is and isn’t permitted by the applicable rules. Again and again, forests that are officially protected are cleared.

The final point to be made is that palm oil production reveals many unsavory aspects of global supply chains. The imbalance in power, with a small number of large, mainly international companies dominating parts of the supply chain, combined with a philosophy that places the
profit and wealth of individuals above the common good, leads to suffering for humans and nature. In this respect, palm oil is not substantially different from other crops important for global trade, such as soya beans, cocoa, sugar cane or oranges.

The situation for the farmers and the people in the Global South will not change if palm oil is replaced by another crop. What we need today, then, more urgently than ever before, is a new way of thinking about how we organize and conduct our trade. We must ask how much we are willing to put the good of individuals over that of an increasingly interconnected global community, and how many risks we are willing to take at the expense of our future generations. It will require a joint effort from civil society, policymakers, responsible companies and consumers to make a difference here.

Read the Report

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