Cookies. Lip gloss. Shampoo. Our taste for products containing palm oil is contributing to climate change, destroying animal habitats and putting millions of people at riskIndonesia is the world's third biggest greenhouse gas polluter, behind China and the United States. One of the sources of this pollution is deforestation, which represents 15 percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
But climate change isn't the only effect of deforestation. In Indonesia, it has not only destroyed the habitats of orangutans, Sumatran tigers and elephants, but has also put some 20 million of the nation's indigenous and forest-dependent people at risk.
A primary reasons for this rampant deforestation is the need to create space for palm oil plantations.
Palm oil is derived from the fruit of the oil palms, two species of the Arecaceae (palm family), one native to west Africa, the other native to Central and South America.
"Oil palm is now the world’s most important edible oil when ranked by global production and consumption," according to the Australian environmental group PalmOilAction.org.
"In the 2006/2007 year, it held approximately 32% of the market share of all edible oils by production in comparison to soybean oil, which held approximately 29% of the world market for oils."
One of Indonesia's biggest palm oil purchasers is General Mills, a Fortune 500 corporation that markets some of the most popular consumer food brands and products, including Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, Nature Valley, Cheerios, Yoplait, Colombo, Totinos, Jeno's, Green Giant, Old El Paso, Häagen-Dazs, Lucky Charms and Wanchai Ferry.
Palm oil is found in their Betty Crocker and Pillsbury products, as well as Nature Valley Granola Bars and Yogurt Burst Cheerios.
"Palm oil is a globally traded agricultural commodity that is used in 50 percent of all consumer goods, from lipstick and packaged food to body lotion and biofuels," according to non-profit environmental group Rainforest Action Network (RAN).
"Demand for palm oil in the U.S. has tripled in the last five years, pushing palm oil cultivation into the rainforests and making this crop one of the key causes of global rainforest destruction."
"Indonesia's government plans to convert up to 18 million hectares of land into palm oil plantations by 2020," notes RAN campaigner Ashley Schaeffer, adding that, "While General Mills has expressed concern about recent reports of rainforest destruction for palm oil and has begun to engage its suppliers, this leading company must take stronger action to ensure the protection of rainforests, communities and the climate, as other companies have already done."
"The people driving the bulldozers and excavators told Jamaludin and his family that they were going to build a road," wrote Michael Brune, executive director of RAN, in a recent email describing the plight of an individual in Indonesia whose livelihood depends on a healthy rainforest.
"Instead, they burned down the Indonesian rainforest Jamaludin's community had called home for centuries. In its place: a sprawling palm oil plantation that has ravaged the local and global environment."
"The forest provided us with many ways to earn money: fish, honey, pigs, rattan vines," said Jamaludin.
"Now, everything our grandparents left us is gone."
image: oil palm (Elaeis_guineensis)
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