The rampant use of palm oil for our daily needs is a good example of how we contribute to the extinction of our wildlife even by the use of ‘vegetarian’ edibles. Jungles are being cut across the world to harvest oil from palm fruits
When you eat meat, you kill the animal directly. But some foods that appear ‘vegetarian’ are responsible for the killing of thousands of animals, and you need to avoid these. One case in point is palm oil.
Palm oil is a form of edible vegetable oil obtained from the fruit of the oil palm tree. Made by crushing fresh fruit, the reddish-brown oil is used in cookies, toothpaste, ice cream and breads and its demand is rising and is expected to climb further, particularly for use in bio-diesel.
Indonesia, the largest producer of palm oil in the world, has the third largest cover of rainforests after Amazon and Congo basin. These rainforests are home to amazingly diverse nature of species. Consider just one per cent of the total land area of Earth being host to 17 per cent of known birds and 12 per cent of known mammals. Unfortunately, these forests are being destroyed to expand palm oil plantations putting some of the most adored species such as orang-utans and Sumatran tigers on the verge of extinction.
Take the case of orang-utans. Yes, the same concave-faced, bearded, fruit-eating apes that stole Catherine Zeta-Jones’ luggage in the Visa ad and traded it back for bananas! The orangutans are the most charming of our primate relatives. Known for their intelligence and red hair, they were once found all over Indo-China but are now limited to the jungles of Borneo and Sumatra. Even this last remaining habitat of them is being destroyed at a very fast rate. ResultIJ Orangutans come under endangered to critically endangered category of International Union for Conservation of Nature. It is feared that all of them might be gone in next few years.
The case of Sumatran Tigers is even worse. They too come under ‘critically endangered’ category of the IUCN. There are just about 400 of them are left down from estimated population of about 1,000 in 1978. For them too, loss and fragmentation of the habitat because of expansion of palm plantations are the main reasons for the declining population. The reported loss of their habitat in recent decades has been between 3.2 and 5.9 per cent per year.
The population density of tigers in a particular area is generally much lower than other mammals. Also, comparatively lesser number of mature tigers take care of their offspring while growing up. It means tigers need much bigger habitat size and population compared to other species to sustain and grow. The case today is exactly opposite. According to the IUCN, the number of adult tigers expected to reproduce may be much less than the estimated population. Many of the tiger habitats are too small to be sustainable in longer run.
Palm oil can be grown perfectly well on degraded land, already cleared of forest — of which there are millions of hectares available in Southeast Asia. This is not happening. Palm oil companies are deliberately destroying pristine forest areas for plantation conversion, as this provides them with an immediate and extremely profitable source of income from logging before a single palm tree is planted.
In fact, some companies get permits to clear rainforest to make way for oil palm plantations but as soon as they have logged the forest, they disappear without planting oil palms. “It is the total clearance of forests, ultimately for the planting of oil palm that has reaped by far the most havoc”, says Ian Singleton, Director of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme.
Forest fires need a mention here. There have been repetitive incidences of forest fires in Indonesia, the most recent being in Sumatra in June, last year. These fires have been time and again linked with palm oil companies. In fact, burning is one of the most common methods to clear forests. Burning forests for plantation is though illegal; it is not easy to trace back the actual cause of these fires making life easier for the companies despite wrong practices.
And we are the main culprits behind all this! In last few years India has surpassed China and European Union to become the largest importer of palm oil. Between November 2012 and October 2013, we imported 8.3 million tonnes of palm oil up eight per cent from the preceding year. This is about 19 per cent of the total global palm oil trade.
The buyer is always responsible for the damage done. It is not always the countries of origin that are to blame. It is us because we fuel the demand. Thus, it is our responsibility to see whether we need to use this much palm oil and to weigh the losses of entire forests and thousands of species. To begin with, create pressure on companies to come clean on their palm oil sourcing. Certification must be imposed so that we ensure that the palm oil we are using, either directly or indirectly, is not linked with deforestation. Palm oil, in its current state needs a Red Dot on it — to show it is non-vegetarian in its effect.