Palm Oil.....JUST SAY NO foodispower.org/ethical-food-choices/ Palm oil Palm oil, an edible oil derived from the pulp of fruits of the oil palm, is used in margarine, shortening, cooking oil, soups, sauces, crackers, and other baked goods. After soybean oil, it is the world’s most widely used oil. In the U.S., palm oil is used primarily in processed foods and often in combination with the more familiar soy and canola varieties.[47] The plantations on which palm oil is produced have required a tremendous amount of deforestation and fostered significant injustice. In Indonesia, more than 27,000 square miles are devoted to supplying the palm oil market, with a huge increase – nearly 11 million tons – between 2000 and 2009. This expansion includes tropical lowland forests and could realistically wipe out entire species.[48] The story is similar in Malaysia.[49] In Cameroon, proposed locations of palm oil development lie at ecologically sensitive nexus points between already protected national forests, threatening wildlife in numerous ways and overriding local opposition.[50] In Colombia, peasant families have been forced off their land and their houses destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations.[51] Deforestation necessarily involves threats to animals living in the regions affected, including direct threats – like poaching or forced removal – and indirect threats like habitat loss, which has been a catastrophe for already endangered Sumatran tigers, Sumatran rhinos, and Asian elephants.[52]Orangutans have been shot, kidnapped, and killed in order to clear land for palm oil plantations and to prevent them from eating and destroying young palms. In March 2012, hundreds are believed to have died in fires deliberately started for that purpose.[53] Palm oil is not only a food commodity; it was once the great hope of biofuels. Its cultivation has turned out instead to be a climate change disaster. Establishing a plantation typically requires clearing massive tracts of land and the addition of large amounts of chemical fertilizer to the soil. The process often involves draining and burning peatland, which sends huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Because of palm oil cultivation, Indonesia has recently become the world’s third largest producer of climate change-causing greenhouse gases, behind the U.S. and China. Leaked data from the European Commission shows that palm oil’s carbon footprint is actually greater than crude oil’s and is only slightly less than that of oil from the tar sands.[54] Due to growing consumer concern about the consequences of palm oil production, industry has joined forces with large environmental organizations like the World Wildlife Fund to promote more “sustainable” methods. Through efforts like the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), major producers and processors promise to both continue large-scale production while also allegedly protecting the rainforest and its inhabitants, primarily through complicated off-sets, land concessions, and the use of already “degraded” rainforest. As the German news outlet Der Spiegel reported in May 2012, however, these promises haven’t amounted to much: one former WWF employee remarked, “Sustainable palm oil, as the WWF promises with its RSPO certificates, is really nonexistent.” [55] Workers are routinely exploited at every stage of palm oil production around the world. In Colombia, the world’s 5th largest producer, workers struck by the thousands in late 2011 to protest cuts in benefits, subcontracting practices, and precarious work. Carloads of people were brought in to break the strike.[56] Throughout Asia and the Pacific, the extraordinarily toxic herbicide paraquat is being used on palm plantations[57] and endangering workers.[58] Indentured servitude and outright slavery are not uncommon, along with similar human rights abuses of workers.[59] Given how pervasive palm oil is and the wide range of products in which it’s found (including many vegan products), it’s important to read the label to know what you’re buying. F.E.P. suggests you avoid palm oil whenever possible.
Posted on: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 17:52:39 +0000
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