WE HAVE had bad air for the past few days. Prevailing winds have brought in the haze from Riau’s forest fires. The culprits responsible for this are big plantation companies that burn forests to clear land to plant oil palm. Widely used in food and cosmetics, palm oil accounts for 21 per cent of the global edible oils market. It is also used to make a renewable fuel called biodiesel, the main user of which is the European Union (EU). In 2003, the EU announced it was mandating biofuels in 5.75 per cent of transportation by 2010, and 10 per cent by 2020. This initiative stoked investment in oil palm plantations and biodiesel refineries in Indonesia. Since biodiesel is made from a plant, carbon is absorbed while the palm is growing, which is released when the green fuel is burned. Thus, compared to fossil fuels, biodiesel would be neutral in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, it was argued. We know now that things are not so simple. The process of producing palm oil itself takes a heavy toll on the environment. Still, the biofuel industry favours the palm as 1ha of it yields 20 tonnes of the crude. By contrast, biofuels like soybean and corn yield just 7.5 and 3 per cent of that, respectively. By early last year, there were 6.1 million ha of oil palm in Indonesia, up from 600,000ha in 1985. Palm oil production rose from 157,000 tonnes in 1964 to 15.9 million tonnes in 2006, with exports jumping from 126,000 tonnes to 11.6 million tonnes in the same period. Last year, these exports were worth US$4.43 billion (S$6.3 billion). As it is an important source of foreign exchange and employment, the Indonesian government wants to expand oil palm to the eastern part of the country. While Riau has the biggest area under palm cultivation now, plantation companies are being given forest concessions in Kalimantan, Irian Jaya and Sulawesi for further expansion.

It would be environmentally friendlier to rehabilitate disused rice paddies or old oil palm plantations, but that would cost more than clearing rainforests. Moreover, with forest concessions, companies can also sell the valuable tropical timber that they harvest. The logging, however, is often uncontrolled, leading to the erosion of top soil that is then washed by rain into rivers, thus aggravating floods. Also, after the logging is done, firms tend to burn the logged-over areas to clear them, though this is illegal. Trees soak up carbon as they grow; when they are burned, they release it back into the atmosphere. In addition, these forest fires often spread beyond their planned areas. At least 19 of Indonesia’s protected national parks have been affected thus, including a Unesco-registered wetland in Sumatra. Forest fires consumed 50,000 sq km of Indonesia’s rainforests in 1994. Another 46,000 sq km went up in smoke in 1997-98. Of the 176 firms which used fires illegally to clear forests in 1997-98, 133 were oil palm companies. A 2007 United Nations Environment Programme report confirmed that planting oil palm was the main cause of deforestation in Indonesia. Apart from rainforests, these companies also resort to clearing peat-swamp forests, which they first drain. Timber found in these forests is logged and the logged-over land is also cleared by burning. These boggy swamps absorb rain and run-off, thus helping to mitigate flooding and erosion. When they are rained and burned, however, he risk of flooding rises. moreover, these bogs have partially decomposed plant atter that has been sitting underground or centuries, effectively storing carbon. The 4 million ha of peat lands in iau alone store 14.6 billion onnes of carbon, experts estimate. hen drained, the peats exposed to oxygen and decomposes, hus releasing carbon. f the 22.5 million ha of eatland in Indonesia, 10 million ave been drained, studies estimate. When the eat-swamp forests are urned, the fires smoulder underground or years even if he surface fires are extinguished. 2007 University of Leicester study found that for very hectare of oil palm, 170 tonnes of carbon are released into the air over the plantations useful life of 25 years.By contrast, each hectare of peat-swamp absorbs 2.6 tonnes of carbon annually, so it stores 65 tonnes over 25 years. Producing palm oil on peatland, in other words, results in a net emission of carbon. This conclusion was supported by a study published in the journal Science this month. Peatland abuse has made Indonesia the third-largest carbon emitter in the world after the United States and China. But it is rainforests, the world’s richest ecosystems, that have captured the imagination of many. Not only do they house 70 per cent of all known flora and fauna species, they may also hold 200 species of trees per hectare compared to just a few in temperate forests. Besides trees, rainforests contain innumerable species of vines, shrubs, mosses, and other plants. The unprecedented scale of deforestation in Indonesia – two-thirds of the forests in Sumatra and half in Borneo have been cleared – threatens many species. Among the rainforest’s more charismatic residents are mammals – like the Sumatran tiger, the Sumatran rhinoceros, the Sumatran orangutan, langurs, and so on. According to the World Conservation Union, 32 per cent of over 400 mammal species in Indonesia are threatened. These animals can survive only in rainforests, not monoculture oil palm plantations where the varieties of leaves, roots and shoots they need to eat do not exist. The Conservation Union’s authoritative Red List Of Threatened Species reports that 15 Indonesian species are critically endangered. A World Bank study has warned that Indonesia is “almost certainly undergoing a species extinction spasm of planetary proportions”. As if all this weren’t enough, even processing the oil palm fruit can harm the environment. Because it must be processed within 24 hours of being harvesting, hundreds of small mills have been put up throughout rural Indonesia. Many of these discharge their effluent – oil residue and crushed shells – untreated into waterways. In Sumatra, in 2002, the Siak River was thus polluted, killing off thousands of fish. In 2003, the Kuning River in Sumatra suffered the same fate. Admitting that such environmental consequences had not been anticipated when it mandated biofuels, the EU issued a new directive in January. This requires biofuels to show an overall cut of 35 per cent in carbon emissions compared
to fossil fuels. However, the directive exempts biodiesel sourced from plantations established before 2003. Indonesia exports 40 percent of its crude palm oil to India and China, so no let-up in the expansion of the crop’s cultivation is expected. Palm oil prices have been climbing uninterruptedly since mid- 2007, setting a new record of US$1,217 per tonne this week. Oil palm plantations are expanding in South America: Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and now Peru have joined the commercial thrust. The companies find profitable opportunities at the expense of the invaluable Amazon forest and of the lives of peasants who are displaced from their lands where they obtain their means of livelihood. In the year 2000 the Ministry of Agriculture prepared the National Oil Palm Promotion Plan 2000-2010. With a market approach, the plan seeks to promote “clusters” in the departments of San Martin and Loreto until the consolidation of 50,000 hectares is achieved in the Amazon region which – according to draft Law 9271-- “has vast and rich lands where the palm oil industry can be developed.”In this context, complaints have been made that 30,000 hectares of tropical forests located in the valleys of the Caynarachi and Shanusi subsidiary basins, located right in the Amazon plains and part of the cloud forest, in the district of Yurimaguas, Loreto region, will be allocated to the plantation and industrialization of oil palms by the Romero group, a powerful joint conglomerate involving Industrias del Espino S.A. (INDESA) and Palmas del Espino y Subsidiarias (PALMESA). Before the results of the project’s environmental impact assessment have been made public, it is reported that deforestation of 2,000 hectares in the Shanusi area has already started. Oil palm plantations are being established principally in tropical regions where, by 1997 they occupied6.5 million hectares and produced 17.5 million tonnes of palm oil and 2.1 million tonnes of palm kernel oil.In Asia, the two main oil palm producing countries are Malaysia and Indonesia (both with more than two million hectares of plantations), which have become the world's principal producers of palm oil. Malaysia generates 50 per cent of world production (of which 85 per cent is exported), while Indonesia is the next largest producer with almost 30 per cent of global production (of which 40 per cent is exported). However, other countries are joining them in large-scale oil production. The most important of these are Thailand (with more than 200,000 hectares) and Papua New Guinea (which is the world third-largest palm oil exporter). Ambitious plans also exist for the Philippines, Cambodia and India, as well as the Solomon Islands. In Africa it is difficult to obtain precise figures for industrial plantation areas, due to the fact that the oil palm is native to many West African countries. For instance, in the case of Nigeria, production is obtained from an area of three million hectares of oil palm, among which there are some 360,000 hectares of industrial plantations. Other countries also hold large areas covered by oil palms, such as Guinea (310,000 ha) and Congo Democratic Republic (formerly Zaire) (220,000), with important areas of industrial plantations particularly in Ivory Coast (190,000), Ghana (125,000), Cameroon (80,000), Sierra Leone (29,000), and smaller areas in Benin, Burundi, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Senegal, Tanzania, Togo and Uganda. In Latin America, oil palm plantations are covering increasing areas in Ecuador (150,000 ha), Colombia (130,000) and Brazil (circa 100,000), as well as spreading over numerous other countries such as Honduras (50,000), Venezuela (30,000), Costa Rica (30,000), Peru (15,000), Guatemala (15,000), Dominican Republic (9,000), Nicaragua (4,000), Mexico (4,000) as well as areas in Panama, Suriname and Guyana. The tropical forests which are eliminated to make way for these plantations are the habitat for an enormously diverse range of species. Studies in Malaysia and Indonesia have shown that between 80 per cent and 100 per cent of the species of fauna inhabiting tropical rainforests cannot survive in oil palm monocultures (Wakker 2000). Those few species that do manage to adapt often become "pests" since, having lost their normal food supply, they begin to make a meal of the young palm plants. This in turn necessitates the application of pest "control" methods which include chemical pesticides, causing further damage to biodiversity as well as to fresh water supplies and the health of local populations. The main beneficiaries of the oil palm boom will be the large enterprises -increasingly foreign- which control production, industrialization and commercialization at all levels. Soya grown in the Brazilian Amazon is driving deforestation.
• The forested regions of Indonesia and Malaysia are being cut down for Palm Oil plantations.
• Wetlands Intenational have shown that destruction of SE Asian peatlands for Palm Oil plantations, which cover 0.2% of the global land surface, is responsible for 8% of the global CO2 emissions. (4)
• The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) currently allows for peatland areas that have been burned and cleared to create biofuel plantations to be eligible for CDM funding.
• On Kalangala Islands in Uganda, large areas of tropical forest are being converted into BIDICO palm oil plantations, which will be used to produce biodiesel. BIDICO are currently lobbying government to be able to further expand their plantations into other forested areas
by usman karim based inlahore paksitan