European blowback for Asian biofuels

New European concerns about the adverse environmental impact associated with Southeast Asian-produced biofuels threatens to scupper the rapidly growing multibillion-dollar industry, just as big new production facilities and cultivation areas come onstream.

Environmentalists say as much as 87% of Malaysia’s deforestation between 1985 and 2000 was caused by the expansion of oil-palm plantations. Malaysia has now reached its natural land limit for new plantations and most of the new oil-palm cultivation areas are being cleared in neighboring Indonesia. An estimated 30% of oil-palm plantations in Indonesia are currently controlled by Malaysian interests, according to official industry statistics.
Wetlands International, a non-profit group supported by Western governments and conservation groups, and the Dutch water-research institute Delft Hydraulics warned in a recent joint study that about 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide is released from each tonne of oil palm grown on peat. That and other scientific studies have prompted the EU to put its 2003 biofuel directive under review, and many in the industry believe some sort of sanctions or tax could soon be imposed on palm-oil-derived biofuels from Malaysia and Indonesia.

If so, it would scupper what was rapidly emerging as one of Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing rural-based industries.

Asia Times