Palm oil: Malaysian asset or liability?

Oil palm has been singled by some environmental groups as entirely responsible for the declining population of orang utans in Borneo. They say the clearing of large tracts of rainforest for oil palm cultivation has destroyed much of the orang utan’s natural habitat.

Such critics may not know that almost all oil palm in Malaysia is grown on land vacated by rubber and other crops, or abandoned for years. In Malaysia, nearly 70 per cent of the land area is still under forest. The government has maintained that level for years through the creation of many forest preservation projects.
These groups have been calling on consumers, especially in Britain, to boycott palm oil unless big retail chains there join their roundtable on “sustainable palm oil”. This forum was set up a few years ago to come out with guidelines and criteria on the sustainable production of palm oil. Many in the palm oil supply-chain have joined the roundtable, including most palm oil interest groups in Malaysia and Indonesia.

But that has not stopped other environmental groups from continuing to raise the issue. One way or the other, palm oil is publicised as a bad boy. Little is heard of the environmental consequences of expansion in the other oils, such as the massive land-clearing in Latin America for soyabean cultivation.

The other issue is of global warming. Though there is still some dispute among scientists, most agree that the unchecked release of greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide, causes drastic temperature changes, with dire consequences for climate, disease and agriculture. The popular prediction is that many island countries may disappear.

Commercial oil palm cultivation can slow down the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The oil palm is, in the language of environmentalists, a “net carbon sink”

New Straits Time