Thank you for your response.
> Of course a rainforest is more valuable — but that depends on if the local community can get value from it (i.e. income).
No, the ecological value is not related to the value to the local community.
> I don’t understand why you think my argument for they’d just chop it down for something else is weak. Can’t other crops use the plantation system?
This is an interesting question; my experience is often ‘no’. There are more barriers to deforestation than you might think. For example, if you wanted to plant say avocados, then you will typically not find high-quality rootstock available at a local level, then there are issues with fertiliser, financing: it’s not a simple equation. Palm oil is popular because it is reasonably well understood, whereas for other crops not so much.
> What would people do for employment?
This a rather specious argument to my eyes. Indonesia is aiming to burn more of its palm oil for biodiesel, and to produce other biofuels. Most exports of palm oil are not to Western countries.
Western countries can and should be self-sufficient in food oils from their own land — this is not a particularly difficult problem, nor does it necessarily mean that palm oil production will fall.
It is a bit like issues about CO2. Not many people are seriously arguing that Western countries should stop reducing CO2 on the basis that Chinese CO2 is still rising — that ones own conscience is clear is a good in and of itself.
> My argument is that palm oil is in so many things most people can’t avoid it. I would imagine it would be incredibly hard to get companies to switch their recipes, so you would have to rely on consumers to avoid it.
OK.
> I don’t understand what soy not being “functionally an oil crop” or rapeseed having a protein byproduct has anything to do with the argument.
Soy is not grown for its oil. So any comparisons between soy and palm for land use per litre of oil are fundamentally incorrect.
Soy is grown for animal feed (human consumption is insignificant), and then depending on the target animal (chicken, pigs, cattle), there might be defatting, which gives oil as a byproduct in addition to the main product, which is animal feed protein.
Rape’s protein byproduct is relevant inasmuch as there is a need and demand for animal feed protein, so to whatever extent a given oil seed produces animal feed protein, any comparison of land usage must consider not only the oil but also the protein.
Understand that global production of soy products is much higher than global production of palm oil products, and that soy production is for animal feed.
> You say the land usage figure is wrong, but refer to the UK. I’m not sure what your source is, but if you get the oil from the UK, again what are people in SE Asia going to do for income?
I refer to the UK only because I am from the UK and boycotts of palm oil are only a consideration for Western consumers. You could of course substitute the US, France, Germany, etc., with similar results. The source btw is the Malaysian government: http://palmoilis.mpob.gov.my/publications/OPIEJ/opiejv17n1-nazlin.pdf
It is hardly controversial that countries should be self-sufficient in food.
The top three importers of palm oil are China, India and Pakistan.
The SE Asian palm oil market does not depend on Western consumers. And of course it is not desirable for an economy to be overly dependent on a single product, as in palm oil.
> You are right there are problems with sustainable palm, but I believe in not letting perfection be the enemy of good (or progress in this case). Rather than writing it off as “greenwashing” I think we should push companies to do more and buy sustainable palm oil, as you point out it’s harder to sell.
? I didn’t say sustainable palm oil was harder to sell. I said that I have seen a Western company’s list of so-called sustainable mills, and there were more mills on it than exist in all of Indonesia. As such the supply of so-called sustainable palm oil already far exceeds demand, and the outcome is ‘business as usual’ for these Western companies.
It is most certainly 100% greenwashing since the list of suppliers is so vast and untraceable (1000+ mills listed as potential source of palm oil) that there is no possible accountability for the end user. This is very different from, for example, a tea producer owning and managing its own tea plantation.
What you will find in fact is that Western companies, which originally setup the plantation system in Indonesia, have divested because of the reputational risk involved of dealing with countries where regulation, labour rights/laws, etc. are weak. Now the plantations are owned by Chinese and SE Asian conglomerates, because reputational risk is a minor consideration for companies in such countries.
> I wouldn’t say things about NGOs that you have no evidence for — that is pure speculation. I’ve worked alongside the nonprofits involved and they are doing amazing things for conservation.
Eh what? This is easily checkable. Just look at the NGOs accounts:
“ The majority of funds comes from our Corporate Sustainable Partners and from a contribution towards the charity’s salary and travel costs.”
That is from the Orangutan Land Trust’s accounts, which provides that there were £85,000 of ‘unrestricted donations’, and £65,000 from ‘restricted donations’. The former is not further detailed, but the latter figure is 100% comprised solely of donations from Wilmar and from Nutella.
There is a list of ‘Corporate Sustainable Partners’ on the OLT’s website:
New Britain Palm Oil
Agropalma (Palm oil)
Body Shop (palm oil soap etc.)
Kulim (Malaysia) (palm oil)
Stephenson personal care (palm oil soap etc)
Goodlight (palm oil candles)
Raw Wildlife (travel)
BSI (British Standards)
So out of 8 corporate sponsors, 6 are directly for the greenwashing of their own palm oil production. As a % of income, it is likely higher.
Of course NGOs need income, but it is a bit silly to say ‘I have no evidence’ when it is not only blindingly obvious but also written in black & white.
> Overall, my biggest argument is what happens to the people employed in the palm oil industry if we boycott it? (which is what conservationists are doing). Do you recommend just buying regular palm oil or avoiding it completely?
Well mostly, nothing, since there are plenty of alternative buyers. It strikes me that actions such as that of the EU in capping at the current level the consumption of palm oil for biofuels are reducing deforestation. It’s like anything else — when oil prices are high there is more exploration, and when they are not, things stay at current levels. Palm oil plantations are not going to shut down, the likely effect is to slow expansion into new forests.
There might be a ‘gold standard’ of palm oil whereby a single supplier is used, but I am not sure anyone is going for that.
As far as ‘sustainable’ palm oil goes, it is a ridiculous joke.
Have a look at this list of Unilever suppliers.
https://www.unilever.com/Images/unilever-palm-oil-mill-list_tcm244-515895_en.pdf
Note the name ‘Torganda’.
This is the company of DL Sitorus who made hundreds of millions of dollars converting tens of thousands of hectares protected forest into palm oil.
So I don’t really think it necessarily makes a difference if something is ‘sustainable’ or not.
