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Palm Oil: Whack a mole
| For palm oil disseminating the truth about the commodity has been rather like the popular arcade game of "Whack a mole". After the lies of a palm oil campaign by one green NGO has been exposed, another pops up elsewhere. In a typical month, the green NGOs' palm oil campaigns can take on different forms, much like a multi-headed hydra. The campaigns are also carried out through a myriad of organizations ranging from the curiously named Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) to the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) to Climate Advisers to Greenpeace to Friends of the Earth and even zoos like the Auckland Zoo and the Melbourne Zoo. If the plan by these slush-fund organizations is to obfuscate, confuse and create the illusion that the protests against palm oil is wide ranging and well distributed geographically, they're not fooling anyone. It all started with Philip Sokolof and his American Heart Savers Association (AHSA) and the full page ads that they took out in American newspapers called "The Poisoning of AMERICA" . In the ads, Sokolof and the AHSA argued that food manufacturers were poisoning America by using coconut or palm oil which were supposedly filled with saturated fats. It did not take long before others jumped on the bandwagon. The now discredited Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) launched concerted campaigns calling for the banning of "tropical oils" which ironically led to the adoption of trans fat laden hydrogenated oils like margarine and shortening which both AHSA and CSPI lauded. Both AHSA's and CSPI campaign are now largely discredited as tons of scientific studies have shown that palm oil is, in fact heart friendly as the saturated fatty acids in the sn-1 and -3 position (typically found in palm oil) has very different biological consequences than animal fats such as lard and milk fats as the saturated fats are primarily found in the sn-2 position! (Vide: Donald J. McNamara, PhD: "Palm Oil and Heart Health: A case of Manipulated Perception and Misuse of Science" 240S Vol 29 No. 3(s) Journal of the American College of Nutrition) Palm oil is also the richest source of the heart friendly anti-oxidant tocotrienol, a superior form of Vitamin E as well as other heart friendly phyto-nutrients such as Co Enzyme Q10, betacarotenes and other polyphenols. However, although AHSA conceded that they were wrong in their anti-tropical oil actions, CSPI was not done. After lying low for some 2 decades, CSPI published a "report" called "Cruel Oil: How palm oil harms health, rainforest and wildlife" in which they made wild and unsubstantiated claims that palm oil cultivation was causing massive deforestation and threatening the extinction of biodiversity such as the orang utan. The report was prepared with the assistance of Aid Environment listed as partners with Hivos — a Netherlands based civil society group with direct links to campaigns in Indonesia. Hivos, in turn, is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs for up to two-thirds of its annual 100m Euro budget. Before long, Greenpeace and FOE together with other green groups took up the cudgels. Dressed in silly orang utan suits, they campaigned long and hard for palm oil to be reined in to stop the alleged deforestation and orang utan extinction. What is, perhaps, the most sinister aspect of Greenpeace and FOE's agitation against palm oil is the recent revelation by researchers Caroline Boin and Andrea Marchesetti in a well researched report entitled "Friends of the EU" (see: http://www.policynetwork.net/accountability/publication/friends-eu). This damning report is a sickening expose that the EU, through its environmental ministries and commissions is involved in funding up to 70% of the operating budgets of environmental NGOs such as FOE Europe is a dead giveaway that the real reasons for these baffling attacks is to protect oilseed crops like rapeseed and sunflower which are indigenous to the EU. It is inarguable that these EU oil-seeds would find it difficult to compete on a level playing field, with "the cheapest oilseed crop in the world" especially in the production of biofuel, the use of which the EU has committed itself to promoting! Now why would the EU fund green NGOs who proceeded to mount what was tantamount to a trade protectionist scheme in the guise of environmental activism? It does not take a genius to figure this one out. The EU has homegrown oilseed industries like rapeseed and sunflower that were unfortunately not quite as productive as palm oil. In fact, their typical yield is just 10% that of palm oil! And so a renewable energy directive (EU RED) was issued in 2008 by the European Union parliament on biofuel content which imposed strict regulations on carbon emission. The EU RED has also put many palm oil-based biodiesel producers in a limbo as the directive distorts the commodity price and its trade. Many trade observers see the directive as a tactical unfair business ploy and a non-tariff trade move by the EU to single out palm oil for not able to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and preserving biodiversity. According to the EU scientific and technical research, palm oil biodiesel - which has only about 19% GHG - failed to meet with the EU RED requirement. The directive states that biofuel must result in GHG savings of at least 35% versus fossil fuel in 2009 and also increase over time to 50% by 2017. This claim, however, is contrary to many research views, indicating that palm oil biodiesel actually has an estimated GHG savings of 55%! While many palm oil biodiesel producers were doubling their efforts to convince the EU on the sustainability of palm oil, there have been a continuous slew of anti-palm oil campaigns launched by Western environmental NGOs. Recent reincarnations of the anti-palm oil campaigns have tried to be a moving target with one organization after the other taking up the cudgels against palm oil. The organizations selected to lead anti-palm oil campaigns include the Auckland Zoo and Zoo Victoria led by the Melbourne Zoo, the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), Wetlands International, Mongabay.com, Climate Advisers et al. A close examination of the facts will show that the actions of these environmental NGOs were misconceived. It is an undisputed fact that the oil palm share of world agricultural land is only 0.22 per cent. The total greenhouse gas (GHG) emission of global agriculture is 17 per cent which is considered small compared with the burning of fossil fuel, which contributes 57 per cent of GHG emission. The carbon footprint of oil palm cultivation globally is, therefore, 0.22 per cent times 17 per cent of the total or 0.0374 per cent of global GHG emissions. Recently, the green groups have taken to accusing palm oil of planting oil palm on and thus destroying peat swamp forests, ignoring the fact that planters prefer not to plant on peaty soil for cost reasons. More the palm tree itself is widely known as a species that grows best in sandy porous soil of the type found near/in deserts. In the view of Palmhugger.org, it is only a matter of time before the discerning in the world's mainstream media would wake up to this insidious pattern of anti-palm oil campaigns orchestrated by governments and their agencies such as the Environment Directorate of the European Commission, out to protect their indigenous edible oil industries who are otherwise helpless against the juggernaut of the world's most productive and cheapest COOKING OIL! THE END |
About the Author
Palm Hugger is a palm oil advocacy site that makes no apologies for exposing the lies, untruths and equivocations on palm oil spewed by a coterie of environmental morons against the world's most sustainable edible oil and biofuel feedstock. We are part of a collective group of palm oil sympathizers that have grown tired of the blatant untruths, spin, lies and unfair trade bloc promoting activities of green NGOs like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth (FOE) against palm oil.
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