Penan armed with blowpipes block road as logging trucks owned by the Shin Yang company approach.

> Penan armed with blowpipes block road as logging trucks owned by the Shin Yang company approach. <

> Rainforest Information Center <

> SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL -PALM OIL <

> THE ECOLOGIST – PALM OIL, SUSTAINABLE PALMOIL ? <

> 9th Session UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues <

> Indigenous Peoples Issues/Resources – Palm Oil <

Palm oil is an edible plant oil derived from the pulp of the fruit of the oil palm Elaeis guineensis. It should not be confused with palm kernel oil, which is derived from the kernel (seed) of Elaeis guineensis, or with coconut oil, which is derived from the kernel of the coconut palm (Cocos nucifera). Palm oil is naturally reddish because it contains a high amount of beta-carotene (though boiling palm oil destroys the beta-carotene, rendering the oil colourless. Read More: > HERE <

Deforestation occurs for many reasons: trees or derived charcoal are used as, or sold, for fuel or as a commodity, while cleared land is used as pasture for livestock, plantations of commodities, and settlements. The removal of trees without sufficient reforestation has resulted in damage to habitat, biodiversity loss and aridity. It has adverse impacts on biosequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Deforested regions typically incur significant adverse soil erosion and frequently degrade into wasteland.

Disregard or ignorance of intrinsic value, lack of ascribed value, lax forest management and deficient environmental law are some of the factors that allow deforestation to occur on a large scale. In many countries, deforestation is an ongoing issue that is causing extinction, changes to climatic conditions, desertification, and displacement of indigenous people.Read More: > HERE <

Biofuels threaten lands of 60 million tribal people – Demand for biofuels is destroying tribal peoples’ land and lives, according to indigenous representatives at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), meeting currently in New York.

A report presented to the UNPFII refers to ‘increasing human rights violations, displacements and conflicts due to expropriation of ancestral lands and forests for biofuel plantations.’ One of the report’s authors, UNPFII chairperson Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, has said that if biofuels expansion continues as planned, 60 million indigenous people worldwide are threatened with losing their land and livelihoods.

Palm oil is one of the most destructive crops used for biofuels. Millions of indigenous people in Malaysia have already been affected by palm oil plantations, and millions more in Indonesia, where over 6 million hectares of oil palm have been planted, mostly on indigenous territory. In Colombia, thousands of families, many of them indigenous, have been violently evicted from their land because of palm oil plantations and other crops.

Malaysia, Indonesia and Colombia all plan to expand their palm oil plantations. Indonesia has announced plans for plantations in Borneo, projected to displace up to 5 million indigenous people, and 5 million hectares, much of it indigenous land, has been set aside for palm oil in Papua. Colombia is planning 6.3 million hectares of plantations, which could affect more than 100 indigenous communities.

‘If the government take our land, what will we have left?’ an indigenous Papuan leader said in an interview with Survival. ‘If there is a plantation, our land will be destroyed.’

Other crops for biofuels include sugar cane, soy, corn, manioc and jatropha, a plant native to Central America. The > Guarani  < in Brazil have lost much of their land to sugar cane cultivation, while the government in India is targeting 13.5 million hectares of what it calls ‘wasteland’, much of which is actually indigenous land.

Survival’s director, Stephen Corry, said today, ‘The biofuels boom doesn’t just have consequences for the environment, global food prices or orang-utans – it’s having a devastating effect on tribal people too. The companies feverishly promoting this industry have been perfectly willing to push aside tribal people in their hunger for land.’


The Amazon Rainforest is the world’s greatest natural resource – the most powerful and bio-actively diverse natural phenomenon on the planet. Yet still it is being destroyed just like other rainforests around the world. The problem and the solution to rainforest destruction are both economic. Rainforests are being destroyed worldwide for the profits they yield – mostly harvesting unsustainable resources like timber, for cattle and agriculture, and for subsistence cropping by rainforest inhabitants. However, if land owners, governments and those living in the rainforest today were given a viable economic reason NOT to destroy the rainforest, it could and would be saved. Thankfully, this viable economic alternative does exist. Many organizations have demonstrated that if the medicinal plants, fruits, nuts, oils and other resources like rubber, chocolate and chicle, were harvested sustainably – rainforest land has much more economic value than if timber were harvested or if it were burned down for cattle or farming operations. Sustainable harvesting of these types of resources provides this value today as well more long term income and profits year after year for generations to come.

The Amazon Rainforest has long been a symbol of mystery and power, a sacred link between humans and nature. It is also the richest biological incubator on the planet. It supports millions of plant, animal and insect species – a virtual library of chemical invention. In these archives, drugs like quinine, muscle relaxants, steroids and cancer drugs are found. More importantly, are the new drugs still awaiting discovery – drugs for AIDS, cancer, diabetes, arthritis and Alzheimer’s.

Many secrets and untold treasures await discovery with the medicinal plants used by shamans, healers and the indigenous people of the Rainforest Tribes. So alluring are the mysteries of indigenous medical knowledge that over 100 pharmaceutical companies and even the US government are currently funding projects studying the indigenous plant knowledge and the specific plants used by native shamans and healers.

Long regarded as hocus-pocus by science, indigenous people’s empirical plant knowledge is now thought by many to be the Amazon’s new gold. This untold wealth of the indigenous plants are the true wealth of the rainforest – not the trees. Rich in beneficial nutrients, phytochemicals and active constituents, the rainforest Indians and Indigenous People have used them for centuries for their survival, health and well-being. Yet extracting these secrets from the jungles is no easy task and sadly, this state of affairs may not last long enough into the future for man to unlock all their secrets. Tragically, rainforests once covered 14% of the earth’s land surface; now they cover a mere 6%.

In less than 50 years, more than half of the world’s tropical rainforests have fallen victim to fire and the chain saw and the rate of destruction is still accelerating. Unbelievably, over 200,000 acres of rainforest are burned every day in the world. That is over 150 acres lost every minute of every day. Experts estimate that at the current rate of destruction, the last remaining rainforests could be consumed in less than 40 years. Experts also estimate that we are losing 130 species of plants, animals and insects every single day as they become extinct from the loss of rainforest land and habitats. How many possible cures to devastating diseases have we already lost? > FULL ARTICLE , PLANT DATA BASE, RAINFOREST SUPPORT <

Biodiversity, Heinrich Böll Stiftung – In conclusion, it appears increasingly clear that there are some forms of new energy investment, (both fossil-fuel and so-called “renewable”) that are particularly damaging to the local environment and communities and to our climate. For these reasons, they should be considered too high risk to pursue – especially in developing countries with very weak political and environmental governance. Eni’s plans to develop tar sands and oil palm in Congo fall into this category.

Heinrich Theodor Böll (December 21, 1917 – July 16, 1985) was one of Germany’s foremost post-World War II writers. Böll was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize in 1967 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972. Read More: > HERE <

palm us offorang utan

 

 

 

 

 

The demand for palm oil is forecast to double by 2020. To achieve that production increase, 1,160 new square miles will have to be planted every year for 20 years. Indonesia has 26,300 square miles more forest land officially allocated for new oil palm plantations; Malaysia has almost 3,000 square miles more. The expected thousands of square miles of new plantings on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo could kill off the remaining orangutans, rhinos, and tigers.

  • Palm oil is found about 40 percent of the food products on our shelves and its rampant cultivation is destroying the Orangutan’s habitat at an alarming rate.
  • The United Nations has warned that Orangutans could be extinct within a generation if we don’t act quickly.
  • Once palm oil is labelled, consumers can actually drive a market for proper certified sustainable palm oil because they can demand it of manufacturers.
  • Watch the Don’t Palm Us Off campaign video and send this page link to your friends!
  • Palm Oil in Chocolate, Greenpeace Canada <


 

Palm oil plantation. Stuart Franklin, National Geographic.

Please look at the following links to learn more about Palm Oil and the effect on the Orangutans:

An article on the effects of Palm Oil: > SOURCE SAVE ORANG UTAN/Facebook < :

  • http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/apr/04/energy.indonesia
  • The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO):
  • This website keeps you up to date with the latest progress on the fight for Sustainable Palm Oil:
  • http://www.rspo.org/
  • Article – ‚The Oil for Ape Scandal – How Palm Oil is Threatening the Orangutan‘:
  • http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/oil_for_ape_summary.pdf
  • Video – Save Our Orangutans:
  • The end of this video will show you a daily occurrence in the destroyed rainforests of Malaysia and Indonesia
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFLFECHtENQ
  • Sepilok Orangutan Appeal:
  • http://www.orangutan-appeal.org.uk/
  • Friends of the Earth:
  • They are a brilliant charity and organisation who hassle the government until they pass legislations to help protect the environment. They have hassled the top name supermarkets to STOP SELLING PRODUCTS CONTAINING NON-SUSTAINABLE PALM OIL!
  • http://www.foe.co.uk/
  • WSPA:
  • http://www.wspa.org.uk/wspaswork/orangutans/default.aspx
  • Born Free Foundation:
  • http://www.bornfree.org.uk/animals/orangutans/
  • The Body Shop shows it IS possible to use sustainable palm oil in products:
  • http://www.thebodyshopinternational.com/Values+and+Campaigns/Values+Initiatives/Sustainable+Palm+Oil/
  • SUPERMARKETS – BBC Wildlife Magazine (August issue)
  • ASDA does not use palm oil from Borneo or Sumatra in own brand products.
  • TESCO does and is aiming to use only sustainable palm oil by 2015.
  • MORRISONS wont say which products are made with sustainable oil and which are not and has set no dates.
  • SAINSBURY use sustainable palm oil in fishfingers, frozen fish and soap and aim to use sustainable oil in all own brand products by 2014.
  • CO-OP does not use sustainable oil and have not set a deadline for this
  • MARKS & SPENCER use sustainable palm oil in 7 products, setting themselves a 2015 deadline for all products.
  • PATERSON ARRAN are the first and only food producer in the UK to have pledged to completely remove palm oil from its production process and to-date they have converted over 70% of its product range. Check out their website…
  • http://www.wildaboutoats.com/pages/89/Palm-Oil.htm