FACTSHEET: PALM OIL Background
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For several years Lush has been looking into the environmental and social concerns surrounding the use of palm oil in cosmetics, food and biofuels.
Indonesia aims to almost double the 6.5m hectares under oil palm plantation in the next + five to eight years and triple it by 2020.
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According to the United National Environment Programme, it is estimated that within 15 years 98% of the rainforests of Indonesia and ± Malaysia will be gone.
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The lowland forest that the oil-palm industry favours for conversion is the only remaining * habitat of the orang-utan.
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Almost 90 per cent of orang-utan habitat has now disappeared. Some orang-utan populations have been halved in the past 15 years, and from a total remaining population between 50,000 and 60,000 animals, an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 are killed each ± year.
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Experts have identified a number of priority forest areas that are crucial for the continued existence of orang-utan in the wild. Within just one Indonesian province, Central Kalimantan, two-thirds of these are either about to be converted to oil palm, or are at high risk of * conversion.
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The oil-palm plantation business is the most conflict-ridden sector in Indonesia, and one of the most polluting. Plantations are often forcibly established on land traditionally owned by indigenous peoples, and plantation development has repeatedly been associated * with violent conflict.
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In many plantations, workers have to contend with low wages and appalling living conditions, so while the palm oil industry may create jobs and generate export revenue, but it can also * trap entire communities in poverty.
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Tropical deforestation due to agricultural expansion, logging and infrastructure development already contributes between 10 and 30 per cent of greenhouse global ◊ emissions.
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In addition, oil palm plantation companies in Indonesia have been identified as one of the chief culprits in setting forest fires over the last 10 years. These occur every year in Indonesia and release huge quantities of carbon into the ◊ atmosphere.
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In one of the worst fire incidents between 1997 and 1998 it is estimated that the emissions
In November 2006 Simon Constantine and Alan Witt, members of our ethical buying team, visited Sumatra to assess the situation on the ground and sat in on a Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) meeting in Singapore. The team have subsequently worked alongside the Lush campaigns department, meeting with representatives of Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and other NGOs to get more information about this issue. Lush also support the Sumatran Orangutan Society (SOS), sponsoring their Organ-U-Van, which tours around villages and towns in Sumatra, teaching local people about orangutan conservation, and providing information about environmental programmes that will assist local communities in protecting and improving their own environment and surrounding forests. The Problems with Palm Some of the problems with palm oil production are: o
Ninety per cent of the world’s palm-oil exports come from the oil-palm plantations of * Indonesia and Malaysia.
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Most of these plantations are on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Borneo * (part of which is in Malaysia).
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Borneo has lost half its forest cover, while * Sumatra has lost more than 70 per cent.
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The palm-oil industry has set up 6.5 million hectares of oil-palm plantations across Sumatra and Borneo, but is probably responsible for the destruction of 10 million * hectares of rainforest.
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Indonesia will appear in the 2008 Guinness Book of World Records, with the dubious “honour” of being the country with the fastest rate of deforestation in the world. The entry will read: "Of the 44 countries which collectively account for 90 percent of the world's forests, the country which pursues the highest annual rate of deforestation is Indonesia with 1.8 million hectares (4.4 million acres) of forest destroyed each year between 2000-2005."^