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."^
from the forest fires in Indonesia were equivalent to 40% of all global emissions from ◊ burning fossil fuels that year.
quantities of palm being consumed and the potential extra demand that using palm as a biofuel would create.
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Dutch pressure group Wetlands International found that as much as half the space created for new palm oil plantations was cleared by draining and burning peat-land, sending huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the ± atmosphere.
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Estimates say Indonesia's peat-land fires generate 1,400m tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, contributing to its position as the + world's third-largest producer of CO2.
There is no doubt that this is a massive industry, that palm producers and other key players are getting incredibly rich as a result (while the local workers get poorer) and that when such vast amounts of money are involved, there will always be people willing to look the other way and allow continued forest conversion and unchecked growth.
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One of the biggest potential growth sectors for palm oil is biofuel, but FoE say “even if the demand for palm oil as a biofuel or for biomass is directed at sustainably certified sources, when such a system is fully established, this new demand is highly likely to displace much of the current global demand elsewhere towards destructive plantation development, ◊ especially in Indonesia.”
Finding a Workable Solution Faced with these enormous problems, immediate solutions available to us included: 1) Buying palm from sustainable sources 2) Eliminating palm from our products
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Many of the groups involved in this issue are working toward establishing a certified sustainable palm scheme, with the RSPO being the governing and enforcing body. However, there is a significant feeling of scepticism that the RSPO will not develop a scheme that is truly sustainable, that has the right checks and balances in place, and an effective way of monitoring the situation on the ground and ensuring compliance. Considering a consumer boycott of palm oil was widely seen as impractical, given the enormous range of products containing palm, and there is a real fear that a boycott would also hurt those communities who rely on palm as their primary source of income. There appears to be organic and sustainable palm available from South America, and although sourcing this for use in Lush products would remove us from contributing to the problems in Indonesia and Malaysia, it is debatable that doing this would help solve those problems. There is a feeling amongst many that this is an almost insurmountable problem, given the
Cut Down on Palm, Not the Rainforest It seems to us that the only way palm will ever be sustainable is if a level of consumption is reached that does not put such a strain on the environment. At present the demand for palm is too great, and the demand is growing. With this in mind, Lush decided to cuts its use of palm by at least half. This was no easy task, but for almost a year Lush worked in partnership with a leading UK soap-base manufacturer, Kay’s, to develop the worlds’ first commercially available palm-free soap base. The first soap to be made with this new formula was called “Greenwash” and was launched as part of the Lush Christmas 2007 range and sold through Lush stores and mail order. The product was successful, and Lush has now switched all of its UK soap production to this new palm-free base, thereby reducing its annual palm oil use by approximately 250,000 kilograms. Other Lush manufacturing facilities, in North America, Croatia, Japan and Australia will make the switch to the new base by September 2008. Lush is now organising a public campaign to urge other manufacturers to cut their palm use by at least half, and engaging with NGOs and Industry by forming a collaborative working group called Actively Seeking Alternatives to Palm (ASAP). Until global levels of palm use are cut dramatically, and plans to use palm in biofuel are scrapped entirely, there is little hope of a workable sustainable palm oil industry, and the future of the forests, animals and people of Borneo and Sumatra is bleak. * Friends of the Earth Report, Oil for Ape, September 2005 http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/oil_for_ape_summary.pdf
+ The Guardian, Palm oil: the biofuel of the future driving an ecological disaster now, 4/4/07 http://environment.guardian.co.uk/energy/story/0,,2049667,00.html
^ Reuters, Indonesia deforestation fastest in world, 3/5/07 http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSJAK215106
± UNEP Rapid Response Assessment, The Last Stand of the Orang-utan, February 2007 http://www.unep-wcmc.org/resources/publications/LastStand.htm ◊ Friends of the Earth Briefing, The use of palm oil for biofuel
and as biomass for energy, August 2006 www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/palm_oil_biofuel_position.pdf
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Last updated: April 2008