To see what this has to do with cookies, jump the dots. We'll get to the floor later.
Cookies from Borneo
The Center for Science in the Public Interest took out an ad In the New York Times decrying the increasing use of palm oil in foods. Palm oil plantations have been replacing native forest throughout Malaysia and Indonesia, leaving no habitat for the severely endangered orangutan. (See a previous melvin diary on Borneo.) From the press release announcing the ad:
CSPI Says Orangutans Literally "Dying for Cookies"
"As it happens, palm oil is almost as conducive to heart disease as the partially hydrogenated oil it is frequently replacing," said CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson. "But much of the increased demand for palm oil is being satisfied by growers in Malaysia and Indonesia, whose authoritarian regimes turn a blind eye to the environmental destruction."
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As rainforest is cleared for oil palm plantations, orangutans and other species have less room to roam and reproduce and become easier targets for poachers. Borneo's orangutan population was reduced by a third in just one year, 1997, when almost 8,000 were either burned to death or massacred as they tried to flee fires set to clear rainforest for new plantations.
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In an alert posted on its web site CSPI calls on H. Lee Scott, Jr., president and CEO of Wal-Mart, to adopt a corporate policy on sustainable palm oil. CSPI says that as the nation's biggest grocery retailer, Wal-Mart should reformulate its house brands to use as little of the ingredient as possible, to seek out sustainable sources for the palm oil it does use, and to insist that its suppliers to do the same. Wal-Mart's British subsidiary, Asda, has already joined the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, a international forum of industry and NGO stakeholders.
"Palm oil should be treated as an ingredient of last resort by consumers and corporations alike."
Dying for a Cookie? The ad in the Times
Cruel Oil: How Palm Oil Harms Health, Rainforest & Wildlife A 48-page pdf from CSPI in 2005. See page 2 for an analysis of palm oil and human health. Executive Summary
This might be a good place to point out that American farmers would appreciate the use of the traditional, and healthier, oils they grow here at home like rape (canola, to use the idiotic invented term) and soy.
Biruté Galdikas, after 35 years of living with and studying them, is the world's foremost authority on orangutans and founder of Orangutan Foundation International. Her opinion, from a recent AFP interview:
"Palm oil is the number one enemy of orangutans and all wildlife in Borneo."
(right, Biruté Galdikas and friend)
Action Alert: Tell Wal-Mart that Palm Oil Kills Orangutans
Celebrate the Victories, Because They Are So Few
Malaysian State to Ban Logging in Orangutan Habitat
The Sabah state government this week announced it would phase out by December 2007 logging activities in the Ulu Segama and Malau forests. The area covers more than 200,000 hectares of forest - and is home to a third of the wild orangutan population in Sabah.
John Payne, who is with the WWF's office in Sabah, has welcomed the news to protect Orangutan habitats.
"It so happened that the areas the government has set aside for sustainable forest management are the last remaining low lands of natural forest area of Sabah. Those forest areas have the largest remaining orangutan populations, not only in Sabah, but certainly in Malaysia Borneo."
The WWF says about 80 percent of natural orangutan habitat in Borneo has disappeared during the past 20 years due to logging and forest clearing for rubber and oil palm plantations, among other uses.
Sabah claims the move will cost it millions in logging revenue. Who knows how this is being played? It also stands to bring them a lot of goodwill, and possibly a great many eco-tourist dollars.
Blessing and Curse
And then there's biodiesel from palm oil, with all its enthusiasts. On this, I agree with Monbiot, who's been arguing about it for some time. His view is pretty clearly stated in an article widely circulated last month: Worse Than Fossil Fuel
Almost all the remaining forest is at risk. Even the famous Tanjung Puting National Park in Kalimantan is being ripped apart by oil planters. The orang-utan is likely to become extinct in the wild. Sumatran rhinos, tigers, gibbons, tapirs, proboscis monkeys and thousands of other species could go the same way. Thousands of indigenous people have been evicted from their lands, and some 500 Indonesians have been tortured when they tried to resist(9). The forest fires which every so often smother the region in smog are mostly started by the palm growers. The entire region is being turned into a gigantic vegetable oil field.
Before oil palms, which are small and scrubby, are planted, vast forest trees, containing a much greater store of carbon, must be felled and burnt. Having used up the drier lands, the plantations are now moving into the swamp forests, which grow on peat. When they've cut the trees, the planters drain the ground. As the peat dries it oxidises, releasing even more carbon dioxide than the trees. In terms of its impact on both the local and global environments, palm biodiesel is more destructive than crude oil from Nigeria.
The limiting factor, the brick wall we run into, very likely will be the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Sequestration is just getting started. And the love affair with the automobile shows no sign of ending.
Flooring from Eden™
Merbau wood is all the rage for flooring iin North America and Europe, where it is also popular for cabinetry.
The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Indonesian environvmental NGO Telepak conducted an investigation into the flow of illegal Indonesian merbau to North America and Europe. The results of that investigation have been released in the report Behind the Veneer: How Indonesia's Last Rainforests are being Felled for Logging (16-page pdf). It is a very easy read, and well worth your time.
Specifically, they investigated these flooring companies: Armstrong/Bruce, Junckers, Tarkett, Kahrs, and Goodfellow. (NB: these companies may sell under many brands, both in stores and over the internet. Google will turn up any number of merbau vendors.) In every case the companies' claims regarding the sources of their raw materials, what the report terms the "environmental credentials" of those materials, and the legality of their harvesting under Indonesian law proved unverifiable. In some cases, EIA was able to document laundering of illegal logs into the supply chain that eventually ends at Home Depot and Lowe's, to name just two of many retailers mentioned. The retailers as well make the same unverifiable claims.
There simply is no verifiable chain of custody, despite what you may be told. Anything goes.
Alexander von Bismarck, campaigns director at EIA said "Although suppliers and retailers of merbau flooring are not themselves breaking the law, they are profiting from an illegal trade and are misleading their customers into buying products made from stolen timber."
"These companies need to stop duping their customers and must take urgent steps to ensure the legal origin of their wood."
In fact, given the rampant black market of Indonesian logging, it is remarkable that EIA is able to trace much of the merbau back to Papua. Yes, all around the newly discovered paradise. With merbau and other tropicals still popular and Indonesia seemingly ill-equipped to protect itself, the pressure on Papuan forests can only increase. How long before the recently found lost world is lost again - for good this time?
Arbi Valentinus, head of forest campaign at Telapak: "Americans would be appalled if they knew that the wood used to make their flooring had been stolen from the poor, indigenous communities of Indonesia's Papua Province."
I would like to think Mr Valentinus is right. But then I look at the acre after acre of McMansions, each miniature Versailles more ostentatious than the last.
Here's an Action Alert:
Recommendations for consumers from Behind the Veneer:
* Do not trust the environmental assurances of
retailers and manufacturers about the legality
or sustainability of wood products unless
these can be backed up by independent
verification with a full chain-of-custody.
* Only buy wood products which have been
independently verified as legally sourced,
with a full chain of custody, such as wood
sold under the Forest Stewardship Council
(FSC) scheme.
* Stop buying merbau flooring until it is
available with the assurances given above.
Restricting oneself to FSC-certified wood is not as limiting as it might sound.
The Rainforest Alliance's Smartwood program is rolling along. FSC is endorsed by any number of organizations, including WWF.
WWF's forestry initiatives
New Internationalist issue on West Papua Extremely informative.