There are a number of serious environmental problems being covered by the media at the moment but the one I’d like to talk about is the deforestation of vast areas of rainforest to grow palm oil. I’m not sure when it started to become a concern to environmentalist but I know that they’re increasingly worried about it.
This land clearance is on a huge scale and the forest is often just burned down. This sends large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere which contribute to global warming and climate change. This affects everyone on the planet.
Just as important is the effect on the native wildlife. Deforestation to grow palm oil in Borneo and Sumatra destroys the natural habitat of orang utans as well as many other animals. Conservationists estimate that unless the situation changes, the orang utan and Sumatran tiger could become extinct in the wild in the next 5-10 years. In fact, a third of all mammal species in Indonesia are thought to be critically endangered because of this type of unsustainable development.
Furthermore, the oil palm plantations that replace the rich vegetation of the rainforest support very low levels of biodiversity and create a totally a different ecosystem. I don’t fully understand why the loss of biodiversity is such a problem but I did read somewhere that it means that our food crops are more vulnerable to pest and diseases. This could lead to serious food shortages in the future.
I think that the palm oil industry and its associated problems are going to be difficult to change. Perhaps it’s consumers who can have the biggest impact by refusing to buy products containing palm oil which is in around 40-50% of common household products in many developed countries. In the UK, there’s already one major food retailer that has promised to ban palm oil in its own products. This I really encouraging and I hope other companies will do the same soon.