Knowledge Is Your Weapon: say NO to palm oil!

[kenny blankenship]

4. Palm cultivation is less organized there, hence more sustainable

There are palm plantations in Africa, but since the oil is such a traditional product cultivation tends be to local and small scale. With smaller and more widely distributed plantings, the impact on the environment is likewise smaller and more spread out. For the present.

A danger exists of course that at any time palm tree cultivation in Africa may convert to the industrial plantation model. African businessmen may attempt to replicate the Indonesian model. Or businesses operating palm plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia could metastasize to Africa. They could buy influence with African governments, enter into partnerships with government with the government expropriating the lands that the oil companies want for their trees. Small, local oil producers could be run out of business by large multinational plantation owners in the same ways that large businesses have always used to force smaller competitors out. The fact that this hasn't happened yet doesn't mean that it can't.

If it isn't stopped in Indonesia, the chances are greater that it will happen in Africa too. International pressure must be brought to bear on Indonesia and Malaysia to check the destruction of irreplaceable endangered species habitat. But at the same time, the international community must be on guard against the palm oil barons reacting to this by spreading their devastation to other places.