'Growing demand for palm oil threatens RI forests'
'Growing demand for palm oil threatens RI forests'
Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Jakarta
A surge in world demand for palm oil bodes ill for Indonesia's
fast-disappearing forests unless international banks and
importing countries insist on sound practices for the country's
plantations, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) warned on Wednesday.
The WWF, in a report titled "Oil Palm Plantations and
Deforestation in Indonesia," predicted that global demand for
palm oil will increase from 22.5 million tons per year currently
to 40 million tons in 2020.
To satisfy the demand, producer countries will need to
establish 6 million hectares of new palm oil plantations by 2020,
with half of these predicted to be in Indonesia, it said.
"Oil palm plantations have had a destructive effect on
Indonesia's threatened natural forests," said Chris Elliott,
director of WWF's Forests for Life Program.
"However, if financial institutions that fund this industry -
and in particular the European ones - would open their eyes to
the damage being done, it would be perfectly possible to find and
fund palm oil plantations that do not destroy natural forests,"
he added.
Indonesian oil palm plantations have grown from some 600,000
hectares in 1985 to more than 3 million hectares in 2000, leading
to dramatic habitat reduction for endangered species such as
orang-utans and Sumatran elephants.
Instead of putting palm oil plantations on widely available
degraded lands, many have been set up in the country's natural
forests, which have been disappearing at an annual rate of 2
million hectares per year since 1997.
The fast expansion of the palm oil sector has been financed to
a large extent by European, North American and East Asian
financial institutions that rarely try to improve the social and
environmental practices of their clients, said the WWF.
"It is vital that investors, traders and retailers move
towards better practices," Elliott said.
He noted that four Dutch banks have adopted a pioneering
responsibility policy in their financial services to the
Indonesian palm oil sector and Swiss retail company Migros had
also adopted sustainability criteria for its sourcing of palm
oil.
The report noted that India, China and Pakistan are the
world's largest importers of palm oil, while the European Union
has a share of 17 percent of the global palm oil market.