http://ogoapes.weebly.com/uploads/3/2/3/9/3239894/stop_burning_rain_forests_for_palm_oil_scientific_american.pdf
Summary:
Palm oil is a widely used component of bio-fuels, cosmetics and food. Regrading to its low price and long shelf life, people also use it as cooking oil. In Indonesia, the world's largest producer of palm oil. Palm oil estates there cover an estimated 8.2 million hectares of land—an area the size of Maine—and that number is poised to skyrocket as the country prepares to double its output by 2030. Yet this profit comes at a terrible toll. Converting forests into oil palm plantations destroys the home of not only orangutans but also such critically endangered creatures. Moreover, the denuding of this land through logging and burning releases large quantities of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Much of this forest sits on peat-land, the draining and burning of which releases even more carbon dioxide than the clearing of the overlying trees does. A study published online in Nature Climate Change in October projected that with planned oil palm plantation expansion, Indonesian Borneo will release 558 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in 2020.
Palm oil is a widely used component of bio-fuels, cosmetics and food. Regrading to its low price and long shelf life, people also use it as cooking oil. In Indonesia, the world's largest producer of palm oil. Palm oil estates there cover an estimated 8.2 million hectares of land—an area the size of Maine—and that number is poised to skyrocket as the country prepares to double its output by 2030. Yet this profit comes at a terrible toll. Converting forests into oil palm plantations destroys the home of not only orangutans but also such critically endangered creatures. Moreover, the denuding of this land through logging and burning releases large quantities of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Much of this forest sits on peat-land, the draining and burning of which releases even more carbon dioxide than the clearing of the overlying trees does. A study published online in Nature Climate Change in October projected that with planned oil palm plantation expansion, Indonesian Borneo will release 558 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in 2020.
Reflection:
We need to stop using palm oils, the spread of palm oil plantations at the expense of natural forest must not continue. The most promising plan to stop it comes courtesy of the United Nations's Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) program, which would get developed countries to pay developing countries to not cut down trees. Meanwhile consumers, as ever, have the power to force companies to change. KFC and Cadbury have in recent years replaced palm oil with other vegetable oils in products made for the markets in Australia, where public awareness about the environmental cost of palm oil is high. Americans should demand transparency about where the palm oil in all consumer products comes from—and take our money elsewhere when products endanger ecosystems. Our role will become only more important as other nations, such as Brazil and Cameroon, ramp up their efforts to get in on the palm oil boom
We need to stop using palm oils, the spread of palm oil plantations at the expense of natural forest must not continue. The most promising plan to stop it comes courtesy of the United Nations's Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) program, which would get developed countries to pay developing countries to not cut down trees. Meanwhile consumers, as ever, have the power to force companies to change. KFC and Cadbury have in recent years replaced palm oil with other vegetable oils in products made for the markets in Australia, where public awareness about the environmental cost of palm oil is high. Americans should demand transparency about where the palm oil in all consumer products comes from—and take our money elsewhere when products endanger ecosystems. Our role will become only more important as other nations, such as Brazil and Cameroon, ramp up their efforts to get in on the palm oil boom