Auckland Zoo taking credulity to a new low on palm oil

Auckland Zoo taking credulity to a new low on palm oil

In a case of ultimate irony, the Auckland Zoo recently launched a campaign called “Don’t Palm Us Off”. Calling on the Food Standards Australia New Zealand to legislate to label palm oil on all food products that contain the ingredient, the zoo labeled palm oil production as a billion-dollar industry, as if that fact alone makes palm oil consumption a crime against humanity.
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nOf all organizations, the zoo which had made a living out of exploiting animals alleged that “the growth of oil palm plantations in South East Asia is decimating vast areas of rainforest, displacing indigenous people, and fast driving species like the orangutan, Sumatran tiger, Asian elephant and Asian rhinoceros towards extinction.”
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nSays Auckland Zoo conservation officer Peter Fraser: “We believe people have the right to know what food products contain palm oil so that they can make an informed choice about what they buy and whether or not they want to contribute to this crisis.”.
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nIn what is clearly a Freudian slip, the zoo then gave a hint as to the real reason for their strange anti-palm oil stance by highlighting that “palm oil is now in one in 10 supermarket products”…..and that “palm oil is also an ingredient in cosmetics and stock feed and ironically, a cheap biofuel.”
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nBoth of these unfortunate statements adequately clues in the objective observer and illustrates that the zoo is now beholden to anti-palm oil commercial interests!
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nLet’s see if the Auckland Zoo’s statements stand up to the scrutiny of cold hard facts:
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nFact 1: Palm oil is inherently sustainable on account of its efficiency in land use. Indisputably the most productive of all oilseeds, palm oil yields close to 4-5 metric tons of edible oil per hectare, close to ten times that of its nearest competitors such as soy, rapeseed and sunflower. It is so efficient in land use that it covers less than 1% of the total world agricultural area and yet produces more than 30% of the world output of edible oils.
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nFact 2: Malaysia is an extremely small country and yet the country was the world’s largest producer of palm oil for the past 100 years. This proves that palm oil cultivation does not require quite as much land as its detractors such as the Auckland Zoo would want us to believe; in fact palm oil require 10 times less land than its competitors to produce the same unit of edible oil as its competitors. This explains why, Malaysia, which had been the world’s largest producer of palm oil for over a century can still boast of having forest cover of 56%, which is one of the highest forest cover prevailing in the world today; in any event, certainly far higher forest cover than New Zealand has manged to preserve.
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nFact 3: It is patently obvious that if palm oil cultivation is curtailed or taken away altogether from the trade equation, the world would be scrambling for more oil which , in turn, would see ten times more land being opened up for other oilseed cultivation to fill the gap left by palm oil. In those circumstances, the decimation of vast areas of rainforest that the Auckland Zoo is alluding to may then perhaps become imminent.
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nFact 4: The recent ruling by Malaysia’s highest court affirming the land rights of indigenous people exposes the lie that native people are being displaced with impunity. A panel of three Federal Court judges unanimously ruled that tribes have customary ownership of land they have lived on for generations and state governments cannot take it from them without compensation, said See Chee How, a prominent land rights lawyer. “It is a landmark decision,” said See of the ruling. Last year in an unprecedented move, the Malaysian government said it would grant ownership of farming land to about 20,000 indigenous families to improve their lives.
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nFact 5: The Auckland Zoo’s allegation of palm oil endangering the orang utan to the extent of threatening their extinction certainly takes credulity to a new low. For the zoo to allege that palm oil cultivation is fast driving the orang utan towards extinction smacks of reckless posturing. It raises the question whether the zoo has done any fact checking as the orang utan population in the wild in Borneo is currently estimated at between 45,000 and 69,000. It behooves one to ask just how is it even remotely possible for the orang utan, by any leap of logic to be facing extinction. Rather than dwindling, there is evidence that the orang utan population in the wild is actually growing! The recent discovery of more than 2,000 wild orang utans by scientists in Indonesian Borneo has left many environmentalists red faced, especially the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) which had predicted that the orang utan would go extinct by 2011 (in slightly more than a year’s time). The new find could well add 5 percent to the world’s known orangutan numbers, said Erik Meijaard, senior ecologist for the Nature Conservancy in Indonesia. In fairness, the palm oil industry has initiated Orang Utan conservation efforts such as the establishment of a US$6 million Orang Utan Wildlife Conservation Fund by the Malaysian Palm oil Council, in addition to the many conservation programs and orang utan enclaves established in Malaysia and Indonesia. Orang utan conservation centres had been established in Indonesia including those at Tanjung Puting National Park in Central Kalimantan, Kutai in East Kalimantan, Gunung Palung National Park in West Kalimantan, and Bukit Lawang in the Gunung Leuser National Park on the border of Aceh and North Sumatra. In Malaysia, conservation areas have been set up and they include the Semenggoh Wildlife Centre in Sarawak and Matang Wildlife Centre also in Sarawak, and the Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary near Sandakan in Sabah.
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nIn the view of the Palm Oil Truth Foundation, the Auckland Zoo’s predilection for framing the debate of palm oil cultivation around the idea of imminent catastrophe is an instant and devastating giveaway that the zoo subscribes to hype and hysterical posturing.
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nIt provides an overwhelming case for reassessing where our priorities should lie. After all, as pointed out by the Director, IP and Free Trade Unit, Institute of Public Affairs, Melbourne, Mr.Tim Wilson, it is widely accepted that poverty is the root cause of deforestation as the environment would be the least of concerns for the poor.
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nIn the final analysis, if the Auckland Zoo is truly concerned with environmental conservation, rather than accusing palm oil of “decimating vast areas of rainforest,” it should consider calling for palm oil to be planted in place of its competing crops (weather permitting) on account of its extreme efficiency in land use, since palm oil requires ten times less land to produce the same unit of edible oil! In those terms then, palm oil is part of the solution and not part of the problem! THE END
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Posted Date: 2009-12-14 20:38:00