Palm Oil Is More Important Than Orangutans

On Thursday October 18, 2012 NBC will air a progam about critically endangered orangutans on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. The Sumatran orangutan, Pongo albelli, used to be considered a subspecies of the related apes (Pongo pygmaeus) which live on Borneo, but is now accorded full species status. The types diverged due to their geographical isolation about 400,000 years ago. But for how long will this newly classified species be with us?

The NBC preview story is Demand for palm oil, used in packaged food products, leaves orangutans at risk.

One of the Sumatran orangutan’s richest habitats, an area of swampland containing the highest density of the red apes on the planet, is being illegally slashed and burned by palm oil companies to make way for palm oil plantations.

“If we can't stop them here, then there really is no hope,” said Ian Singleton as we stood on the edge of what had once been pristine forest, home to hundreds of orangutans, but now reduced to a charred wilderness as far as the eye could see. As he spoke we could hear the distant sound of a chain saw.

Singleton runs the Sumatra Orangutan Conservation Programme, an organization at the forefront of a battle to save what remains of the forest and the apes.

There are fewer than 7,000 of the critically endangered Sumatran orangutans left in the wild, according to a 2008 survey completed by Singleton and other scientists. The largest number live in a vast area of swampland and lowland forest close to the northern tip of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

“Orangutan paradise,” Singleton calls the area — but it’s a paradise under threat. The key battleground for Singleton is the Tripa Peat Swamp Forest, much of which has already been converted to palm oil plantations.

The relentless march of the palm oil business is the biggest threat facing the orangutans.

A cheap, edible oil, palm oil is found in almost half of all packaged supermarket products, from instant noodles, to cookies to ice cream, and Indonesia is the world's biggest supplier.

Northern Sumatra, left. Forest slashed and burned to create palm oil plantations, right. Click to enlarge

If we can't stop them here, then there really is no hope says Ian Singleton of the Sumatra Orangutan Conservation Program. The forests the last remaining Sumatra orangutans live in are being cleared to grow more palm oil. We can perhaps find no better example of what expanding human populations and consumption are doing to the natural world.

We could ask the humans which they would rather have — orangutans or palm oil? If you frame the question casually but carefully, sentimental humans will always side with these poor, endangered great apes. But when push comes to shove, not in the abstract but in practice, in what we so affectionately call the Real World, they will always take the palm oil. That's just the way it is.

This being NBC, there will be a short ad before Ian Singleton explains why he is being forced to move tranquilize orangutans and move them from one place to another.

 

Comments

[James]

Unfortunately, nothing new here. Wetlands are being eradicated all over the world, despite being critical sources of life on this planet, from natural water filtration and groundwater supply, to fish spawning, to geological stabilization. Not all of them have cuddly mammals to be their poster children, either. That being said, if intelligent, lovable monkeys can't save an area from annihilation what can? Certainly not the long term impacts of destruction, as humans are frustratingly short sighted.

Fun fact, palm oil is a saturated fat and generally regarded as unhealthy. It's production also ravages areas and causes huge environmental damage. Yet it is cheap. So guess what wins?

But don't worry, there is a committee to fix it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundtable_on_Sustainable_Palm_Oil

[Ken Barrows]

"Cheap" says it all. Why not sacrifice orangutans so I can consume more at a lower price? After all, what's the value of an orangutan in a cost/benefit analysis?

[John]

In defense of Palm Oil, it is the healthiest form of saturated fat there is. Alternatives for hard fats used in processed food include partially (trans) and fully hydrogenated oils and animal fats (e.g., lard). The idea that palm oil is unhealthy has never been substantiated. It has been unfairly lumped in with trans fats and animal fats. Ditching palm oil for hydrogenated oils or animal fats means worse health effects and higher energy inputs (i.e., other types of environmental destruction.

As Dave points out, this isn't really about orangutans or any particular facet of the environment. It's about processed foods in general, and it's yet another application of the tragedy of the commons. The consumption of processed foods and meat carries a high environmental cost, but the individual decision to forego these convenient and tasty options fails to affect the environmental outcome. No individual must decide whether to kill off an entire species or eat a bag of Bugles. Each individual bag of Bugles makes no difference whatsoever. The sum of a hundred billion such decisions, however, means that we no longer have a planet to inhabit.

[Dan Henry]

The saturated fat scare has been pretty thoroughly trounced of late...
http://rawfoodsos.com/2011/12/22/the-truth-about-ancel-keys-weve-all-got-it-wrong/

That said, I believe palm oil is nutritionally along the lines of many other industrial seed oils used in processed foods today eg canola, sunflower, cottonseed etc. These oils oxidize easily and have very high omega6:omega3 polyunsaturated fat ratios which is now believed to be highly inflammatory. Our ancestors had O6:3 ratios of around 1:1 or 2:1. Modern Americans average 40:1...

From the wiki palm oil seems a step up actually as the saturated fat is higher (a good thing), but palm kernel oil seems the ticket at nearly double the saturated fat, 80ish%, right up there with coconut oil. Higher saturated fat means less oxidizable PUFA fats, which means less inflammation in the body.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_oil

So in the end, rape pillage and plunder as usual, with the added capitalist bonus of detrimental health effects that will boost the medical sector's revenue as well!

[Oliver]

A simple labeling system might go some way towards influencing John's "hundred billion (consumer) decisions".

On every processed and packaged food, the label would show icons representing the habitat/species being adversely affected by the purchase of this product - such as an orangutan crossed out with a red X. At a glance, us billions of blasé convenience seekers could see who/what we're casually endangering with every bite and swig.

Will this happen? Yes, after all the pigs have flown and the moon has had its millennia of blue hue.

[adam]

Indonesia has a very horrible track record on protecting their environment. The failed Mega Rice project already destroyed the peat forests of Borneo and set them on fire, and they are not doing so great on protecting their coral reefs from dynamite "fishing".

But the thing about palm oil, as posters above have noted, is that it's part of a system of destruction, where consumers don't know that their choices are destroying the world. And the palm oil thing is far from unique - just look up "chocolate and slavery". Which is to say, there is a ubiquitous system of destruction, which can pretty much be said to be the same thing as our current form of "civilization".

[clyde]

In the UK the government are very seriously considering a cull of badgers which are supposed to transmit T.B. to cattle. It was only recently postponed for a short while.
They are willing to wipe out an entire species!
Never mind that there are vaccinations available for both badgers and cattle, or that less industrialised farming methods would control the disease - these cost money and we all want cheap meat.

There are many that oppose this policy but there are many more who actively support it and even more who just don't care.

We are a species that is willing to destroy to attain short-term comfort, because it is easier.

There really is no hope and we will get what we deserve. Eventually.

[Rob]

Is there an organazation, a website I can go to, anything of that nature, to do my part to help save the orangutan and its habitat..?? If so can someone tell me please. Thank you! much

[Rob]

found one...!

[Bill McDonald]

Look folks. It is one thing to read about it and another to see it.

May I suggest that you go to this website and view a 2009 award winning film, which focuses just on this issue and as it affects a female orangutan- it is heartrending.

Their world is probably going to be gone in a few short years, watch this film and see what man has wrought.

http://www.greenthefilm.com/

This is free, there is a 1 minute trailer, and the 48 minute full length film for viewing or downloading.

We can sit here and do an analysis intellectually, and this film will make it perfectly clear, in your heart and gut, the overwhelming tide that the orangutans are swimming against.

What you and I do with this information is the real question to be asked. Will the western consumers wake up and look through all the greenwashing going on now to demand real change in the palm oil business model, or will it be ho hum, we need the cheap benefits this product provides us and sorry, you orangutans gotta move on.

My guess is the correct answer is ho hum and that is a damning indictment of our species.

[James]

Bill: Why would you need to guess? Humanity has never really shown itself to be anything other than a brutal, destructive species. Hell, look at what we do to our own kind, and then question whether any species we come into contact with has a chance as anything other than food or entertainment.