Extracted from Malaysiakini

Group lays bare palm oil claims in report

Fauwaz Abdul Aziz | Oct 9, 08 1:16pm

Claims made by Malaysia’s palm oil lobbyists have been laid bare in a report by environmental groups, which revealed the discrepancies between their marketing and promotional assertions and the realities of palm oil and oil palm plantations on the environment and local communities.

v:shapes="_x0000_s1026">The 70-page report entitled ‘Malaysian palm oil - green gold or green wash?’ - released yesterday by Friends of the Earth International (FOEI) and its affiliates in Malaysia and Europe - focused on the practices and adverse impacts of the palm oil industry on Sarawak.

What they found were at least half-a-dozen instances of claims made by the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) and senior ministerial and state officials about the palm oil industry that they claim fail when "tested against the reality on the ground or seen from satellite imagery".

The groups further called on decision-makers and those with commercial interests in promoting palm oil in Europe and US to scrutinise these claims and question them more thoroughly before promoting palm oil in the consumer market.

While it is normal that parties with vested interests undertake marketing and lobbying, the report said "it is critical that policy decision makers and purchasing managers in (European and US) consumer markets know about the realities on the ground in Malaysia".

"This report exposes the misleading claim of the Malaysian palm oil lobby that its palm oil is sustainable," said FOEI’s corporate campaigner Paul de Clerck in a statement.

"It is high time for Europe to limit its demand for palm oil products and halt the use of edible oils for energy use," he added

Citing a ruling reached earlier this year by UK’s advertising watchdog Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), de Clerck noted that Malaysian palm oil ads have been found to be misleading.

Dubious claims aplenty

Among the claims made by palm oil lobbyists and government officials that fell under the scrutiny of FOEI researchers was that national and international policies against open burning for the purpose of plating oil palm was "strictly enforced by Malaysia’s laws".

This claim is false, they found, as Sarawak has in place its own environmental laws which allow plantation companies to practice open burning.

"Open burning is regularly practiced in Sarawak and contributes to the regional air pollution (haze) problem and promotes faster release of GHG (greenhouse gases) into the atmosphere.

"The legislation in Sarawak is independent of the Malaysian federal law, and runs counter to the spirit of the Asean Transboundary Haze Agreement, to which Malaysia is a key signatory," reads the report.

The environmental groups also found that, contrary to claims by palm oil advocates, Sarawak’s forests have been converted into oil palm estates. This questions the sustainable forestry policy purportedly in place.

Sarawak has licensed hundreds of companies to more than double the state's oil palm acreage to 1.3 million hectares by 2010, the report noted.

It also estimates that at least 2.8 million hectares of land in Sarawak have been slated for the cultivation of fast-growing timber species and oil palm.

"There is an overwhelming body of evidence that oil palm plantations are being expanded at the expense of tropical forests.

"In Sarawak, peat swamp forests are particularly targeted for expansion and for this purpose, at least 400,000 hectares of permanent forest estates were allocated for the conversion into agriculture plantations, mostly oil palm," said the report.

Refuting claims by government officials that many indigenous communities would be allocated virgin tropical forest land to sustain their nomadic way of life, the report said these vows have been largely unfulfilled

The Penan communities of Sarawak are often denied full recognition of their traditional land rights due to the "limited interpretation" by the Sarawak government of land rights legislation, it said.

"Now that logging companies have degraded much of the tropical forest on which they depend and plantations are expanding, the Penan have become more impoverished than ever.

"This situation, which is applicable to other indigenous groups in Sarawak as well, is in clear violation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to which Malaysia is a signatory."

Bias towards affirming government policy

Those promoting palm oil were also found to have falsely and misleadingly claimed the ability of the Department of Environment’s environmental impact assessment (EIA) reports on development projects to "ensure wise development".

They fail to mention the lack of public participation in the EIA process as well as the Sarawak government’s perception that such participation by rural communities is only a result of manipulation by NGOs opposing development plans, the report said.

"The standard overall recommendation of plantation EIAs in Sarawak is that the projects should go ahead.

"The bias towards affirming government policy, combined with numerous technical weaknesses and the denial of public participation is out of line with international guidance on best practices in EIAs.

"Plantation EIAs in Sarawak do not ensure that impacts are adequately identified or addressed."

To claims that oil palm absorbs as much carbon dioxide as tropical forests, the report said this assertion is based on a nine-year-old study that did not take into account GHG emissions released from deforestation and drainage of peat lands.

In the case of palm oil, FOEI said the carbon "debt" is huge if plantations developed on peat soils and in forests are taken into account, and thereby render palm oil an environmentally questionable source of bio-fuel.

"The debt can be small if the plantation was developed on mineral soil without forest cover. At present, most new plantation developments in Malaysia are established on peat land and/or forested land," the report reads.

FOEI chairperson and Friends of the Earth Malaysia (SAM) honorary-secretary Meena Raman said, "An acceptance of Malaysia's palm oil claims will legitimise further tropical deforestation, human rights violations against indigenous peoples and the suppression of public participation in government decision making."