Don’t just palm off our animals and natural ecosystems if you want to live
There is certainly a lot of hype around palm oil today – and environmentalists are opening our eyes to the fact that farming palm oil trees are killing our planet and our health. Our pristine rain forests are being cleared through Malaysia and Indonesia and our wildlife such as the orangutan, elephant, rhino, tiger, and literally hundreds more, are being destroyed. Carbon is also being sent into the atmosphere every time trees are burned down. It’s a human disgrace, a human disaster, and humans are causing it!
Deforestation causes ecological imbalance
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By destroying the forests and producing palm oil and planting trees, magnificent forests have already been destroyed by as much as 8% from 1990-2008. These trees originally come from Western Africa, but they grow wherever there is plenty of sun, heat, and rainfall. Apart from Africa, you can now see these trees all over Asia, South America, and North American. Unfortunately, no sustainable measures are taken and there has been an outcry from many people and organization. The palm oil industry is linked to horrible practices such as animal cruelty, habitat degradations, deforestation, and others. The World Wildlife Fund says that areas equating to 300 football fields of rainforest get cleared every hour to make way for palm oil trees to be planted, and it’s pushing our animals to the point of extinction. In fact, if nothing urgent is done about this state of affairs, soon the orangutan could become extinct in as little as 5-10 years and the Sumatran tiger in even less time, as little as 3 years.
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Annually, millions of tons of palm oil are produced, amounting to over 30% of the vegetable oil in the world. You will find palm oil today, present in many products ranging from shampoos to cleaning agents, to washing detergents, to baked goods and the like.
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This expanding business is not looking at the precious biodiversity and ecosystems that are becoming unbalanced. A third of all the mammal species in a country like Indonesia is on the critically endangered list and as mentioned above, already 90% of the orangutan habitat has already been destroyed the past 20 years. In fact, nobody seems to understand or care that the animals and plant kingdom is the cornerstone of maintaining the health of the ecosystems. And we haven’t even got to climate change! As the forests burn down, smoke gets emitted into the atmosphere – Indonesia is the 3rd highest greenhouse emitter of gas in the world! These deforested areas are also making it so much easier for poachers to gain access to animals – now they just comfortably drive to the places they want, sit and wait for their targets compared to having to trek through thick forest areas in the past.
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Of course, those in charge want the world to believe it’s all a way of bringing development to the poor but when there is financial gain, there will be no thought of human right violations either. Child labor in intense heat is just one example here, but the local people have no choice but to work on the plantations under degrading conditions. Unable to sustain themselves, they need to become reliant on the palm oil industry.
Should we stop using palm oil product? YES
It is very destructive to our environment, your health, our climate and our animals (the ones that are left).
Don’t palm nature and wildlife off by using palm oil products – they are an integral part and balance of our survival on this planet and when they are gone; you won’t want to be around on this planet anymore. In another 20 years, are you prepared to see what is integral to this planet’s survival being become completely desecrated, destroyed and extinct? Environmentalists and conservationists consider a human world without animals and major ecosystems. What will it be? A silent world, all about what industry can do – and where there is no escape from humanity. The only sounds you will hear will be from humans and the sounds of factories producing stuff no doubt detrimental to your health and sanity. Sound appealing? Well, it’s happening and it’s time to act now, not maybe in a few months’ time – but today!