Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg declared governmental support recently to the Commitment to Support 100% Sustainable Palm Oil in Europe by signing the Amsterdam Palm Oil Declaration. In doing so, the Norwegian government is joining other European governments including Germany, the Netherlands and the newly separated United Kingdom to say that any palm oil the government buys, will be deforestation free.
This announcement followed on the heels of another announcement earlier that the Norwegian government’s public procurement policy will ban the buying of any products that are deemed to have cause deforestation. Note that these commitments are limited to goods that the government will purchase and does not apply to products the average European consumer will buy. Consumers will have a big part to play and this is mentioned towards the end.
But is the Norwegian government’s position on deforestation a contradiction of its policies on Sustainable Development or is it the governments opinion that developing countries will be fine with a few charitable projects here and there? In the case of Indonesia where the Norwegian government has promised $1 billion dollars towards a REDD program, we should remember that the palm oil industry there is worth close to 20 billion dollars a year and employs a few million families.
There is another elephant in the room in Indonesia’s transmigration program which has to be acknowledged in any pledges on deforestation. The program’s goal is to move impoverished Indonesians from overpopulated provinces like Java to less densely populated ones in Indonesian Borneo where they’ll be given land to start a new life. What if these transmigrants opt to clear existing forests and grow palm oil on their small plots of land? Would this be considered a banned practice for Norway’s deforestation pledge? Or should it be considered an act of global sustainability?
Failed Deforestation Commitments For Green Palm Oil
Announcements like that of Norway’s is great news for environmentalists in developed nations but what impact will that have on saving biodiversity and forests in tropical countries?
The biggest commitment to deforestation free palm oil came from Indonesian palm oil industry members who made their pledge at last year’s UN Climate Summit. I had high hopes for the Indonesian Palm Oil Pledge to save Indonesian biodiversity. This was one glorious chance to see some sense put into the palm oil industry in Indonesia but unfortunately, government rejection of the group’s vision of green development has led to its dissolution this week.
This is bad news for the survival of the Bornean orangutan which was listed this week as Critically Endangered by the IUCN. Let’s hope the threat of its extinction is enough of a wake up call for everyone, including governments and companies, to adopt more sustainability measures as Indonesia strives towards doubling its palm oil production to 40 million tons.
We can continue the arguments about what sustainable palm oil must look like but the only result from these arguments so far is the stalling of much needed action for conservation.
The Roundtable on Sustainable Oil (RSPO) as the only globally accepted certifier of sustainable palm oil has done a good job on minimizing deforestation by its members but in light of the downgrade of the Bornean orangutans, its requirement to save forests of High Conservation Value in member plantations is looking like a short term bandage solution for biodiversity loss.
Consumers to The Rescue
Saving the icon for Bornean biodiversity which are the orangutans in Indonesia and Malaysia will require definitive action. It would be easy enough to locate the “large, protected forests” which was identified in the new IUCN listing for the Bornean orangutan.
The future of Bornean Orangutans will very much depend on the long-term security of large, strictly-protected forests where illegal logging and hunting will be efficiently controlled and the orangutan populations large enough to cope with catastrophic events such as fires and disease outbreaks (Meijaard et al. 2011)
Funding to protect these forests like Gunung Palung National Park in West Kalimantan which is home to a large orangutan population or Sebangau National Park in Central Kalimantan should come from both the companies that use palm oil and the ones that grow it. Palm oil imports by the EU, north America and Australia may only make up 20% of global use but these are the only markets which can afford the costs of producing sustainable palm oil according to our heightened standards.
In light of the failure of deforestation pledges, there is one remaining pledge on palm oil that could save the orangutans. The Consumer Goods Forum based in Paris has the ability to impact consumers in seventy countries through its members. It has pledged to remove deforestation from key commodities including soy, palm oil, beef and other consumer products. In its resolution on deforestation the CGF pledged “ to mobilise resources within our respective businesses to help achieve zero net deforestation by 2020
The difference between CGF’s pledge for zero net deforestation and the failed zero deforestation campaign is that it is realistic. If you look at rainforest rich countries like Indonesia or Brazil, there is no way to develop these countries without having to sacrifice forests, whether for palm oil or timber or beef. One of CGF’s definitions on zero net deforestation is that:
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- “Zero net deforestation” acknowledges that some forest loss could be offset by forest restoration. Zero net deforestation is not synonymous with a total prohibition on forest clearing. Rather, it leaves room for change in the configuration of the land-use mosaic, provided the net quantity, quality and carbon density of forests is maintained. It recognises that, in some circumstances, conversion of forests in one site may contribute to the sustainable development and conservation of the wider landscape (e.g. reducing livestock grazing in a protected area may require conversion of forest areas in the buffer zone to provide farmland to local communities).
Can the Consumer Goods Forum members achieve their goal by 2020, which is less than five years away? There’s good news here. If their members are serious about it, they can certainly help secure the “wider landscape” which I equate with the IUCN’s “large protected forests.
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) has been working on a compensation program which is a zero net deforestation program. The best news is that most of these big multinationals are members of both the RSPO and the CGF!
For the sake of the wild orangutans in Gunung Palung and Sebangau national parks in Indonesian Borneo, let’s hope that these big global brands come to the rescue of the Bornean orangutan.
Not simply with pledges on deforestation but with real money for conservation in the supply deals they need to make with RSPO growers.
The RSPO has a more ambitious goal to get 100% of Europe’s palm oil use certified by 2020. It would be an amazing start to all this if we can see Consumer Goods Forum members step up by accepting the true costs of sustainable palm oil where conservation is a big factor. This would be a truly global effort that would allow every consumer to play a part in saving these Bornean orangutans.