The lies about the hypothetical palm oil sustainability have reached the top. It's time to take stock and show them off, along with the connivance between the LOBBY of the palmocrats and politics, in Europe and in Italy. The curtain rises.
Palm oil, human rights and the environment
La robbery of the lands, land grabbing, it is the first operation needed by the neo-colonialists to free huge plots of indigenous communities. Its primary cause, globally, is the craving to grow oil palm. Violence and threats, forced deportations, devastation of villages, sacred places and cemeteries. Regardless of the rights of families often without property titles, although they have been anchored for generations on those territories and their ecosystems.
The devastation of the rainforests and biodiversity is the next step. Fires, felling of old trees, diversion of waterways to serve oil palm monocultures. Unlike other oilseed plants, palm trees demand a tropical climate. And that is why 29 million hectares of forest are destroyed every year. An area equal to 60 football fields is razed to the ground every minute. (1)
The climate is going crazy. Global deforestation emits more greenhouse gases every year than the entire European Union. L'Indonesia - which together with the Malaysia accounts for nearly 90% of global oil palm crops - it has become the third country in the world for emissions of greenhouse gases. Which they last for 7-8 decades, in quantities up to 200 times higher than those caused by fires in other wooded areas.
Human health it is under serious threat, primarily, from air pollution in Southeast Asia caused by forest and peatland fires. Respiratory disorders, heart and lung diseases, miscarriages. In 2015, in just three months, 100.300 premature deaths from respiratory diseases were recorded in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. The land, water and food are then contaminated by pesticides which are widely used to destroy all forms of life other than palm plants.
The working conditions on plantations they cause additional health hazards for workers and their families. Because of everyone's exposure, children included, to neurotoxic, carcinogenic and genotoxic pesticides that are still today produced in Europe but for years banned in the West. In the absence, it goes without saying, of adequate protections. (2) Child exploitation and slavery then remain beyond all control, albeit in the service of RSPO 'certified' palmocrats.
The impact on traditional communities and their economies, as well as the environment, is equally deadly. The livelihoods of around 1,6 billion people are burning. Forests - in addition to being an essential source of food - are also home to 80% of global biodiversity. Endangered flora and fauna.
Over 100.000 orangutans - a number equal to the entire population of cities such as Bolzano, Udine, Novara, Cesena, Ancona, Lecce - have been slaughtered only in Borneo in the last 16 years.
In New Guinea - heritage of biodiversity, with 20.000 plant species and 700 types of trees, 2.000 different birds flying over the 600 islands of the archipelago - only 5% of natural forests have survived the wild deforestation perpetrated in recent decades. (3)
However, the demand for palm oil continues to grow, for 'biofuels' and in various other sectors, from cosmetics to household products. Despite the progressive affirmation of a European front opposed to the use of this tropical fat in food.
RSPO, greenwashing and horrors
'Sustainable certification' is a false history. The sustainability of palm oil, theorized by large producers in agreement with the multinationals that adhere to RSPO (roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil PRODUCTIVITY), is indeed disproved by the facts.
More than one million hectares of crops - equal to the extension of the whole Abruzzo - escapes the declarations of the top 50 palm oil producers registered with the RSPO. As demonstrated by the 'zoological Society of London', in his report 'Hidden lands, hidden Risks' (2017)
Child exploitation and slavery - in crops attributable to Wilmar, one of the founders of RSPO - are documented by Amnesty International in the report 'The great palm oil scandal ' (2017). In addition to RAN (Rainforest Action Network,), which shed light on PepsiCo partner Indofood and its horrors. Destruction of ecosystems, sinister exploitation of workers including children, exposed to toxic chemicals. (4)
Fires and deforestation they continue, to make room for monocultures. Greenpeace has shown that over 4 hectares of rainforest (an area equivalent to half of Paris) have been destroyed in Papua in less than two years (May 2015-April 2017). Where the deforestation continues, by the usual suppliers of Big food.
Il leader in the palm oil trade, Wilmar International - RSPO member since 2005 and supplier of Big food (Ferrero included) - is also champion in greenwashing. Greenpeace has shown how the abominations of human and environmental rights have simply been 'transferred' to sister Gama, owned by the same families. Through the sale of at least 21.500 hectares of rainforest or peat bog (an area equal to twice the size of Paris), which have been destroyed in the meantime.
10 palmocrats aloneWith the backing of related business entities and opaque ownership structures, they are responsible for 75% of all deforestation in Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea. (5) The RSPO certification is therefore confirmed to be a colossal operation of greenwashing. And the organization, instead of updating the scheme with more stringent requirements and guaranteeing the effectiveness of the controls, introduced a second certification scheme in 2016. A protocol, 'RSPO Next ', to which today only one producer adheres, in Columbia. Yet another mockery of global consumers.
Le complaints presented by indigenous communities against various RSPO members they are covered up, dispersed in a cumbersome system that does not seem to lead to any solution. The public and private militias in the service of the palmocrats, on the other hand, do not hesitate to repress in the blood the resistance of the peasants who insist on protecting the lands subjected to robbery. As happened in December 2017 in Cambodia, on land acquired by the aforementioned Wilmar International.
The murders of activists in the agro-industry they have meanwhile surpassed even the mining industry. 197 killings, in 2017, between land and environmental defenders (NGO data Global enviroment Witness). 312 human rights defenders killed in just one year. But everything seems allowed to the palmocrats. According to Olam International, another RSPO member, 'obtaining high-yielding plantations requires an appropriate starting base' And 'non-wooded land is not enough to initiate this development '. We must therefore continue the robbery and devastation of the forests, at any cost.
Crime and connivance, industry and politics in Europe
The Paris Agreement on climate change says the need to stop the deforestation to limit climate change, and Europe has committed since 2008 to halt the loss of forests by 2030 and halve it by 2020. But so far neither political institutions nor industries based in the EU have made any concrete step forward.
The European Parliament, it is good to remember, instead it extended it for ten years - until 2030 - the progressive elimination of palm oil from biofuels. The MEPs who should represent the citizens of the old continent have thus decided to favor the interests of an Asian plutocracy that carries out international crimes against humanity and ecocides in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The complicity of European politicians is evident where we consider that the maximum levels of palm imports for the following years are referred not to the current quotas but to those that will be reached in 2019, after further uncontrolled havoc.
The European Commission then prepares to conclude i negotiations for a partnership agreement with Indonesia which could cut tariffs on imports of palm oil. And since the Juncker Commission aims to finalize the agreement before the expiry of its mandate, it is realistic to expect a further increase in biodiesel imports in 2019, which will affect the allowable quotas by 2030.
Italian politicians from the PD-FI area after all, they have repeatedly sworn allegiance to the palmocrats. The former ministers Gian Luca Galletti (Environment) e Andrea Olivero (Agriculture, vice) had gone wild, respectively, in favor of the RSPO and 'against the demonization of the palm tree'. (6) The Italians Alberto Cirio and Fulvio Martusciello distinguished themselves in Strasbourg for the clumsy attempt to prohibit the indication 'without palm oil' on food labels.
Dario Dongo
Footnotes
(1) According to data from the European Commission (2013), 40% of global deforestation can be attributed to the conversion of land into oil palm monocultures. Half of the areas illegally cleared are used to feed Europe's demand for tropical fat alone
(2) See investigation by RAN, OPPUK, ILR (2015)
(3) Data Center for International Forestry research
(4) RAN, report 'The human cost of conflict palm oil revisited ', 2017
(5) See CRR (Chain Reaction Research), report 'Shadow companies present palm oil investor risks and undermine NDPE efforts'(2018), on https://chainreactionresearch.com/report/shadow-companies-present-palm-oil-investor-risks-and-undermine-ndpe-efforts/
(6) Cf. http://www.ansa.it/canale_terraegusto/notizie/postit/Ferrero/2016/10/27/alimentare-olivero-no-a-terrorismo-della-disinformazione_b9cca485-e5a2-4b81-95e7-b874a56caf60.html, http://www.repubblica.it/economia/2016/10/27/news/la_nutelle_difende_l_olio_di_palma_e_il_ministero_dell_agricoltura_la_appoggia-150697103/, https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/premium/articoli/il-viceministro-spalmabile-crociato-dellolio-di-palma/,
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
