What Is The Cost Of Palm Oil Plantations

Looking At Whether Or Not We Can Justify Palm Oil Plantations And The Effects On A Local Scale And A Global Scale

Palm oil plantations are becoming a massive problem for Indonesia, Malaysia and many other countries, which threaten animals, plant life and general biodiversity. One of the main problems is the increasing threat of extinction of the orangutan. I hope from this you will be able to understand why the current method of harvesting palm oil is unacceptable and the reason why palm oil is needed and why it is being grown where the rain forests used to be.

On a local scale palm oil is destroying the rain forests, which is putting many animal and plant species onto the endanger species list and many species that have not been discovered yet maybe wiped out when maybe the cures to illnesses and diseases that do not yet have a cure. The current state of Orangutans is so bad that it is estimated that there are 15 times more deer in the state of Colorado than Orangutans in the world. Orangutans are often severely mutilated by falling trees, machinery and torture and a few cases of Orangutan torture have seen fingers been cut; also fires that are lit to clear patches of forest to grow palm oil often get out of control and burn enormous areas of forest unnecessarily.

Many people who in poverty rely on the jobs that palm oil provides, an estimated 1.5 million small farmers grow the crops in Indonesia and 500,000 are directly employed in Malaysia. This means that we cannot just get rid of palm oil plantations but we must work together with farmers and companies to find a sustainable way in which to farm palm oil without destroying the rain forests. However you may think why do they grow palm oil in the place where the rain forest used to be, and there is one simple answer MONEY, the land owners can increase there profits by selling trees, however as the plantations are on rain forest soil, they are extremely insufficient as the forest keeps them in a constant cycle of replenishing the soil as the dead matter (leaves and trees) rots, so at first the palm oil will grow quickly but slow as the nutrients are extracted from the soil and not replaced. However it may be seen to be necessary for farmers to cut the trees as the palm oil do not grow any nuts for five years and therefore see no return and need the money from selling the hardwood.


On a global scale palm oil is used in many products and these products have high global demand, which keeps the need for this resource at high level of necessity. Palm oil is used in products which boast a 0g trans fat content, however manufactures use palm oil which has a high saturation fat content is not that much better for as it can lead to a heart attack or stroke. It is also used as a biofuel, which reduces the amount of carbon dioxide released by vehicles, however Friends of The Earth and Greenpeace calculate that more carbon dioxide is released in the destruction forest than saved by biofuels in place of diesel. However there are ways of farming palm oil sustainably, one of the leading organisations WWF are setting standards for sustainable palm oil farming through "The Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil" (which can be viewed at - http://www.rspo.org/resource_centre/RSPO%20Principles%20&%20Criteria%20Document.pdf), these must be met in order to prevent the destruction of rain forests and ecosystems.

From these points we can draw that although palm oil cannot just be eliminated it must be eased out of the market to ensure that the farmers and workers who are already in border line poverty can be educated to learn how to improve there farm, methods and their local environment. Replacements such as non-hydrogenated soy, canola, corn, and peanut oils, which are sustainable and healthy. For the sake of our health and reducing are 'carbon footprint' we have destroyed forests and whole ecosystems.There are lots of ways in which you can help these are: through donation, volunteering or writing letters to companies which use palm oil in there products(you can get a basic layout letter from many websites regarding palm oil).

Suggestion and comments will be appreciated.

Alex