This was supposed to be the big year for transforming the palm oil industry and ending its environmental toll.
Palm oil can only be grown in countries around the equator, concentrating the damaging effects of its cultivation in a handful of mostly developing nations. The vast majority, about 85%, is grown in Indonesia and Malaysia. Other tropical countries, such as Thailand, Nigeria and Colombia, have smaller but expanding industries.
“Visibility all the way to the initial production point is a challenge,” she said. What’s more, enforcing sustainability on the ground means reaching not just big plantations, but the small-scale farmers that in Indonesia manageA forest fire in Riau Province, Indonesia, on March 1, 2020. These fires have been a mostly human-made problem for decades as much of it arises from the clearing of forests for more palm oil plantations.
When it comes to tackling palm oil’s environmental and social problems, Averbeck said that simply switching to another oil-producing vegetable is not a viable option. Technology could offer some solutions. Experimental alternatives, like oils produced by single-celled organisms such as microalgae or yeasts that are similar to oil palm, are being developed in labs around the world.
Efforts to address social issues, like labor abuses and the exploitation of indigenous peoples, have even further to go. Social auditing under the current RSPO system is weak and needs to be rapidly improved, said Marcus Colchester, founder of the Forest Peoples Programme, which advocates for the rights of local and indigenous people around the world. Having auditors that are truly independent would help, he said, and social solutions need to go hand in hand with environmental ones.
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