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Greenpeace Blocks Shipment of Indonesian Palm Oil
JAKARTA - Greenpeace has blocked a tanker carrying more than 30,000 tonnes of palm oil from leaving an Indonesian port to protest against forest destruction blamed on plantations, the environmental group said on Thursday.
The protest came less than three weeks before a U.N. climate change meeting on the resort island of Bali, where delegates from 189 countries will debate ways to slow down global warming, including the impact of dwindling tropical rainforests.
The group's Rainbow Warrior ship dropped anchor next to the MT Westama, which was set to leave for India from Dumai in Sumatra island, one of the Southeast Asian nation's main ports handling palm oil.
"We will block this as long as we can. We want the government to immediately issue a moratorium on conversion of forests and peatlands into palm oil plantations," said Bustar Maitar, Greenpeace Indonesia Forest Campaigner, who spoke by telephone from onboard the ship.
Environment groups have blamed palm oil companies for driving the destruction of Indonesia's forests and peatlands.
In a recent report, Greenpeace said that clearing forests that often grow on the country's thick carbon-storing peatlands released more than a billion tonnes of greenhouse gases a year.
The report said the surging demand for palm oil in food, cosmetics and fuel was putting pressure on a ticking "climate bomb."
The palm oil on the MT Westama belongs to Permata Hijau Sawit, one of the largest exporters of palm oil, the group said in a statement.
Greenpeace communications officer Tiy Chung said they had not been told to leave by police or been contacted by the company.
"The police came and spoke to our captain. But they left soon after," Chung said by telephone from onboard the ship.
"They were very polite."
(Reporting by Adhityani Arga; Editing by Ed Davies and Bill Tarrant)
In a related story Greenpeace also staged an action in Australia, where they were successful in closing down coal-burning power station.
© 2007 Reuters
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7 Comments so far
Show AllTOO FUCKING LATE ! THE DAMAGE IS FUCKING DONE ! Greenpeace is kool and all but WHY THE FUCK DID THEY NOT STOP THEM FROM MANUFACTURING IT IN THE FIRST PLACE ? And why is Greenpeace still allowing Petroleum to be exported? And why aren't they pushing to not only LEGALIZE INDUSTRIAL HEMP but let it get a hearing in the market if there were such a thing as a free market in the first place ?!?!?
The free market's only free if you own it.
The human animal has an amazing ability for fowling its' own nest.
We're pretty good at fouling it too!
Greenpeace is one of the best, and perhaps the most serious of the activist enviros. We each must aid them in any way in which we can. There is still time to save some vulnerable areas with unique species and ecosystems which will thus be around after our collapse.....and re-seed the ruined lands humans will soon be leaving behind....It is especially important that parks and protected areas of all types be enlarged in all delicate and rare ecosystems, of which hundrreds still exist in reasonably good shape,
not only because some humans will probably survive and appreciate our efforts, but also so as to avoid the extremely long imbalances which occur after mass extinctions.
MaxPayne:
Your enthusiastic heart is in the right place, but you are missing several key points.
> TOO FUCKING LATE ! THE DAMAGE IS FUCKING DONE !
Uh, I guess you don't realize that a lot more palm plantations will be built after the burning of more peat if nothing is done about it. So the damage already done is just the beginning, that's why GreenPeace is trying to bring attention to it.
> And why is Greenpeace still allowing Petroleum to be exported?
So I assume you don't use any oil for gasoline, airplane rides, plastics, etc? Yes we need to start reducing our demand for oil asap, but battling the world's addiction to oil is beyond Greenpeace's power. It is up to us as consumers to reduce oil use - I drive a honda insight that gets 55 mpg, but still I bike to work most days, and am a vegetarian (meat is energy / water intensive). And I can still do better..
> And why aren't they pushing to not only LEGALIZE INDUSTRIAL HEMP
I agree that should be legalized ASAP, as it is one of nature's strongest natural fibers, and has been stopped so far from a mixture of special interests (companies with products that would have to compete with hemp) and the idiotic "war on drugs" (claims it looks just like smokable marijuana and so would be hard to know what is what)
Anyway, we need more Greenpeaces in the world, and they are doing a great job at what they do.
GoGreen88,
I guess I took GP a little too hard. As for me, I take a public bus to work and only use the car when I need it which is seldom.