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TechnoratiBiofuel Demand Leading to Human Rights Abuses, Report Claims
EU politicians should reject targets for expanding the use of biofuels because the demand for palm oil is leading to human rights abuses in Indonesia, a coalition of international environmental groups claimed today.
A new report, published by Friends of the Earth and indigenous rights groups LifeMosaic and Sawit Watch, said that increasing demands for palm oil for food and biofuels was causing millions of hectares of forests to be cleared for plantations and destroying the livelihoods of indigenous peoples.
The report, Losing Ground, said many of the 60-90 million people in Indonesia who depend on the forests are losing their land to the palm oil companies.
Pollution from pesticides, fertilisers and the pressing process is also leaving some villages without clean water.
"The unsustainable expansion of Indonesia's palm oil industry is leaving many indigenous communities without land, water or adequate livelihoods. Previously self-sufficient communities find themselves in debt or struggling to afford education and food. Traditional customs and culture are being damaged alongside Indonesia's forests and wildlife," the report reads.
It claims that oil palm companies often use violent tactics as they move in to convert the land to plantations.
"Human rights - including the right to water, to health, the right to work, cultural rights and the right to be protected from ill-treatment and arbitrary arrest - are being denied in some communities.
"If palm oil is to be produced sustainably, the damaging effects of unjust policies and practices in the Indonesian plantation sector must be addressed," the report said.
The alleged human rights abuses come after several recent reports have highlighted the environmental problems caused by the conversion of land for farming palm oil.
Last week a study by the University of Minnesota and Nature Conservancy, published in Science, found that the carbon lost through the clearance of forests, peat lands or even grasslands far outweighs the greenhouse gas savings that can come from biofuels.
Conversion of land for corn, sugarcane, palm oil or soybeans released 17 to 420 times more carbon than the annual savings from replacing fossil fuels with bioethanol or biodiesel, the researchers said.
Last month the Commons environmental audit committee called for a moratorium on targets for the use of biofuels until their impact could be better assessed.
The EU currently wants biofuels such as bioethanol and biodiesel to make up 10% of transport fuel by 2020. Britain has a separate target of 5% of biofuels in petrol and diesel by 2010.
In its energy directive last month, the commission proposed the introduction of sustainability criteria because of fears about the environmental impact of growing fuel crops.
But Friends of the Earth and LifeMosaic said the targets would drive a huge increase in palm oil in Indonesia, adding there were plans for a further 20m hectares of plantations by 2020 - an area the size of England, the Netherlands and Switzerland combined.
Friends of the Earth biofuels campaigner, Hannah Griffiths, said: "As well as being bad for the environment, biofuels from palm oil are a disaster for people.
"MEPs should listen to the evidence and use the forthcoming debate on this in the European parliament to reject the 10% target.
"Instead of introducing targets for more biofuels the EU should insist that all new cars are designed to be super-efficient.
"The UK government must also take a strong position against the 10% target in Europe and do its bit to reduce transport emissions by improving public transport and making it easier for people to walk and cycle," she added.
© 2008 The Guardian
16 Comments so far
Show AllHi RTDrury
I've read your posts in the past and they are generally very sensible. Most of what you say is just that but I take issue with your comments on ethanol because you may not be aware of other sources out there. We know well that making fuel from the oils of the plant results in less fuel than that made from carbs. I refer you to the book on the website I listed. The amount of land taken up by ethanol can be, as I said, much more marginal and much more productive than anything biodiesel can hope to be. Biodiesel is acceptable to oil companies because they know it won't make much more than a small dent in their market where ethanol needs to be trashed at every moment because it is a MAJOR threat to them.
Sugar in Brazil is planted every seven years but we don't need to plant lots of sugar. There are plenty of perennial crops for ethanol, as the book I link to shows. Many of them need very little water. The book lists schemes for fertilizer reduction and permaculture methods. The efficiency comment you make is not based on practical tested reality but on theories. BTU's have nothing to do with burning a fuel effectively.
Again, you're a good person and write well. Check out the book and let me know what you think.
People people,
palm oil is high in saturated fat, they just want to kill you with it. Start reading ingredients on food labels and you will see it everywhere where is used to not be.
Look back to the gas crunch of the 1980's? that brought "gasahol" into existance. If I remember right it was less that 1.5 years before there was no more gasahol at any station but just strait gasoline.
Thier main goal is to use every easily obtained last dop of petro oil and coal up before they bother with alcohol, wind and photovoltaic market. Somehow, with laws, they will corner those markets.
Hopefully, of all things, the market will quickly wean out expensive scams and pork, and especially projects with negative contributions or environmental damage. Generally, its all very discouraging.
It looks like the only thing saving ethanol in the US is its needed for cleaner burning oxygenated fuels. Otherwise its an energy loser and food price inflation driver.
To find out more about Voluntary Simplicity and take a self guided discussion course, got to:
http://www.nwei.org/
Take a self guided discussion course in other topics:
Choices for Sustainable Living
Deep Ecology
Sense of Place
Globalization and it's Critics
Healthy Children, Healthy Planet
Global Warming, Changing Course
For another kind of venue, go to
http://www.awakeningthedreamer.org/
and find out about a symposium near you. Or host a symposium!
This is put on by the folks at Pachamama:
http://www.pachamama.org/
I just attened one of the Pachamama symposiums, and it leaves you with a feeling of hope.
I want to inspire and help everyone to do something about the state of our planet. No help is getting depressed, debating the issues, or complaining. We all need to take some kind of action, anyway we can.
These are just suggestions in case you don't know where to start. Or if feel depressed and hopeless about the world situation and need a jump start to get yourself out of this nightmare and moving again.
There is some glimmer of hope here -
"Europe My Ban Imports of Some Biofuel Crops"
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/011508EB.shtml
Although it may seem like not enough, every bit helps and counts. I hope Europe goes all the way with this.
How can we support them in this?
Let's stop buying foods that have palm oil in them for starters. And tell all your friends and family as well. And of course we all need to reduce our consumption and really take a hard look at our own personal life styles. It is hard here in the U.S. because we were all raised to shop and have lots of stuff. Voluntary Simplicity is a movement that is growing. But it is more than just living with less, buying less, etc. You have to really delve deep into your self. Voluntary Simplicity requires to look beyond just simplifying your life. You have to discover it on a spiritual and emotional level and really take it to heart to take it seriously and really change the way you live. If we could all do this i the U.S. it would have a huge impact.
Biofuel should come from a waste stream. That CAN be a win win.
People who rape the environment, use food as an inefficient fuel source, bribe politicians for subsides, and abuse workers - hmmmmm - Bu$h the inferior Republicans are all around us.
It makes no sense to stop all bio fuels because one place has done bad things growing palm oil.
Places like that would exploit people for almost anything that makes them money. Go after those people and stop their wrong doing. Do not make a general condemnation of all bio fuels because of a few bad people.
'sheeples'
once again
ONLY HEMP seed oil is the answer for the american farmer, north central and south
the stats are viable and real
see www.earthpeoplefoundation.org for links to data
hemp car ,vote hemp and BACH sites
Peace
but IMPEACH and hang in public now
all call Rep Conyers
202-225-5126 john.conyers@mail.house.gov
palm oil plantations have also led to hideous human rights abuses in Colombia, where indigenous and afro-colombian communities have been particularly hard hit.
see, among many others
http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=182
and
http://www.climateimc.org/en/other-press/2007/06/19/biofuel-gangs-kill-green-profits
"Increasing demand for the oil was causing millions of hectares to be destroyed and destroying the livelihoods of millions of people."
Corporate media has for a long time manipulated the public into believing that the corporate status quo is inevitable and should not be questioned. The corporate embrace of biofuels as yet another cash cow (enabled by externalization) is reinforced by such manipulation. It worked in the past, and it will keep on working until the people learn how to read between the lines of the corporate media propaganda style.
In the above quote the media deliberately omits the corporation's role from its statement, labeling "demand" as the instigator of the result "destruction". When such a media strategy is used systematically over time, the people are dumbed down. They can't discuss with each other the corporate role because the media never talks about it, so the corporate role becomes well hidden. The people make decisions in economic exchange and civic association that support these corporations without awareness that their support fuels the destruction.
It's much easier to communicate the idea that "biofuels and biofuels demand are causing destruction" than to communicate the idea that corporations are bringing biofuels to market with irresponsible cost shifting (externalization).
good2go, the biodiesel model looks good because the species are perennials (minimum inputs, maximum benefits), dropping very energy-dense seed/fruit that is processed by simple press and the oil burned in diesel engines that are inherently superior (40% more efficient) to otto cycle (gasoline/ethanol). In contrast, ethanol crops must be replanted annually or every two or three years, large volumes of heavy (loaded with water, fiber) bulk harvested, chopped, distilled (very energy intensive).
Nevertheless, current comparisons show top biodiesel and ethanol crops (indonesian oil palm versus brazilian sugarcane) roughly on equal par. But when the full costs are added up along the entire production and consumption chain, biodiesel will probably have a significant edge. For local production, which is crucially important to gain the fulls benefit of most any enterprise, species adaptation may give ethanol/otto the edge in some regions.
But probably, genetic selection will produce the optimum oil fruit/nut for each region, giving biodiesel best overall value (internalizing all costs) in most every region. The challenge (beyond reigning in consumption) is for these optimized oilnuts to be integrated responsibly into the ecosystems. These are the kinds of problems public research should be solving.
http://www.peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Biodiesel_from_Algae_Oil
Closed systems recycling carbon waste from power plants, fertilizer runoff, sewage treatment, or others can all be used to grow algae. Harvesting this algae can yield BioDiesel or Ethanol or both depending on the algal strain used. Local, smart, renewable.
It's been downhill ever since the railroad gave corporations citizenship.
As I said when they first began pushing biofuels, Big Oil and Big Coal thought this was the cat's pajamas. They bought grain futures like they were going out of style. The plants are coal or oil fired and it costs twice the energy debt that you save by using biofuels. Win-win for the big guys, lose-lose for the environment. Also, it will lead to world famine as food crops go by the wayside so we can drive our SUV's "greenly."
Then of course there is deforestation and all the evils that go with that.
Always remember, it is greed uber alles. everything else can go to the wall.
It isn't biofuels--it's the violence of capitalism istelf. Obvious, yes, but also has to be mentioned because just talking about the specifics takes the larger problem out of focus.
See Kathleen O"Hara's piece in today's Common Dreams. Carbon capture is best done through farming.
One doesn't have to do a good thing (ethanol) stupidly (studies and reports noted above) Biodiesel makes too small a dent, it isn't worth it. Ethanol crops can be grown on marginal lands. Or in water. See link below. It doesn't have to replace grasslands or forests.
We can do this the right way, it just takes whacking off corporate agriculture at its knees... and gut... and head...
alcoholcanbeagas.com
Okay kids, let's look at the bright side of this. All that greed that is driving everything that is wrong in the world is about to end in the collapse of the worldwide economy and its financial systems. America and Europe are going to be the first ones to fall.
There is a major depression coming to a town near you in the not so distant future. Everyone will be forced to conserve oil because nobody is going to be able to afford anything. We are all going to be forced back to the period prior to the industrial revolution. We are all going to be forced to actually learn how to produce something real - like food. And since we aren't going to be able to travel much, most everything is going to have to become local/community based.
The down side of course is that when the food riots start the fascist state is really going to kick into high gear. Food for fuel is going to be the least of our problems.
Oh well. Life will go on until it ends I guess.
So how is that impeachment/FISA thing going?.....