The Hindu Business Line : Renewed campaign to save tropical forests

Large-scale oil palm plantations are coming under renewed threat not from market forces but from environmentalists, especially after the global warming and climate change frenzy has overtaken the world at large.

The latest to join the attack against burning and clearing of tropical forests is Virginia (US) based Conservation International (CI) whose star campaigner now is Hollywood actor Harrison Ford.

In Malaysia and Indonesia, plantation companies have had a dream run of high prices and super profits last three years. Palm oil production has been rising by 2-3 million tonnes (mt), but prices and profits have soared fastest in recent years.

With the likelihood of international pressure mounting against shrinking tropical forests, plantation companies need to brace themselves to put up a good defence.

Money obviously will be no problem for them; but strategies to effectively counter the campaign may be. The central message of the latest campaign is that ‘destroying tropical forests anywhere hurts people everywhere’.

Conservation is key

Tropical deforestation emits at least 20 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but currently attracts less than one per cent of investment in the global carbon market created by the Kyoto Protocol. Investments have to be proportionate to the magnitude of the problem, is the demand.

According to CI, conservation of tropical forests is an immediate tool to battle climate change by reducing emissions. It is also one of the most cost-effective steps that provide lasting benefits to poor people in developing countries.

Greenhouse gas emissions

The ‘Lost There, Felt Here’ campaign calls for harnessing ‘nature’s technology’ — the healthy ecosystems that regulate the climate and sustain life on Earth. At the same time, it is important to end fossil fuel dependence by creating new man-made technologies. While that may take decades, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation can take place right away, CI has asserted.

Malaysia has a reasonably good record in environment protection, but the general belief is that Indonesia needs to do a lot more. Clearing tropical forests for plantation purposes and burning trees that causes haze has been an annual feature. How plantation companies would respond to the latest campaign remains to be seen.

Interestingly, a spate of consolidation has seen the emergence of large corporations engaged in promoting oil palm plantations and producing palm oil dominating the market. Issue of livelihood for small growers and plantation workers cannot be ignored too.

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