Rahul Goswami :
Eight years ago, in early 2006, a team of scientists announced that they had found a “lost world” in the Indonesian jungle that is home to dozens of new animal and plant species. The group recorded new butterflies, frogs, and a series of remarkable plants that included five new palms and a giant rhododendron flower. They saw birds recorded previously in the nineteenth century and thought to have become extinct thereafter.
The scientific fraternity pored over the results of these findings and, amidst the excitement that followed the uncovering of many previously unknown species, and the new knowledge of birds, amphibians and mammals once thought extinct, expected that the Republic of Indonesia would protect the forests and their extraordinary plant and animal biodiversity.
That did not happen, despite the new findings. There is ample reason for the country to mark every single acre of tropical forest a ‘no go’ zone to all but the indigenous communities who have been living in the dense jungles for generations, and who draw from it their foods, their herbaceous medicines, the raw material they need to construct their dwellings, and the invaluable knowledge of how to live in harmony with nature.
Indonesia’s rainforests are amongst the earth’s most biologically and culturally rich landscapes. The largest islands of the enormous archipelago – these are islands in name only, for their size places them as equal to many of the world’s countries – together contain the largest expanse of rainforest in Asia, and these jungles are home to over 3,000 animal species including Sumatran tigers, pygmy elephants, rhinoceros and orangutans.
But, not the combined knowledge of hundreds of indigenous peoples and the rights to the ancient jungle that a myriad creatures have had till now, rights that human populations have long recognised and respected, has been able to halt the scourge of South-East Asia that is seen afflicting Indonesia most violently. It is palm oil, the pursuit of which on a vast scale has brought to the jungle industrial agricultural excess, the degradation of carbon-rich soil, human rights abuse, and exploitation of labour.
Palm oil is derived from the fruit of the oil palm tree and used in thousands of consumer products. Palm oil is used from baked goods and ice cream to cleaning products and biofuels. Today it dominates the global vegetable oil market – about three-fourths of all palm oil produced is used for foods and the balance finds its way into industrial uses which includes biodiesel. It is a huge and growing industry, the raw material of which is concentrated in Indonesia and its neighbour Malaysia.
Both countries together produce nearly 90% of the palm oil consumed by the world. Oil palm trees thrive in exactly the same conditions as does the tropical rainforest, and that is why the palm oil industry’s expansion is based on replacing the rainforest – which means cutting it down mercilessly and thus destroying forever the incredible biodiversity it is home to. Millions of acres of rainforest have been burned in Indonesia, replacing ancient native vegetation with palm oil monocultures. This ecocide has resulted in less than half of Indonesia’s forests remaining today, with no assurances given by the government in Jakarta about the future of what remains, despite the best efforts of the world’s most prominent conservation and forest protection movements to highlight the appalling loss.
Like many destructive activities the palm oil industry has its supporters and apologists outside it as well. Economists have claimed that the palm oil industry has lifted millions of poor Indonesians out of poverty, but they ignore the costs of the ecological devastation. Surprisingly, there are even environmental protection advocacy groups that have tried to accord the industry a less inhumane face by ‘certifying’ palm oil according to environmental and social criteria. Analysts who study the world’s edible oil industry have said there is a palm oil boom because that is what consumers are demanding.
(Rahul Goswami is an expert on intangible cultural heritage with UNESCO and studies agricultural transformation in South Asia)
