7 ms·

Its definitely sad to see in person where bordering on pristine primary rainforest are miles of palm plantations encroaching closer every day. Of course, don't

• deusum 9y ago
  Palm oil production is also a major detriment to elephants. It shows up subtly in a lot of processed products. There are some responsible producers, and if you check the packaging they'll typically label it proudly.
• oldcynic 9y ago
  Now so much food is a brand in a portfolio of a multi-national I don't think boycotts really work. How many tens of thousands need to join a boycott for Nestle to even notice? How many more for them to care enough to change? Back in the days of national companies, most making just a few fairly closely related products, seems like a boycott could achieve much more.
  • jeromegv 9y ago
    Each brand within a portfolio still has a team of people for marketing, sales, etc including analysts that can surely tell if the brand is selling more or less. P&G has a huge portfolio of products but they still have people dedicated to Head & Shoulder, this isn't just bundled up all together where nobody knows what's happening with each product line. As for how many people need to join a boycott to make it worthwhile, well this is the same argument as voting. One at at time might not seem huge but once more people know and change their habits, this does have an effect on the market. See organic food, that did start very small but there has been a slow but gradual switch in consumer behaviors.
  • WalterSear 9y ago
    FYI: Palm oil is, in my experience, a bigger deal for vegans - a group that has grown from 1 to 6% since 2014. https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4959853/top-trends-in-prepared-foods-2017-exploring-trends-in-meat-fish-and-seafood-pasta-noodles-and-rice-prepared-meals-savory-deli-food-soup-and-meat-substitutes.html https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4959853/top-trends-in-pr... So, I'd argue there are already tens of thousands of people boycotting palm products and palm using companies, and a bunch more will be arriving soon. Even disregarding the network effect that cause beliefs held by minority larger than 10% to rapidly get adopted by the majority https://phys.org/news/2011-07-minority-scientists-ideas.html https://phys.org/news/2011-07-minority-scientists-ideas.html , it's only a matter of a short while before the group starts weilding actual power for social change. The rate of growth is already dominating food marketing and packaging news and research.
    • gepi79 9y ago
      If you are vegan, you aim for a whole food plant based diet. Palm oil and any other refined oil or food has no important place in this diet. Anyway, people must eat something. Replacing one crop by another does not change enough. It is time for efficient food production (indoor, GMO,...) that does not waste air, water, land, plants, insects and other animals like traditional outdoor agriculture. E.g. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4863106/The-hi-tech-future-farming-Netherlands.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4863106/The-h... https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/future-will-we-be-growing-fruit-home-bioreactors-180968133/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/future-will-we-be-... https://www.wired.com/story/lab-grown-meat/ https://www.wired.com/story/lab-grown-meat/
      • sitkack 9y ago
        > If you are vegan, you aim for a whole food plant based diet. I know lots of vegans that eat junk. You are making things up.
        • gepi79 9y ago
          I have never heard about a vegan who does not care to eat healthy. Besides I wrote "aim". Maybe a vegan junk food based diet including large amounts of refined oils, sugar and candy is common among vegans and I do not know about it.
• awakeasleep 9y ago
  I hate to remind everyone, but Nutella is Palm Oil with cocoa and hazlenut flavor. Of course, Nutella works to ensure all their palm oil has some veneer of sustainability, but the fact is the more of the planet that eats it, the more palms need to be planted.
  • merreborn 9y ago
    For what it's worth... > Ferrero... reached its goal of using only palm oil that has been certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil... Nutella’s palm oil comes mostly from Malaysia, as well as from Brazil, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, according to reports. > Greenpeace, the environmental advocacy group, told Quartz in a statement that it opposes a boycott of products with palm oil because “a blanket boycott of this agricultural crop will not solve problems in its production.” https://qz.com/430450/no-you-dont-have-to-boycott-nutella-for-the-environment-says-greenpeace/ https://qz.com/430450/no-you-dont-have-to-boycott-nutella-fo...
    • nerpderp83 9y ago
      > Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil ensuring there is profitability in every jar!
    • rorykoehler 9y ago
      Malaysian palm oil is anything but sustainable. What utter BS.
    • pcrh 9y ago
      "Malaysia" includes Sarawak, which is on the same island as Borneo and home to about 8,000 orangutans who are also threatened.
    • sleepyhead 9y ago
      Well the problem here is that the Roundtable of "Sustainable" Palm oil has HQ in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, particularly so with politicians who deal with palm oil. Sarawak (Borneo) have seen most of the huge jungle being converted to palm oil plantation because they basically had a dictator in charge for thirty years who enriched himself and his family from it. So this organisation would have very little possibility to actively make improvements due to the political conditions in Malaysia. They don't really have free and fair elections - something that people are trying to change but have been jailed for. The main opposition leader is for example in jail. While it is better to buy from RSPO than non-RSPO sources it is far from sustainable.
• scythe 9y ago
  I suppose I will now assume the tired role of the stuffy stats-waving movie villain who points out that oil palms are the most efficient oil crop by land area and if any other oil crop were used to replace the oil palm, more forests would have to be cleared. I'm sure you enjoy hearing that. E.g. a common "alternative" is coconut oil from the Phillippines, a country which has, of course, no biodiversity to preserve. Also, palm oil is interchangeable with other oils, so if consumers prefer to buy soya oil, soya will simply be swapped out of biofuels or animal feed and into consumer products while palm oil replaces it. Palm oil tastes better than soya oil, so the pigs will be happy about it, I think. Won't somebody think of the pigs?
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• elvirs 9y ago
  no you just need to make fewer babies and consume less shit. boycotting companies isnt going to change anything. the planet is overpopulated and thats at the core of the problem
  • newnewpdro 9y ago
    This stance is both correct and so incredibly unpopular it will always be downvoted. The root of most of our large-scale problems is just that - the scale, the multiplier. It doesn't seem like we will ever actually face this issue head-on and manage population like just another resource, scientifically, with data determining what the appropriate number of people is for a given land mass and standard of living. Instead, our elected officials will continue doing very short-sighted (re)election-paced plans. We, as a species, will continue leveraging technology to push our numbers ever higher with little regard for the long-term consequences. Then nature, like a sudden stock market collapse, will correct this unruly mess in the form of a population collapse and suffering the world has never before seen. This all annoys me quite a lot, because we're perfectly capable of managing the situation better and actually preventing a huge amount of long-term suffering if we just decided to face reality. What's happening in lieu of population size management, is a steady decline of quality of life. Access to clean air and drinking water is diminishing, access to clean real food is an expensive privilege (organic produce), civil liberties are eroding (9/11!), the seas are contaminated with microplastics, housing costs are skyrocketing, infrastructure is crumbling, this list can go on. These are all symptoms of a massive multiplier being applied to much of modern-man's activities. But let's not try to address these challenges, when we can instead argue endlessly over why there aren't more women in the engineering department.
• seanlinmt 9y ago
  I'm all for the boycott of timber and palm oil products to end demand [1] for this destruction. But there's also the problem of the livelihoods of indigenous people [2]. But, at the same time, they are being exploited by the larger players [3]. [1] http://borneoproject.org/updates/indigenous-leader-appeals-to-the-japanese-prime-minister-stop-rainforest-destruction-for-tokyo-2020-olympics http://borneoproject.org/updates/indigenous-leader-appeals-t... [2] https://www.borneotoday.net/discrimination-against-palm-oil-is-injustice-against-indigenous-peoples/ https://www.borneotoday.net/discrimination-against-palm-oil-... [3] https://theconversation.com/palm-oil-politics-impede-sustainability-in-southeast-asia-57647 https://theconversation.com/palm-oil-politics-impede-sustain...
  • sleepyhead 9y ago
    That's not entirely correct IMHO. There are small farms too but in Malaysia it's pretty much just the big players. And they get their land partly from kicking out indigenous people. Sure some people of these people are employed in the industry, get some cash from the big corporations or have their own small farm - but overall this industry is toxic to these people. Resulting in enforced relocation, destroyed land used for hunting/fishing and many other issues.
• nopinsight 9y ago
  In Southeast Asia, palm oil is the most prevalent and economical cooking oil in use. And if you eat out, like most everyone else, you cannot avoid it unless you are very picky. Eating out in SE Asia is much more economical than cooking in both time and money largely because of the low labor costs and food culture there. A couple of ways to solve this problem could be: * Subsidies for alternative cooking oil and better nutrition education for SE Asia people: Palm oil is not that healthy and alternatives like soybean oil is only a bit more expensive but healthier. Keep in mind though, many streetside food stalls and small restaurants where the majority of the populations eat out will use the least expensive option available, so subsidies for alternative oils might be needed. * International treaty and tech-based monitoring: There should be tangible short-term incentives for the populace of the countries where the rainforest resides to maintain it. Otherwise, since most of these populations are still quite poor, they will not think long-term by exploiting it gradually and sustainably or "take one for the world" to keep it pristine for global biodiversity. The grassroots incentives are needed to make sure that political parties holding power will not be punished by the voters by signing these treaties, which will affect the way some portions of the populations make their living. With better technologies like drones and satellites, it might become possible to monitor how the governments signing these treaties keep their promises and the global community can pay out the incentives accordingly. As for curbing corruption--it would be nice if that could be done--but it is quite unlikely to be that successful in the short- or medium-term. [1] So, incentivizing voters in these countries to reward/punish their governments, in addition to international monitoring, would be necessary. * Anti-corruption technology for the governments: With better technology, it might be possible for top-level politicians and bureaucrats to reduce corruption at the lower level and, as a result, less invasion on some of these lands that are protected legally. International technical help for developing such technology could be impactful. https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2016 https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_percept...
• thriftwy 9y ago
  Why not pay locals for keeping orangutans by thhe head? Otherwise you would be telling indonesians how to use their lands, and you have zero moral standing to do so if you're from Europe or the US. Which have almost zero big fauna intact.
• deleted 9y ago
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• chewz 9y ago
  Mostly it is bio-fuel in EU that uses palm-oil. But that will come to stop soon [1] But the more general problem is total lack of respect for the environment in Malaysia and Indonesia. [1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/malaysia-palmoil-eu/update-1-indonesia-malaysia-condemn-european-move-to-limit-palm-oil-use-idUSL3N1PD2YR https://www.reuters.com/article/malaysia-palmoil-eu/update-1...