You may have missed this but it is great news that the misleading spin put on palm oil biofuel by these ads has been stopped in the UK.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jan/09/forests.food?gusrc=rss&feed=environment
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/01/09/europe/EU-GEN-Britain-Palm-Oil-Ads.php
The ASA finding
http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/adjudications/Public/TF_ADJ_43763.htm
The biodiversity quoted by the Malaysian Palm Oil Council a
“recent study in a coastal oil palm plantation in Selangor, Peninsular Malaysia, showed the environment contained the following numbers of species: 21 dicotyledons, 13 monocotyledons, 10 sedges, ferns and bracken, 53 arthropods, 9 mammals, 83 birds, 6 reptiles and 2 amphibians.”
is ludicrous when compared to the biodiversity of a typical single hectare plot in a mixed dipterocarp forest ( lowland rainforest) – 400 to 800 species of trees alone never mind the rest of the plant and animal kingdom.
That’s one hectare vs. an entire plantation of hundreds or thousands of hectares.
Palm oil plantations are the most depressing places to walk through. Little light gets through once the trees are bigger and the soil is pretty much bare around their trunks. There is little biodiversity there especially among higher order plants and animals and to claim it is so is patent nonsense.
The effect on orangutangs in Sabah is severe. If they were human one would say it is almost genocide.
Please do not think it is just rapacious Malaysians and Indonesians who are involved. It is a response to Western consumerism as well. Big money is to be made. When I met the very pleasant mother of one of my daughter’s class mates who had just moved here from the UK, I found out that they were here to invest in new palm oil plantations in Sabah to add to the ones they already own!
Sorry Rant over
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jan/09/forests.food?gusrc=rss&feed=environment
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/01/09/europe/EU-GEN-Britain-Palm-Oil-Ads.php
The ASA finding
http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/adjudications/Public/TF_ADJ_43763.htm
The biodiversity quoted by the Malaysian Palm Oil Council a
“recent study in a coastal oil palm plantation in Selangor, Peninsular Malaysia, showed the environment contained the following numbers of species: 21 dicotyledons, 13 monocotyledons, 10 sedges, ferns and bracken, 53 arthropods, 9 mammals, 83 birds, 6 reptiles and 2 amphibians.”
is ludicrous when compared to the biodiversity of a typical single hectare plot in a mixed dipterocarp forest ( lowland rainforest) – 400 to 800 species of trees alone never mind the rest of the plant and animal kingdom.
That’s one hectare vs. an entire plantation of hundreds or thousands of hectares.
Palm oil plantations are the most depressing places to walk through. Little light gets through once the trees are bigger and the soil is pretty much bare around their trunks. There is little biodiversity there especially among higher order plants and animals and to claim it is so is patent nonsense.
The effect on orangutangs in Sabah is severe. If they were human one would say it is almost genocide.
Please do not think it is just rapacious Malaysians and Indonesians who are involved. It is a response to Western consumerism as well. Big money is to be made. When I met the very pleasant mother of one of my daughter’s class mates who had just moved here from the UK, I found out that they were here to invest in new palm oil plantations in Sabah to add to the ones they already own!
Sorry Rant over
