Cyber Greenwash – Malaysia Palm Oil on the attack
April 1, 2011
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Malaysia’s palm oil lobby has launched a new website to counter ‘propaganda’ about the controversial industry, which has faced strong criticism from Borneo tribes and international organizations.
The new industry website theoilpalm.org claims to ‘set the record straight’, claiming that poverty alleviation, emissions reductions and land use improvement are ‘by-products of palm oil.’ It goes on, ‘Yet these positive contributions to society often go unnoticed, or worse, denigrated by environmental NGOs. The Oil Palm website will help ensure their campaign of misinformation does not go unchallenged’.
Plans to cover 2 million hectares of Sarawak (in the Malaysian part of Borneo) with the crop will be devastating for the hunter-gatherer Penan tribe, who fear for the future of their communities and forests.
One Penan woman told Survival, ‘The forest is my roof and my shelter and the forest is also where I can find food to eat. But when the oil palm comes in everything will be gone.’
Much of the rainforest the Penan rely on has already been severely damaged by logging. The most degraded forests are now being cleared completely to make way for palm oil, sometimes by the same companies – including Shin Yang and Samling – responsible for the logging.
Penan have been mounting blockades against Samling and Shin Yang for years, in an attempt to defend their forests.
Palm oil is used in thousands of food and cosmetic products, and in biofuels. Biofuels derived from palm oil are amongst the most controversial. In 2009 the World Bank placed a funding moratorium on palm oil projects, and the EU guidelines on sustainable biofuels explicitly condemn converting forests into palm oil plantations.
Stephen Corry, Survival’s director, said, ‘Malaysia’s palm oil lobby is clearly on the back foot. This new website is nothing more than an attempt at cyber greenwash. The Penan have been clear that they don’t want palm oil plantations on their land, and the industry must respect that.
