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The Social Costs of Palm Oil |
- Local people on the islands of Borneo, Sumatra and Papua New Guinea are being affected by the palm oil industry. Millions of people in these areas rely on this industry for their livelihood and this is one reason we do not support a blanket boycott of all palm oil.
- The development of new oil palm plantations is commonly associated with social conflict and human-rights abuses. Most of the area developed is the customary land of indigenous peoples and local communities.
- Indonesian laws and land acquisition procedures provide these people with very little protection. In the name of the 'national interest', communities are being forced to give up their lands against their will and without getting adequate compensation. Many palm oil companies claim they bring work to the area, but do not always employ the local people. As a result conflicts between plantation companies and local communities are widespread and growing.
- On many plantations there is heavy use of pesticides and no safety protection supplied and many of the river systems are polluted, leaving local communities with no fresh water for drinking or bathing. The pollution is also killing fish, an important food source
- Local people can and should be trained in environmentally sustainable agriculture, (including palm oil and other food sources) and other sustainable trades, crafts and professions.
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| Millions of people in Borneo and Sumatra rely on the palm oil industry as a source of livelihood. Boycotting palm oil is not the solution! As a relatively poor and underdeveloped country, foreign aid is crucial to assisting this indigenous population attain basic quality human services while maintaining a healthy ecosystem. Please support the following foreign policy initiatives! |
YOU Can Help!
Write to your MP and let them know you want to extend funding of these initiatives. Ask them to support other initiatives which will allow the local people to keep their forests intact and earn a living at the same time.
Don’t know how to get in touch with them?
To find out who your MP is and their details go to:
In Australia
In New Zealand
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NZAID
NZAID is the Government’s international aid and development agency. The agency is responsible for delivering New Zealand’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) and for advising Ministers on development assistance policy and operations.
NZAID places a high priority on building strong partnerships and concentrates its development assistance on activities that contribute to poverty elimination by creating safe, just and inclusive societies, fulfilling basic needs, and achieving environmental sustainability and sustainable livelihoods.
www.nzaid.govt.nz
What NZAID is doing in Indonesia?
Key programmes of relevance to preventing deforestation and loss of habitat include:
- watershed protection in the Gayo Highlands and Leuser Ecosystem, Aceh, with a focus on improving livelihoods through improved agroforestry practices, afforestation of degraded lands in upper catchments; maintenance of the quality of existing forest, and strengthened governance and natural resource management. These ecosystems contains orangtuans, tigers and rhinos
- eco-tourism in Gunung Rinjani National Park via the Rinjani Trek Ecotourism Programme. The goal is to secure social, economic and conservation management benefits from the RTEP in the Gunung Rinjani National Park where there are a number of primate species. There are also explorations of linking this work to a wider corridor of conservation and community-management focussed activities in the islands from Bali through to Flores which contains areas of high biodiversity
- sustainable forest management for community livelihoods in the TransFly, Papua. This focuses on community based, sustainable non-timber forest products, sustainable and certified community forest management for timber production; and management of the catchment area which is also a centre of biodiversity
- more widely in Papua province, NZAID is embarking on a partnership with UNDP to support work which is likely to support a range of community livelihoods and natural resource management initiatives
On a more general level the NZAID Environment Policy has a goal of a protected and enhanced natural resource base for sustainable development and poverty elimination; pursued through two key areas: enhanced capacity of poor people to manage their environment sustainably; and improved environmental governance for the poor. |
Illegal logging policy
An illegal logging policy was agreed by Cabinet in November 2006.
Find out more at http://www.maf.govt.nz/mafnet/index.htm.
The New Zealand policy aims to both act locally at a domestic level and seek to achieve change at an international level. This reflects the need to work with other countries to find long term solutions to help stop illegal logging at its source. |
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