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Palm Oil Country Indonesia: Addiction Palm Oil Devastating Effects

Diperbarui: 9 Mei 2019   17:47

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Devastating Palm Tree | Sources: independent.co.uk

Indonesia is the world's biggest supplier of raw palm oil material, for the global consumption is 60 million tons per year and keep raising. Palm oil is the main ingredients for the cheap mass-produced in a wide variety of food products, in the supermarket palm oil is dominates for the human requirement products such as soap, shampoo, detergent and cosmetics.

For the world's global scale: buses and cars in the Europe (London, Paris and Berlin) run on fuels with palm oil contain, since the EU decided to save the climate by imposing biofuel quotas. The member states are committed to adding at least five percent vegetable oil to fuels there's expected quota rise to ten percent, but is not just European legislators have fallen prey to the biofuel fever.

The Indonesian government subsidizes every liter of biofuel with seven thousand four hundred rupiah that's about forty six Euro cents and there are plants to keep raising the amount of palm oil added to biofuels to thirty percent, there are also high-flying plans to drastically increase the use of palm oil in aviation fuel but what the effects on Indonesian and the environment? 

Kalimantan the Indonesian part of Borneo in November 2015 for three months locals lived under blanket of toxic sulfur a smog, air pollution levels were with three thousand  percent above the health threatening legal limit, hospitals struggled to cope many infants suffered permanent brain damage due to a lack of oxygen more than nine thousand people died. From the effects of smoke poisoning, local peoples tried to put out the flames with sticks and there's no fire extinguishers to extinguish the fire this is impossible task a long drought caused fires in the swamp peat  to spread quickly.

Over three thousand forest fire raged throughout the country not just on Indonesia (Borneo) but also on Sumatra, Sulawesi and for the first time Papua, deforestation through slashing and burning has reached an unprecedented scale. Merauke a region of southern Papua the government has permitted the destruction one million hectares of rain forest to make way for palm oil plantations, but many local peoples oppose the plan they don't want their forests turned into plantations. In the other regions too rain forest is being burnt down two point six million hectares have been destroyed a region almost the size of Belgium state, palm oil companies are responsible about half the fires laid.

In the province of Jambi on Sumatra police were able to prove firing by confiscating a petrol canister as evidence, the palm oil company Ricky Kurniawan Kertapersada .PT (RKK .PT) was fine twelve million euros for firing the land of rain forest, The Unilever supplier was found guilty burning down the forest the cheapest way to make  profitable palm oil plantations. 

Back in Kalimantan Indonesia Borneo the pressure is mounting the demand for palm oil in on the rise all over the world, in 2016 palm oil consumption reached 62 million tons since Europe introduced biofuel policy the land used for palm oil monocultures has quadrupled an area three tunes the size of Switzerland has been turned into monocultures.  In January 16, 2015 a hundred of farmers aceh are demonstrating outside a palm oil company they accused the company of illegally logging ther village forest and poisoning their water supplies the company has been pumping the toxic waste water from plant into the river.

The plantations have completely changed rural life of the local peoples most people are now dependent on palm oil. Indonesia supplies the whole world with palm oil, the problems of deforestation have long been reported in Europe, the European Commission is now asking for more sustainable palm oil production and  the implementation of environmental standards, to meet the requirements companies like Unilever, Neste Oil and Wilma together with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) founded the round table for sustainable palm oil or Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).

The world's palm oil consumption is projected to grow almost seventy percent by 2020 another seventeen million hectares will be turned into monocultures unless the demand is restrained.

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