Environmental problems - Palm oil plantation

There's a lot of environmental problems in Sabah, didn't notice that before I met Mr. Wong. Mr. Wong is an environmental activist based in Lahad Datu.

Before this, I thought that the palm oil plantation is a big plus to the environment, because we are actually planting trees. That's partly true, but the plantation in Sabah and Sarawak is large that it has become a hazard to environment.


First of all, the lands that palm oil plantation takes up can threaten the extinction of Orang Utan and other species of animals. Oil-palm plantations could be responsible for at least half of the observed reduction in orang-utan habitat in the decade between 1992 and 2003. Almost 90 per cent of orang-utan habitat has now disappeared. Some orang-utan populations have been halved in the past 15 years, and from a total remaining population of less than 60,000, an estimated 5,000 are lost each year. If this rate of decline continues the orang-utan will be extinct within 12 years.


Then, there's the problem of carbon dioxide emission due to land clearing for plantations. Biofuels from palm oil actually release less carbon dioxide than fossil fuels when burned. But the land clearinng of rainforest and drained swamps (peat soil) released a lot of carbon dioxide. Rainforest and drained swamps are known to trap carbon in their watery depths for millennia. As the peat has dried, and sometimes burned, it has released huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Drained peat swamps in Indonesia and Malaysia annually released 2 billion tonnes of carbon between 1997 and last year, an amount roughly equal to 8 per cent of annual global emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.

When canals are dug to drain peat swamps, the peat dries and oxygen combines with the trapped carbon, releasing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Because dry peat is extremely flammable, fires frequently erupt on cleared land. In 1997 fires in Indonesia sent smoke billowing throughout South-East Asia and released massive amounts of carbon dioxide.

Do you all remembered few years ago, how the haze from Kalimantan affects us?

To solve the issues, I don't think that by boycotting the palm oil will have impact on it, because other industries will have similar impact.

Recommendations:

1. No forest conversion for oil palm
2. There must be no use of fire for land-clearing
3. Companies operating palm oil plantations must minimise their impact on the environment through good management practices.

• obeying all relevant Government regulations e.g. on emissions of waste-water
• use of integrated pest management
• significant reduction in the use of pesticides and transparency in the amount of pesticides used
• recycling of POME