Palm oil, produced from the oil palm, is a basic source of income for many farmers in Southeast Asia, Central and West Africa, and Central America. Its cultivation and production (often monoculture on previously carbon-sequestering, biodiverse forest land) often coincides with human rights abuses (including rape, human trafficking, child labor, and slavery), displacement and disruption of human and animal populations, and other harmful environmental effects. These impacts can be significant, as oil palms produce 38% of the world's vegetable-oil output on 6% of the world's vegetable-oil farmland, and products from oil palms are widespread in cosmetics. There has also been considerable greenwashing of deforestation and animal cruelty related to palm oil production, with offenders including palm oil producers that received certifications of sustainability.
Statistics
An estimated 1.5 million small farmers grow the crop in Indonesia, along with about 500,000 people directly employed in the sector in Malaysia, plus those connected with related industries.
As of 2006, the cumulative land area of palm oil plantations is approximately . In 2005 the Malaysian Palm Oil Association, responsible for about half of the world's crop, estimated that they manage about half a billion perennial carbon-sequestering palm trees. Demand for palm oil has been rising and is expected to climb further.
Between 1967 and 2000 the area under cultivation in Indonesia expanded from less than to more than . Deforestation in Indonesia for palm oil (and illegal logging) is so rapid that a 2007 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report said that most of the country's forest might be destroyed by 2022. The rate of forest loss has declined in the past decade.
Global production is forecast at a record 46.9m tonnes in 2010, up from 45.3m in 2009, with Indonesia providing most of the increase.
Social issues, human rights abuses, and violence Oil palm is a valuable economic crop and provides a source of employment. It allows small landholders to participate in the cash economy and often results in improvements to local infrastructure and greater access to services such as schools and health facilities. In some areas, the cultivation of oil palm has replaced traditional practices, often due to the higher income potential of palm oil. However, the modernisation of cultivation practices has also led to issues including food insecurity. This issue stems from the intensive use of land which leads to soil degradation. As a result, the ability for locals to produce their own food has dwindled and they are having to look for food in other areas as they can no longer rely exclusively on their land.
However, in some cases, land has been developed by oil palm plantations without consultation or compensation of the Indigenous Peoples occupying the land. This has occurred in Papua New Guinea, Colombia, and Indonesia. In the Sarawak state of Malaysian Borneo, there has been debate over whether there was an appropriate level of consultation with the Long Teran Kanan community prior to the development of local land for palm oil plantations. Appropriation of native lands has led to conflict between the plantations and local residents in each of these countries.
According to a 2008 report by NGOs including Friends of the Earth, palm oil companies have also reportedly used force to acquire land from Indigenous communities in Indonesia. Additionally, some Indonesian oil palm plantations are dependent on imported labor or undocumented immigrants, which has raised concerns about the working conditions and social impacts of these practices. Issues regarding the exploitation of child labor have also been a major concern.
The loss of land to oil palm cultivation is also associated with violence. Frédéric Mousseau, policy director at the Oakland Institute, has noted that "repeatedly, after losing their lands ... local communities in Africa and Asia have been subject to violence, intimidation, and distress as a result." Reporting by The Associated Press on palm-oil related incidents of "sexual abuse, rape, human trafficking, child labor, and slavery," disclosed that "almost every plantation has problems related to labor."
Deforestation
Habitat loss The production of palm oil requires intensive deforestation and this has led to a gradual loss of flora and fauna in the areas where land is cleared for the cultivation of palm oil. Tropical rainforests in countries including Malaysia and Indonesia have been the most ideal countries to have large palm oil plantations as they provide the most suitable climate with ample rainfall and sunshine throughout the year. Between the years 1990 and 2005, the total land in Malaysia used for palm oil cultivation increased by 2.4 million ha and reached 4.2 million ha. During that period, over 1.1 million ha of tropical rainforest was lost. The diverse biodiversity that each rainforest possesses has been diminishing at a rapid rate as fauna is often very fragile and easily affected by deforestation. Animal wildlife has been most affected in areas where significant amounts of land, for commercial palm oil purposes, have been cleared to allow the trees to be planted. Animals have been forced to relocate and have increasingly come into contact with humans as they have started to roam around the surrounding villages in search for food. Some animals have not been able to adapt and relocate elsewhere, leading to their populations decreasing significantly and this has disrupted the symbiotic relationships that the flora and fauna have with their habitat. Deforestation negatively affects biodiversity when forests are converted into plantations and leaves relatively low species richness in primary forests compared to undisturbed forests. One species of particular concern is the critically endangered Bornean orangutan. A notable study in 2018 showed that from 1999 to 2015, over 100,000 orangutans were lost due to unsustainable natural resource exploitation (including the palm oil industry). This number was obtained by tracking the number of nests over this 16-year study period. Results show that nests declined from 22.5 nests per kilometer at the start of the study, to 10.1 nests per kilometer by the end of the study. On the other hand E. guineensis cultivation also helps to push species invasions further, e.g. Anoplolepis gracilipes in southeast Asia. Biodiversity suffers in almost all taxa Room 1975 and Fayle et al. 2010 find so for ants, Danielsen and Heegaard 1995 for bats and primates, Liow et al. 2001 for bees, Chung et al. 2000 for beetles, Peh et al. 2006 for birds, Davis and Philips 2005 for dung beetles, Hassall et al. 2006 for isopods, Glor et al. 2001 for lizards, Chang et al. 1997 for mosquitoes, Chey 2006 for moths, and Bernard et al. 2009 for small mammals. Almost all taxa also suffer loss of abundance but there are exceptions, species which increase abundance but still lose species richness Davis and Philips 2005 find so in dung beetles, Hassall et al. 2006 in isopods, Glor et al. 2001 in lizards and Danielsen and Heegaard 1995 in bats. The very unusual exception is bees, which Liow et al. 2001 find lose abundance but gain species diversity in oil palm.
Soil degradation The process of removing existing flora and planting palm oil trees is detrimental for the quality of the soil in the ground. When the existing flora is removed to make way for the new plants, the soil surrounding it is often eroded away. When palm oil trees are planted, large amounts of fertilisers and pesticides are used to ensure rapid growth and the health of each tree. Younger palm oil trees absorb more valuable nutrients from the soil which degrades the quality of the soil. As the nutrients are absorbed by the young trees, there is a depletion in nutrients and consequently, there is a lower level of remaining nutrients for other trees. This problem is also another cause for the increased use of fertilisers during the palm oil production process. Distances between adjacent palm oil trees in plantations have also been designed to be very close in order to optimise use of the limited space available. This has further impacted soil quality because as the trees grow, they require more minerals and water from the soil. Due to the close distances between trees, there is a limited supply of nutrients that the trees can depend on which leads to the plantation workers supplying the trees with higher amounts of fertilisers, pesticides and water. This process further harms the state of the soil and makes it challenging for existing flora and fauna to survive in the area. Tuma et al. 2019 find replacement of forest with oil palm plantations reduces the number of bioturbator species, although not the actual volume of bioturbation performed.
In tropical countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia, where a majority of palm oil plantations are located, there are continual rain showers and sun exposure throughout the day. Palm oil plantations that are geographically located close to rivers have exacerbated impacts on surrounding local communities. This is due to the increased use of fertilisers and pesticides which has led to higher amounts of both being washed away by the frequent rain into rivers. This is an issue because rivers are central to the daily lives of local villagers. They use water from the river for personal consumption and also use the river as a source of food, which makes them vulnerable to the residue from fertilisers and pesticides. The untreated water that the local villagers are exposed to can potentially cause detrimental health effects, including diseases such as cholera, E. coli and lead poisoning.
The damage from soil erosion and poor soil quality has also affected the livelihoods of many local villagers that live close to these palm oil plantations as they can no longer depend solely on their land for the cultivation of food and timber. Local villagers are now inclined to find new sources of food and materials for shelter. As a result, local villagers have been indirectly forced to move out and relocate depending on the extent of the loss of the plants and animals native to the area. This has led to economic complications as governments now need to reallocate their resources to support these typically marginalised communities.
Other environmental issues
In Indonesia, rising demand for palm oil and timber has led to the clearing of tropical forest land in Indonesian national parks. According to a 2007 report published by UNEP, at the rate of deforestation at that time, an estimated 98 percent of Indonesian forest would be destroyed by 2022 due to legal and illegal logging, forest fires and the development of palm oil plantations.
Malaysia, the second largest producer of palm oil has pledged to conserve a minimum of 50 percent of its total land area as forests. As of 2010, 58 percent of Malaysia was forested.
Palm oil cultivation has been criticised for: Greenhouse gas emissions. Deforestation in tropical areas accounts for an estimated 10 percent of manmade emissions, and is a driver toward dangerous climate change. Habitat destruction, leading to the demise of critically endangered species (e.g. the Sumatran elephant, Sumatran tiger, the Sumatran rhinoceros, and the Sumatran orangutan). Reduced biodiversity, including damage to biodiversity hotspots.Conservation International: Biodiversity Hotspots Cultivating crops on land that belongs to indigenous people in the Sarawak and Kalimantan states on the island of Borneo and the Malaysian state of Sabah. The increase in outbreaks of zoonotic diseases is linked with deforestation in tropical countries.
Water pollution