The rainforests of Borneo are home to many beautiful creatures and plants and these rainforests can be incredibly useful to humans. It is used for logging (illegally), wildlife hunting and trade and the growth of plants for commercial use. These rainforests and the creatures within them are under threat from these things.
The threat I wish to talk about today is land conversion, in particular, land conversion to grow oil palm. Plantations are a massive drive of deforestation; the land and soil are altered to suit the specific crop, making it more difficult for other trees to grow back after the plantation is abandoned. This could result in large-scale soil erosion, flooding and increase the risk of forest fires. Although the crops planted still dispose of carbon dioxide and produce oxygen for us to breathe, they do this on a smaller scale than the trees grown naturally in the rainforest.
Other than how much of a problem this is in regard to climate change and global warming one main problem with Oil Palm plantations is the loss of habitats for rainforest animals. One animal that is considered ‘critically endangered’ by WWF is the orangutan. The rainforests of Borneo are one of the main habitats of orangutans and unfortunately, the changes to their homes are decreasing their population.
So, what can we do about it? Palm oil is used in almost everything, a statistic by WWF claims that ‘it’s in close to 50% of the packaged products we find in supermarkets’ such as pizza, doughnuts and chocolate but also non-food items such as deodorant, shampoo and toothpaste. One solution is from the producer, not the consumer. The producer can use sustainably produced palm oil. The Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was formed in 2004, it aims to ‘Advance the production, procurement, finance and use of sustainable palm oil products.’ You can look out for this name on the products you buy.
As a consumer, I’ve been working on researching products before I buy them and finding alternatives to popular products which I use often. This is becoming easier as more and more brands start to adapt their products. One shop that is making a particularly large effort to reduce the use of palm oil is Iceland. The supermarket claims to have been working on removing palm oil from their products since 2016. You may remember the advert that was released Christmas 2018 which stated their mission. Iceland states that ‘By 31 December 2018 we had ended the use of palm oil as an ingredient in all our Iceland own-label food. We were the first UK supermarket to commit to doing this.’. I certainly hope to see others follow suit.
