Economics essay on: Palm oil and sustainability
Palm oil is extensively used across the globe because it is an essential ingredient of the most common products like bread, biscuits, cosmetics etc. The same is gained from the oil palm trees that are palm oil trees and the palm kernel oil tree. The seed is crushed and the palm oil is used. The current situation is such that almost 300 fields of the forests are being cleared in every three hours to meet the demands of the market. And according to The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) the Malaysia and Indonesia are the main drivers of the unsustainable pal oil as they have been engaged in ruthless rainforest destruction. The situation is such a pace of destruction continues then by almost the next decade 98% of the flora in Indonesia would be invisible. This issue has also given birth, to many social contradictions between the local people and the project managers of the palm oil (Pierce 2010).
The economy of Indonesia has been flourishing itself with a fast pace, and thus Palm Oil industry is the one that is born out of this place. Palm oil is Indonesia’s second largest agricultural product and also for the past decade it is the major export product, and in the year 2008 it made $14.5 billion of all the oil based products. The industry is divided into three sectors which constitute 49% of the private landholders for plantation, 41% of the small shareholders and the rest 10% were the governmental plantations. The pace makes this industry to be dominant in the regional economies too, besides being a major estate crop in the country (World Growth 2011).
Solving the issue of Palm oil sustainability
Introduction
The essay attempts to explore the major problem areas in the context of the Palm oil Industry and the issues related to the concept that how sustainable is that? The circumscribing problem is a question in itself which seeks answers to the ever going debate. Also, this essay would briefly talk about the problem that the palm oil industry is facing with their production of this product, and thus the economic issues would be important to study under this chapter. It becomes significant to analyse the whole issue and select that which part of this problem has to be revised so that the problem gets resolved effectively.
There is an ongoing global debate between the production of the palm oil and the influence that it has on the environmental domain with the increasing rate of deforestation. This becomes the main problem and the prevalent area of concern of the environmentalists because the after-effects of cutting down the fauna (the palm oil trees) is such that it adversely affecting the biodiversity and subsequently creating huge issues of sustainability crash in this manner. The pro-conservationists have charged this palm-oil sector as the backbone of all ills that are being created in the society. It is an astonishing problem which came into focus when the rapid deforestation had led to the fire in the forests of Indonesia, Africa, Columbia and others. These fires caused haze and the smog in the air for an extended period especially in the Indonesian region and that was a bane for the environmental imbalance. Another major issue because of such palm oil productions was the corollary of the already prevailing issue of forest fires, and it was the loss of bio-diversity and this was seen as ever expanding (Cheng, n.d.). The major players are the ones who are the planters, the millers and the refiners who guard the process of this large scale production, and they are the roots who are sowing the seed for this problem keeping only the economic benefits in mind that are arising from such productions.
The green groups have been working to check whether the Palm oil production is sustainable or not, the campaigns have been working toward the same the organisation RSPO that was established in 2003 has been tackling such problems and the campaign Green Palm was officially endorsed by the organisation. Also, WWF Australia has been working hard to diminish the adverse impacts on the sustainable development of the environment by working towards preserving the flora and the fauna across the globe and specially to check the main drivers of the destruction (Bangun, D 2009). The organisation has been stressing that how the south-Asian are the present and prospective threats to the survival of the species on the planet earth (WWF, n.d.) Also, in a study that was documented by Green Peace Nederland, disclosed the involvement of the Dutch Banks that was majorly funding the palm oil plantations through the corporations from Indonesia and Malaysia. But the debate with the pro-conservationists and the industrial members continue as they claim that this production method has been utilitarian and sustainable for a long time. The organisations like World Growth and the Malaysian Palm Council propagated the positive attributes of this industry in the economic domain and the well-being of the local people . Analysing the situation one can derive no possible solution can be seen because this chain of claims and the counter-claims has widened itself through time and that has so far led to the incredible situations. The comments have almost been restricted to the blurred boundary of the situation, because the palm oil industries have acquired a ‘greenwashing approach’ who denies that they have been causing any imbalance in the whole environmental set-up. Thus, the major problem lies in the crude conscience of the industrialists and the finance department producing palm oil, because they aren’t ready to accept the fact that they are the responsible ones behind loss of biodiversity and bringing huge instability in the sustainability of the environment (Cheng 2011).
The essay attempted to provide an overview of the prevalent problems that are there between the palm oil sector and the environment conservationists. This debate revolves around the social, environmental and the economic facets of the society and that how they have been modified because of this growing industry. But the discussion has proved that the debate is still stretching out of its limits, because the major players of this industry have acquired a stubborn attitude towards the crisis that the global scenario is facing. Unless, that attitude doesn’t change itself the issue cannot be resolved. Though, it is commendable that the Green campaigns and the environmentalists have made considerable changes in the same.
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