Can the palm oil industry really fail to tell when they have crossed all lines? Apparently not.

The latest story comes from Woodlark Island, 130 miles of the coast of Papua New Guinea. This 80,000 ha tropical island is home to the nineteen endemic species, including the Woodlark Cuscus, as well as 6,000 indigenous residents who live by small scale farming and hunting.

A full two-thirds of this island—60,000 ha—is slated to be clear cut and planted with a monocrop palm oil plantation by Vitroplant, a Malaysian-owned company. The end goal of this destruction? Agrofuels (industrial-scale biofuels) to feed Europe and America’s oil addiction.

Forget free, prior, and informed consent— the community members who are rejecting this plantation have been labeled as “greedy, selfish, self-centered people who think only of themselves” – and not of the economic development of their country. In early November, one hundred islanders (remember, the total population is only 6,000) traveled to the capital of Milne Bay Province, Alotau—over 130 miles — to voice their concerns over the plans to turn their forested island into plantations.

You can read the whole story at http://news.mongabay.com/2007/1213-woodlark.html.

For me, the most shocking part of this is that this isn’t unusual at all. In palm oil plantations across Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Pacific, communities’ rights to free, prior and informed consent, to determine what happens on their land, is routinely ignored. The environmental impact of the plantations, in terms of water quality, soil fertility, and biodiversity loss are ignored. Vitroplant may be a Malaysian-based company, but their actions on Woodlark Island are also what Cargill is doing in Indonesia, what Bunge is doing in Brazil, and what ADM is doing Africa.

It’s way over the line.