RSPO Missing Persons Report

Update 11/25/11 10:08am Despite key commitments to work with the RSPO to meet consumer demands, several key RSPO members are missing at this year’s RSPO meeting in Sabah, Malaysia. Has anyone recently seen Kellogg’s, McDonald’s or Girl Scouts USA? They were last seen buying palm oil with Cargill and making assurances to the public that [...]

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Fruit Pollutes More Than Coal?

It may seem like a silly question: Can fruit cause more pollution than coal? But from the perspective of Indonesian waterways, the answer is most certainly yes. According to Mukri Friatna, head of advocacy for WALHI (Friends of the Earth Indonesia), “Oil palm plantations ranked first as producers of pollutants, followed by mining companies.” WALHI [...]

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Failures And Unanswered Questions At The RSPO

Today was the final day of the 8th Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia. Many controversial and heated issues were hashed out at the four-day gathering as the different interests — which include palm oil producers, processors, traders, retailers, banks, and environmental and social NGOs — battled to be heard. The [...]

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Is the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil Really Looking Out for Small Farmers?

One of the main focuses at the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil’s 8th gathering (RT8) is smallholders and their role in the world’s palm oil supply. Production by smallholders — a term typically applied to small farmers who grow a mixture of cash crops and subsistence crops — has grown to over 40%. The message [...]

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The Mainstream Media Spreads the Word about Palm Oil

It has been an amazing few weeks for media about palm oil. Three articles, from the Sacramento Bee, the NYTimes, and CNN.com highlighted the problems with the expansion of palm oil in Indonesia and Malaysia. The Sacramento Bee article highlighted the role of palm oil in habitat destruction in Indonesia– underlining the threat to orangutans [...]

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Greenwash of the Week (Take II): the Malaysian Palm Oil Board

Wow… if you think that the Malaysian Palm Oil Council’s advertisement (see Stan’s Post) is atrocious, check out the intro video at Malaysian Palm Oil Board’s website. Amazing, huh? The Malaysian Palm Oil Board’s mission is to “enhance the well-being of the Malaysian oil palm industry through research, development and excellent services”… which is exactly [...]

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