Thursday 9 October 2008

MALAYSIAN PALM OIL: GREEN GOLD OR GREEN WASH

A new Friends of the Earth report “MALAYSIAN PALM OIL: GREEN GOLD OR GREEN WASH?” exposes the green-wash of the Malaysian palm oil lobby and shows that:

1. Malaysia’s largest state, Sarawak, plans to more than double its 2007 levels of oil palm acreage by 2010, taking it to a total of 1.3 million hectares. This expansion is coming at the expense of tropical forests contrary to claims by the Malaysian palm oil lobby.

2. Plantation companies regularly practice open burning on carbon rich peat soils releasing millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and contributing to regional air pollution.

3. Forest reserves promised to the Penan indigenous communities of Sarawak - threatened by plantation expansion and logging - have never materialised.The full text of the report is online here:http://www.foei.org/en/publications/pdfs/malaysian-palm-oil

Kenneth Richter
Biofuels CampaignerFriends of the Earth 26-28 Underwood Street London N1 7JQ Tel + 44 20 7566 1671