Nature Alert: Letters: Palm oil plantations are not forests

Friday 19 February 2010

Letters: Palm oil plantations are not forests

Letters: Palm oil plantations are not forests

Fri, 02/19/2010 11:11 AM | Reader's Forum

Just when I thought the Indonesian government could no longer shock me in its attitude towards its own forests (the country’s very lifeblood) or in its contempt for its wildlife (quickly vanishing into oblivion) it goes right ahead and does so.

The very idea (no matter how purely theoretical) of reclassifying palm oil plantations as “forests” is so ludicrous, I would have assumed it was a joke if I hadn’t seen the Forestry Ministry endorsing it in black and white (‘palm oil estate is forest, says ministry”, the Post, Feb. 16, 2010).

This isn’t so that even more foreign aid can be pumped into an already bloated and corrupt system, is it?

Let me make it clear: Forests are ancient, natural, thriving and diverse ecosystems that contain multiple life forms, all cohabiting in synchronicity with each other.

Palm oil plantations are barren, desolate monocultures, man-made specifically to profit the multinational palm oil companies. Nothing could be more unlike a rainforest as virtually nothing can survive there.

Jeanie Elford
London

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/02/19/letters-palm-oil-plantations-are-not-forests.html

Hall of Shame for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the Palm Oil Industry.

Nothing can prepare one for the sight of the systematic extermination of orangutans by the government of Indonesia.

Look at the photos and news articles on these pages in the context of a statement the President made to the media on 10th December 2007.

“In the last 35 years about 50,000 orangutans are estimated to have been lost as their habitats shrank. If this continues, this majestic creature will likely face extinction by 2050,” President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said at the launch of an orangutan conservation plan at the climate talks in Bali.

“The fate of the orangutan is a subject that goes to the heart of sustainable forests … To save the orangutan we have to save the forest.”

Statements like these are most welcome, but unless backed up by action, such words fall on deaf ears within the Ministry of Forestry....who are busy granting licences to cut down the very forests the President says they should protect!

When you think you are to busy to help, please could you reflect for a moment on .........

The following extract refers to environmental problems in general. I just hope you find it as thought provoking and relevant to orangutans as I have.

"This is such a shocking and unpalatable fact that most people deny it, or they just don't want to think about it. They believe as individuals, they can do little about it, so push it to the back of their minds. But I can't do that.

When something has to be done, we need to do it. It doesn't matter how big the challenge is or how hard the solution; if I know something is wrong, and I am in a position to help, I will do my best to make it right." Duncan Bannatyne, successful British businessman.