UK defies EU over Indonesian palm oil trade

[Mark2017]

If the UK defy the EU in banning palm oil it loses £5B worth of defence contracts and 20,000 defence jobs. So they decide to double the amount for import. Backed by Denmark, France and the Netherlands.

If the UK backed the ban then France would be awarded the winner of the Malaysian defence contract.

‘The UK is defying EU institutions to push for a hike in nominally “sustainable” Indonesian palm oil imports which have nonetheless been linked to deforestation, leaked documents show.‘

Think the UK are trying to keep some trading friends.


https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-indonesian-palm-oil-trade-leaked-papers-show

https://www.politicshome.com/news/u...m-oil-ban-‘could-put-20000-defence-jobs-risk’

 

[jstar]

Yeah you can see when there are economical drivers, these get priority and all ideals go out of the window. And the EU is definitely not one voice (yet).

The whole palm oil situation makes me sick to my stomach, besides Dieselgate one of the best examples what big companies and industries can 'accomplish' and a showcase of how far they are willing to go.

 

[jstar]

.
In The Netherlands there is a public outrage about a (profitable) pension fund that invests in palm tree plantations in Papua.

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[vocalneal]

I don't see anything wrong with diesel-gate as you put it. The EPA had a static or predictable test which the vehicles could detect. There is no "spirit of the law" there is simply the law. The vehicles in question passed the law which the EPA set. That is all. Blame the EPA for being complacent. A lot of US cars/trucks did or do the same thing when tested why weren't they prosecuted? Hypocricy. Anyway VW wasn't the threat. Renaut/Nissan is now the world's largest car producer. having knocked Toyota off the top step.

Palm Oil ? If the land was unproductive scrub with little or no wildlife before Palm Oil, why is it bad now? Locals employed? People have this vision of lush tropical rain forest full of monkeys and iguanas while most of the time it is not. Even then it didn't provide cash for the locals.

Have a surf around Sumatra on Google Earth and spot the palm oil plantations and see what is nest door. Most often nothing but scrub. A few wild pigs and maybe if lucky the odd Loris.

I'm not saying they are all good but they are not all bad and should not be tarred with the same brush. It's convenient but not correct.

What is bad is when the corporations buy up and force people off their small holding in the scrub and don't offer them a job. If the small holding is theirs and they have title then they should get something. Most often they are squatting and while that also isn't correct,their displacement is not illegal. As in most cases their are two sides to every situation.

 

[jstar]

^
Are you serious? Oil palms need a rainforest climate. After Brazil of course, INDONESIA has some of the bigger rainforests. Did you ever visit those in this country? I don’t expect to have to explain the advantages of that scrub... eh those rainforests, and the consequences of deforestation (CO[sub]2[/sub], a total loss of species of animals and plants - bio diversity etc.)?

The production from RI plantations is huge and is expected to be 5 fold in seven years time. And palm oil is used everywhere: You realize at Unilever* they press the oil out of the peanuts since it is an expensive oil variety and replace it with palm oil instead in their peanut butter?

And dieselgate: It is NOT a US but a worldwide issue. If a car manufacturer states that their cars meet a certain emission level and they can only meet those values at official tests (for 20 minutes or so), it is a clear case of deception of their customers and the public. Not to mention the environmental impact. And yes, I do know that besides VW, FCA and PSA and Renault also rig the system, but they were just a bit smarter in circumventing the rules.


* https://www.space-intelligence.com/...mills-in-a-bid-for-supply-chain-transparency/

On the right the ‘old’ scrub situation, on the left the ‘new’ oil palms. Better, right?

 

[vocalneal]

I lived in Riau, Sumatra lots of palm oil no rain forest, just green scrub some of which has been converted to palm oil.

Further north where I have also lived you can type <Bahbajoe> into the search box of Google earth. Huge palm oil plantation but no rain forest anywhere near it as all the rain forest is on the west coast, not the east coast. https://goo.gl/maps/Yp8sciJHmvx not prefect but not many roads have palm oil one side and normal countryside on the other.

Here's a street view picture from a corner of a plantation in Riau https://goo.gl/maps/gP8RcP7jHb42 no rain forest. No swinging gibbons.

Your picture is not scrub, but forest. Not the same. May not even be Indonesia.

EU only wants to pick on Indonesia because they are the biggest supplier.

 

[Ruserious]

Vocalneal i used to spend a lot of time on those Riau roads. Go back 20 years and they were jammed packed with trucks hauling huge logs. Now no more as all signs of forest has already gone. I doubt they were hauling logs from the west coast to Pekanbaru but i suppose its possible. I just get the feeling that area was destroyed first.

 

[vocalneal]

When I worked in Sabah it was three logs to a truck!

Around Pekanbaru it is mostly peat swamp. Not exactly rain forest. Although there are trees and it does rain.

Sorry just that 98.8% of Europeans who have an opinion about Indonesia palm oil have never , ever been to see a palm oil plantation.

In the days of Robin Hood one could walk in the forest from Nottingham to the south cost