Sustainable palm? Kissing hands. After the curious releases of an Italian vice-minister of agriculture who pleaded in the preservation of tropical fat, it is now the turn of Environment Minister Gian Luca Galletti, 6.6.16 in Amsterdam.
The minister of the environment is in theory supposed to be in charge of land and sea protection, as the very name of the department reports. It has functions in environment, ecosystem, marine, atmospheric, Environmental Impact Assessment, etc. Instead, Galletti on Tuesday signed the ‘Amsterdam Declaration’ committing countries to promote the use of 100% ‘sustainable’ palm oil by 2020.
Yet another sham by the palmocrats. Posited that:
1) sustainable palm is a historical forgery. Reports by the Environment Protection Agency and the European Commission have highlighted this well. The environmental impact of palm is comparable to that of fossil fuels. With one not insignificant difference, while oil is mostly extracted from desert lands, palm oil is obtained from plantations by eradicating biodiversity heritages, such as precisely tropical forests,
2) plantations ‘certified’ in their current state as sustainable are rarely identified in geo-location and orography. What existed on those huge tracts of land before plantations? Huge areas of virgin forests, mostly, whose deforestation is rarely (when ever) documented. As if that were not enough, the statements made by the 50 leaders in palm oil production, 39 of them ‘certified’ RSPOs, escape news about 1 million hectares of crops compared to the 8.9 attested. Forests burn, despite bans imposed in Indonesia itself, but no one admits it. So much so that the European Parliament itself, in spite of the opposing palmocrat lobbies, has denounced the unreliability of the certifications,
3) No one talks about land robbery, so-called land grabbing. The violent deportation of indigenous peoples who have for centuries inhabited tropical forests devastated in the name of the palm tree is an international crime against humanity. A widely documented (1) and still ongoing crime, of which oil palm plantations are primary motive. As well as a cause of eradication of communities and cultures founded on the relationship with the territories raped to make room for intensive mono-cropping,
4) the slavery, including child slavery, to which ‘certified’ plantation workers are subjected also eludes the statements of RSPO members. Although Amnesty International has recently documented such unfair working conditions in detail. In environments poisoned by neurotoxic pesticides, such as paraquat, which are banned in all palm oil-using countries. The world proceeds at two speeds, in the logic of neo-colonialism whose sole beneficiaries are the small group of palmocrats and investment funds that speculate on the life of the planet.
Minister Galletti, these days in Bologna to chair the G7 Environment, instead claims that ‘Large national companies have long been working responsibly, including obtaining authoritative certifications, to ensure that their sourcing of palm fruit oil is done in a sustainable manner.’ (2) Serving whom, what ‘large national companies, (3) with what alleged responsibilities and against what allegedly ‘authoritative’ certifications? Words are worthless, we need accurate and complete maps, documents, facts.
ConsumAtors-despite the extensive misinformation carried out by palmocrats in recent years, and the connivance of European and national authorities-have already demonstrated their commitment to buying only products that are compatible with the protection of populations and workers, as well as the environment and health. In Italy as well as in France, Spain and even Sweden.
Do we kiss hands? Maybe not. Rather, let us boycott every product-food, cosmetics and cleaning products-that contains palm oil. Until concrete guarantees are offered on the global moratorium on new plantations, and a truly reliable and transparent program is established on the restoration of the rights of the environment and peoples that have been so far barbarically violated. To be subject to certification by truly independent and community-representative bodies.
Facts, not words.
Dario Dongo
Notes
(1) For up-to-date information on the ongoing land robbery, see www.farmlandgrab.org and http://www.landmatrix.org/en/
(2) Source Ansa, http://www.ansa.it/canale_ambiente/notizie/natura/2017/06/06/italia-aderisce-ad-accordo-per-olio-di-palma-sostenibile_394922ad-42f8-4e25-a245-51ffb63ba00c.html
(3) Italy on closer inspection has distinguished itself, once again in the positive, for being the first ‘palm oil free’ country https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/idee/’palm-oil-free’-the-success-of-vero-‘made-in-italy’-makes-breaks-in-the-lobby-of-rspo, thanks to our petition https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/consum-attori/olio-di-palma/stop-all’palm-oil. With one exception https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/idee/olio-di-palma-la-petizione-‘ferrero-think about it’
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
