Palm oil in Borneo

Demand for Palm Oil:

• EU consumes 40% more palm oil today than 6 years ago for fuel, food and cosmetics despite warnings of the the unsustainability of palm oil expansion 
• Hugely expanding business- China wants to have 15% of its fuel to be biofuel by 2020
• We use it in many products eg biscuits 
• Malaysia and Indonesia account for over 90 per cent of the world's total oil palm plantation area. 

Economic development positives:

• 'green gold' 
• helps Borneo to develop by creating jobs- 2-3 million people alone in indonesia are involved in the industry
• Malaysia exported 16.7 million tonnes of palm oil in 2010, with a value of about US$15 billion, equivalent to over 9% of the country’s total exports while the indonesian part of the island industry accounted for 12% of the indonesia's total exports 
• In Indonesia, the average income in a complete financial year of an oil palm plantation is up to $2,500 per hectare, compared to only $250 for a rice plantation.

Environmental impacts:

Deforestation must occur in order to make room for palm oil plantations- this has many effects:

• reduces biodiversity 
• palm oil plantations absorb less CO2 from the atmosphere- global warming 
• emissions from oil palm cultivation alone in Indonesia accounted for an estimated 2-9% of all tropical land use emissions (deforestations of tropical rainforests) from 2000 to 2010.
• the destruction of rainforests have endangered the orangutans, Pygmy elephants, sumatran rhino's and clouded leapords. 
• deforestation is also affecting the Dayak community that live in the rainforests as their source of water is destroyed and the materials they use to live are destroyed. 
• 86% of deforestation in Borneo is for palm oil plantations 

Conflicts over industry:

• most plantations are owned by the government and those that are not still get lots of funding
• other small producers cant compete for the land etc 

Responses:

• Transboundary collaboration- enable conservation and sustainable development that improves the welfare of those living on the island while minimizing deforestation, forest degradation and the associated loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.
• a law provided so that for every tree cut down to provide space for a plantation, another tree must be planted elsewhere.