The global economy will look vastly different in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed over 200,000 lives worldwide at the time of writing. Many countries have unveiled stimulus packages to help keep their economies afloat. Malaysia is no exception, with its US$57 billion stimulus package – a substantial sum for an economy of its size.
Covid-19 has also uncovered the grave risk that the world faces from deforestation. Prior to the crisis, many scientists had warned that deforestation and other industrial processes that encroach into wildlife habitats and natural ecosystems are raising the risk of exotic diseases jumping to humans. In a sense, Covid-19 is a dry run for the next, potentially worse, pandemic. If deforestation continues, it will increase the risk of new disease outbreaks.
This is why it is urgent for the world to support Malaysia’s managed forestry polices, which allow space for both the wilderness and sustainable palm oil. The rainforests of the Malaysian peninsula are believed to be the oldest and some of the most biologically diverse forests in the world. This rainforest eco-region extends across Peninsular Malaysia to the extreme southern tip of Thailand.
It is often forgotten that Malaysian authorities have gone to great lengths to preserve the ecological diversity of the forest system, in what serves as a paradigmatic example of the possibilities of balancing sustainable industrial growth with planetary boundaries.
The Malaysian palm oil industry has been developed sustainably, with support from the government in preventing the destruction of forests and wildlife habitats. Data from the Ministry of Water, Land and Natural Resources confirm that more than half of Malaysia’s land area – 55.3%, or 18.3 million ha – is covered by forests.
This exceeds the 50% pledge made by then Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. Thirty-five percent of the country’s plant species are found nowhere else in the world. Although there has been rapid economic development over the years, the government is committed to preserving the rich biodiversity of the rainforests.
Bolstering sustainability
In line with global goals, Malaysia has enhanced sustainable forest management and mainstreamed biodiversity programmes into its socio-economic development agenda, post-2020. This includes increasing Totally Protected Areas from 13.2% to 20% by 2025, as set out in the National Policy on Biological Diversity and a five-year 100 million trees planting campaign.
Mandatory regulations under the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) certification scheme have restricted the planting of oil palm on peatland and in permanent forest reserves. The scheme also encourages efforts to enhance the oil palm yield, instead of expanding cultivation, and this has shown significant results.
Malaysia has partnered with the World Wildlife Fund to establish the WWF-Malaysia’s Forest for Life Programme. This organisation works to improve forest preservation and management practices, paying particular attention to the restoration of degraded areas where critical corridors are required by wildlife for safe travel throughout their habitats.
The WWF’s Forest Conversion Initiative works with producers, investors and retailers around the world to ensure that expansion of oil palm plantations does not threaten High Conservation Value Forests. New technologies, such as radar and drone flights, have been applied to ensure that such mandates are followed, even in remote regions of Malaysia.
Scientific research has continually shown that phasing out palm oil – which is integral to a wide variety of consumer products – will only worsen environmental problems, because alternative vegetable oils are far less efficient. They use up more land, fertiliser, water and pesticides; so, switching to such oils would drive greater levels of deforestation, for example.
Simultaneously, it must be remembered that palm oil is a major GDP component of developing countries like Malaysia, and specifically plays a crucial role in lifting hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers out of poverty. A palm oil boycott would not only be environmentally destructive, but would devastate poverty-alleviation efforts and undermine progress in developing economies.
Palm oil should further be recognised as playing a significant role in meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). If produced sustainably, it can contribute to at least three of these goals.
Palm oil is consumed in one form or another by roughly 50% of the global population. It is the world’s most popular cooking oil. Sustainable palm oil can thus play a key role in SDG Number 2, to achieve ‘zero hunger’.
Palm oil meets the aims of SDG Number 8 for ‘decent work and economic growth’. For instance, the industry provides a livelihood to some 3.5 million people worldwide, from Ghana to Papua New Guinea. Sustainably produced palm oil further backs SDG Number 15, with its emphasis on management and land usage.
Sustainable palm oil – a Green option
The European Union (EU) released its ‘Green New Deal’ in December 2019 as a milestone strategy document to meet set environmental goals. Among other objectives, it states that the 26-member alliance will produce ‘no net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050’.
The ambitious plan calls for new measures designed to prevent further environmental damage due to climate change, including reducing carbon emissions by 55% ahead of 2030. This is a step toward full carbon neutrality by 2050. The plan also calls for an emissions trading system for all transport sectors, including maritime, aviation and surface traffic. Under the Green New Deal, a significant component of the EU’s clean transport plan will come from biofuels.
Yet, a recent report shockingly points out that the world has made ‘almost no progress’ in creating a sustainable system for power and electricity. Over half of the EU’s member-states are lagging behind in meeting their approved emissions standards and goals.
The Green New Deal was revealed not long after the EU decided to ban palm oil for biodiesel, citing its alleged role in deforestation. The ban arrived just months after the Malaysian government, in September 2018, had declared an explicit commitment to move toward 100% sustainable palm oil production.
The Green New Deal plan may be laudable in that it intends to set a pioneering example for nations around the world. However, it lacks joined-up thinking and ignores the efforts and experience of developing nations like Malaysia in the field of biodiversity.
Instead of taking a combative approach, the EU should recognise that palm oil ought to be dealt with as an opportunity. As recently as 2017, 51% of the EU’s palm oil consumption was as a biofuel for automobiles. There is no reason why sustainable palm oil cannot continue to fulfil this role. The EU could work with leading producers like Malaysia in observing how the MSPO standard works and by reviewing the data.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature had published a landmark report proving this point in 2018. Its findings have been supported by a study published in March 2020, in the academic journal Nature Sustainability. This concluded that ‘there is neither an economic nor an environmental case for the substitution of palm with vegetable oils or exotic oils on a large scale’.
The study went further than looking at merely the most commercially viable competitors to palm oil. It also studied oils that are not currently commercially competitive, such as coconut oil, microbial single cell oils and shea butter. Alternative crops were considered not solely on environmental criteria, but from the technical and economic perspectives as well.
‘Large-scale replacement with alternative crop oils, such as sunflower [or] rapeseed, or exotic oils like coconut oil and shea butter, presents significant sustainability and technical challenges,’ the report states. (emphasis added)
It also notes that palm oil is challenging to replace as a product because it is very versatile; it is used in a wide range of cooking, food and other consumer goods products, as well as fuels, but is also cheap to produce compared to the alternatives.
Brussels envisages that most of the anticipated rise in demand for biofuels will come from domestic sources, such as soybean and rapeseed oil, as well as synthetic fuels. The problem is that expansion of soybean and rapeseed cultivation would require more land, water and energy to produce the same quantity of biofuel as palm oil delivers. The EU ban on palm oil therefore threatens the very goal of the Green New Deal.
There are few other options. Single cell oils from algae or yeast are years away from being commercially viable. Researchers are working on a report, due later this year, to suggest just how far into the future that may be.
It only remains for the EU to acknowledge that sustainable palm oil – available here and now – is best-positioned to assist the transition to a green future in its transport network.
MPOC
