Download Palm oil is the most widely used vegetable oil in the world.
Global demand is surging, prices are going up, and the industry’s profits too.
But the expansion of palm plantations is also considered one of the main drivers of deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia.
As a result major companies such as Nestlé or Unilever have boycotted some local palm oil producers.
In response the industry set-up the Round Table for Sustainable Palm Oil, or RSPO, in a attempt to promote more environment-friendly practices.
Solenn Honorine reports from a village in Riau, Indonesia, where farmers hope to become the first independent small holders to get the RSPO certification of sustainability.
The sun is about to set, so 29 years old Toto Yulianto and his crew need to work fast.
They are loading huge piles of the red spikey palm fruit on to trucks for processing.
Like each of the 200 families in Dusun Pusaka village Toto owns a three hectares palm plantation.
Five years ago the community made the move from rubber tapping and subsistence farming to palm oil.
“Since we’ve started planting the palm trees, there are a lot of job opportunities for the young people. So the young people can work on the palm oil plantations and get an income. Before we planted it, they were all unemployed, there was nothing to do.”
50 year-old Dahlan is president of the village’s cooperative.
“Before, we earned just enough to feed ourselves, nothing more. Now that we have the palm plantation, we can even think of sending our kids to university. What I hope is that the people from Dusun won’t be left off again, that we can really live in the live in the 21st century.”
Looking out the window to your left and right on the three hour drive from the provincial capital to Dusun Pusaka village ALL you see is rows upon rows of palm trees.
30 years ago Riau was almost entirely covered in thick jungle.
The World Wildlife Fund predicts that if the current rate of deforestation continues 90 percent of Riau’s forests will be gone within five years, mainly to make way for palm oil plantations.
Many Environmentalists such as Greenpeace have called for a monatorium on new plantations.
However Jay Jasmi, who works for the local environmental group Elang, is here to help villagers with their crops.
Dusun Pusaka lies next to one of the few remaining areas of forest in Riau, and he hopes that it can become a buffer zone.
“Of course, palm oil plantations are bad for the environment, that’s what all our research shows. But we have to look at the reality. Here the trees have already been planted, and they will become an even bigger threat if they are not managed properly. So what we hope is that people in the village won’t need to expand their plantations thanks to the intensification of the production. In the end, their income will be good enough to insure their prosperity. That’s our hope.”
Jay says that with more sophiscated techniques, villagers in Dusun Pusaka could produce at least three times more oil that they are now on the same surface of land and get double the profit.
But the villagers want to go beyond a simple increase of productivity.
They want to get a certificate of sustainability for their crops by the Round Table for Sustainable Palm Oil, a regional organization that has drawn a list of 39 criteria to be followed, ranging from forbidding to plant trees on high conservation land to commitment to transparency.
So far, only ten percent of the surfaces planted with palm trees in Indonesia have received the RSPO certification.
All of them are big companies.
Supporters of RSPO say the organization is taking a step towards the good direction.
However Asril Darussamin, a spokesman for the RSPO, says that many obstacles remain.
“The big problem now is the small holders. There are about, let’s say, two million families at least. That’s not easy to talk to them! With the big companies, it’s easy: just come to their office and talk to them! Take for example: the law says you have to conserve the banks of the rivers, right? And the problem is that the land that belongs to the small holders is a piece of land, like, two hectares for example. If you conserve the rivers around their land, it could be that half of their land will disappear!”
In order to be certified by RSPO, the farmers from Dusun Pusaka have set aside 150 hectares of forest as a conservation area, and adopted environment-friendly techniques such as weeding by hand instead of spraying chemicals.
It’s backbreaking work. But Dahlan, president of the village cooperative, says that it’s worth it. You have to think long term.
“Of course, we’re losing in the short term because this forest it doesn’t do anything good to us. But we’re hoping that either the government or private companies will give an economic value to this forest that’s preserved. We also hope that once we’ve received the RSPO certification we’ll also get more transparent prices, where we know everything that comes into the prices, so that the big firms could not manipulate the prices anymore”.
If the farmers from Dusun Pusaka get the sustainability certificate, they could be leading the way for other small holders.
But some environmentalists are skeptical about the RSPO system.
Hardi Baktiantoro the Director of the centre for Orangutan protection or COP.
“The idea of the RSPO is great but the reality on the ground is that nothing has changed. They are still destroying the forests at an alarming rate. Companies that have a record of killing orangutan, burning peat land forest can easily get membership to the RSPO. What is sustainable is if they STOP opening up new forests and use the land that is already cleared.”
