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FOE's Tissue of Environmental Lies on Palm Oil |
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Written by Jon Tomczyk
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Thursday, 09 October 2008 |
 This is an interesting story of a typical environmental scam.
In 1989, a freelance investigative journalist working with ROLLING STONE magazine was invited to attend a press conference in Paris, France.
Held in one of the most sumptuous restaurants in Paris, the journalists were feted with champagne, caviar and foie gras. They were given an overview of how the rock star STING, the former lead singer of the Police and now solo artist and a couple of associates were going to stop the destruction of the Amazon rainforest by starting a new charitable foundation called the Rainforest Foundation.
However, this journalist knew more than a little about the Amazon issue and something about the press conference just didn't add up. Not the least of which was the extravagant spending on a press conference purporting to be for a charity. So an independent investigation was begun for ironically, ROLLING STONE magazine.
What became quite evident upon investigating the hard evidence was that the Rainforest Foundation was a scam, the entire basis for its creation a lie, the goal being to defraud the public and the stated objectives of the foundation merely a pretext. Amazingly, the truth was revealed by the very participants in the fraud, namely Sting (Gordon Sumner), his common-law wife, the actress Trudie Styler, and a Belgian photographer named Jean Pierre Dutilleux.
The allegations of malfeasance were published in the January 1990 Paris edition of ROLLING STONE and distributed throughout the world. Neither Sting (Sumner), Styler nor Dutilleux took any legal action because the allegations documented were true. The ROLLING STONE story was used as a blueprint for a WORLD IN ACTION documentary broadcast in England. Sting and his cohorts tried to claim that the show was inaccurate, but the British authorities determined that the allegations were true.
Waving the banner of ecological concern, he had quite publicly stepped to the forefront of this burning issue. Armed with a group of ‘pop’-environmentalists, he had begun a worldwide campaign to single-handedly raise public consciousness.
That may be true, but he was also trying to raise money. He was asking the public to donate funds to his charity, and that changes everything.
People who solicit money from the general public are always subject to scrutiny, whether it is a clouchard in the street, or the cancer society in the post.
Palm oil is all too familiar with environmental scams, having been a victim of anti-palm oil campaigns initiated by “environmental” organizations such as the Friends of the Earth (FOE), Greenpeace and lately the Rainforest Action Network (RAN).
The common denominator amongst all these organizations is the solicitation for funds. That by itself is not a red flag as there are many wonderful charitable organizations which were created with honest goals and true aims, trying to stop deforestation and to protect the indigenous populations.
However, the trouble with FOE, Greenpeace and RAN’s anti-palm oil campaigns was the fact that they were all founded on faulty premises - that palm oil was causing massive deforestation and threatening the extinction of the orang utan.
On October 7th 2008, FOE published a “report” called: “Malaysian Palm Oil: Green Gold or Green Wash”. In this 70-page long “report” FOE alleges that the Malaysian State of Sarawak is developing large-scale plantations at breath-taking speed having overexploited its timber resources and depleted its forests. The “report” contends that oil palm plantations are being expanded at the expense of tropical forests.
For one, the agriculture to forest land ratio in Sarawak currently stands at 8:76. Read that AGAIN. Agricultural land in Sarawak is currently only 8%. How could it even be remotely possible for Sarawak to be expanding palm oil plantations “at the expense of tropical forests”? Whatever plantations that are established in Sarawak are clearly established on previously logged over areas, areas that have been, in FOE’s own words “overexploited …for timber resources”. How replanting previously logged over areas with palm oil constitutes expansion “at the expense of tropical forests, FOE does not say. But says Paul de Clerck, Friends of the Earth International Corporates Campaigner: “It is high time for Europe to limit its demand for palm oil products and halt the use of edible oils for energy use.” This gives a clue as to the real reasons for the FOE “report” – palm oil has to be reigned in to preserve western hegemony for the threat that it poses to western oilseed crops such as soy, rapeseed and sunflower!
Secondly, how could it be remotely possible for palm oil to be causing massive deforestation when Malaysia, the erstwhile largest producer of palm oil still has 65% forest cover? This was despite the country producing palm oil for over a century! This 65% forest cover is far higher than the typical 20% found in the countries of the industrial west from which FOE, Greenpeace and RAN hail.
Thirdly, RAN claims in its website that the orang utan would become extinct by 2011. The Palm Oil Truth Foundation has to ask, just how could it be even remotely possible for such extinction to take place when estimates of orang utan population in the wild in Borneo alone currently stands at between 45,000 and 69,000! That is also not taking into account the many orang utan conservation centers in Borneo and Malaysia.
To the Palm Oil Truth Foundation, what is most troubling is the sneaky suspicion that these anti-palm oil campaigns by FOE, Greenpeace and RAN are motivated more by the desire to keep their funding tap flowing than by a true concern for the orang utans and the rainforest. If they were truly concerned about the orang utan they should walk their talk and invest in forest and orang utan conservation centers, or better still, invest in palm oil plantations and use the proceeds to develop and propagate sustainable planting practices. THE END. |
OK Mr. Troll, I'll bite! If they are hilarious then you are the circus clown! What's so hilarious about all of you environmental types banding up to crowd out a third world commodity? Surely you can all live and let live. But no, all of you are only interested in the payola, the greenbacks that greeze your dirty fingers! Posted by Shawnee, on October 22, 2008 at 4:58
You guys are hilarious. FOE and RAN oppose industrial soy and corn as well as coal and oil. Posted by mongabay, on October 10, 2008 at 0:44
It's a well known fact that the unemployable usually land up in environmental outfits like the FOE, where they thrive. Suits their mischief-making and self destructive personalities to a T! Posted by Jake J, on October 9, 2008 at 8:45
No dis but the crooks-in-trainin at FOE should throw in the dishcloth on palm oil instead of sloshing in the mud and bringing the whole environmental movement down with them. Posted by small tymer, on October 9, 2008 at 8:18
The bat-brained rascals at FOE deserved to be spanked like this *%@#$^& Posted by Shawnee, on October 9, 2008 at 7:58
Suppositions? Spank the FOE and RAN. DIRTY DIRTY DIRTY FOE and RAN! Posted by J. Spencer, on October 9, 2008 at 7:40
Tomczyk, you are smearing FOE and RAN with suppositions! Posted by TD, on October 9, 2008 at 6:28
Thanks for this heads up on FOE's dirty tricks on Palm Oil. Now I've got to get all my friends to wash their brains with bleach to stop identifying with FOE's causes. Posted by Wilson, on October 9, 2008 at 6:19
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FOE's Tissue of Environmental Lies on Palm Oil 
