“Beware the face of evil my son, for it has many faces

But the face it most often will wear is the face of good!”

This subliminal line in a rich baritone intonation rings out most cryptically through the video games machine in the video arcade in Fort Lauderdale as I watch the heavily tattooed teen deeply engrossed in his titanic battles with the forces of evil in the video game.  “How very apt in describing the state of the environmental movement today,” I thought to myself.

Despite the obvious good intentions of the majority there are some in the environmental movement who have sold out on their original agendas and have now obviously become agents for competitors of palm oil.  Deciding that palm oil, which is such an unstoppable force in its inexorable growth in the world market as edible oil and now as feedstock for bio-fuels, these competitors have decided that palm oil’s growth must be checked by any means, fair or foul.

For some environmentalists, global warming has been seized upon as a subject that can lift them out of the tedious bickering of environmental politics and instead allow them to position themselves as humanitarians concerned with the grandest issue of the planet’s survival.  They can capture the moral high ground as defenders of the interests of humanity, in other words wear the altruistic “face of good”.

This would be acceptable so long as these environmentalists carry on their tasks objectively and honorably.  However, the concern of the Palm Oil Truth Foundation is when some of these environmental NGO’s show a willing-ness to compromise on their principles and accept payment from a commercial lobby to carry out a disinformation campaign against a rival commodity.  That is when it is crucial for the objective observer to beware the “face of evil…for the face it most often will wear is the face of good!”

So, it is pertinent to ask just why an environmental NGO should be selected to carry out the hatchet job on palm oil. From the foregoing, it is obvious that an environmental NGO is most suited for this task as to the unaware world, these NGO’s wear the “face of good” and their campaigns would then carry a degree of superficial legitimacy, at least.

In the view of the Palm Oil Truth Foundation, the actions of some environmental NGO’s such as Greenpeace and the oddly named Friends of the Earth (FOE) and their anti-palm oil campaigns certainly reeks of a massive scam and collusion!  

From being environmental groups, Greenpeace and FOE have deviously transformed themselves into shameless lobbies with a twisted extremism and so obviously serving competing edible oil seed lobbies.  It is to Greenpeace’s and FOE’s eternal shame and folly that these once respected environmental groups have degenerated into twisted, nefarious and unethical lobbies - beholden to commercial interests, with a reflexive hostility to all things palm oil that now permeates their increasingly vitriolic and poisonous “Reports”.

How else can we reconcile the obvious disconnect between a supposedly legitimate environmental campaign by environmental organizations such as Greenpeace and FOE against a commodity that is by and of itself, inherently environmentally friendly?

Consider this.  Oil palm plantations, without a doubt is more efficient in sequestering CO2 than virtually all of its competitors.  With a high leaf index, the oil palm plantation serves as part of a planted forest.  Further as a perennial tree crop, the oil palm tree has a productive lifespan of close to 30 years and requires no re-planting within its productive life thus not requiring the ecologically destructive process of tilling, fertilization and fallow lying that is so typical of competing crops like soy, corn, rapeseed and sunflower.

Perhaps the greatest strength of palm oil is its ultra-high yield and productivity.  So productive in fact, that one hectare planted with palm oil will yield close to 4.5 metric tons of oil.  Compare this with the productivity of its competitors such as soy, rapeseed or sunflower which have yields closer to 0.5 metric tons per hectare. Such superior yield should mean that palm oil should have been the most favored oilseed crop for the true environmentalists, as it will result in less deforestation for each unit of production, given the much smaller footprint required for oil palm plantations compared to the competing oil-seeds.

This is borne out by the fact that the State of Sarawak, which has come under increasing attack by these questionable environmental organizations can still boast a an agriculture to forest ratio of 8:76.  If agricultural land in Sarawak remains at just 8%, how can it be true that palm oil is causing massive deforestation as these dubious environmental organizations attempt to allude?

If we juxtapose the 76% tropical rainforest currently standing in Sarawak against the usual 20% standing in the countries of the industrialized West, from which environmental organizations like Greenpeace and FOE hail, it is very difficult to give their views much credence.  

In the view of the Palm Oil Truth Foundation, “environmental organizations” like Greenpeace and FOE fall far short of the standards required of responsible environmental groups of consequence.  Unfortunately, for Greenpeace and FOE, their servitude to commercial interests is now so transparent that their credibility is now called into question by right thinking individuals and even other environmental organizations on a global scale! THE END.