Banning exports has backfired for local farmers.
. But by the 1990s, Robins notes that movements to eliminate trans fat, which are naturally found in the guts of ruminant animals, opened the door back up for palm oil as a “cheap and effective substitute” for artificial trans fats. Between 1995 and 2015, palm oilPalm oil is wrought with environmental issues as well as ethical ones.
Citing these ecological harms, the European Union set goals to phase out palm oil biofuel use by 2030. Some companies have removed palm oil from their products. But the change doesn’t always stick: The UK-based food store chain Iceland had stopped using palm oil, only to resume recently becauseBut some groups, including the International Union for Conservation of Nature , have argued boycotts could lead to even more damage.
, although palm oil farming endangers biodiversity and creatures like orangutans, gibbons, and tigers, swapping out plantations for rapeseed, soy, or sunflower may cause even more biodiversity loss and deforestation.“When you consider the disastrous impacts of palm oil on biodiversity from a global perspective, there are no simple solutions,” IUCN Director General Inger Andersen.
The ban has hurt local farmers even more. “The effect of the export ban on small scale farmers has been enormous because many of them do not have other sources of income,” Mansuetus Darto, head of the Indonesian Oil Palm Farmers’ Union, West Java, told Al Jazeera. The ban compounds economic disruptions that began with COVID-19, Darto said. “So many farmers have struggled, especially in the last two years.
There isn’t an easy answer to fix palm oil production. Cutting off exports from a particular country, be it this oil or fossil fuels, doesn’t make these complex problems disappear. It often leaves those hurting in an even more precarious situation.Sara Kiley Watson is an Assistant Editor at Popular Science, where she has led sustainability coverage since 2021. She started her tenure at PopSci as an intern in 2017 before joining the team full time as an Editorial Assistant in 2019.
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