Saturday, May 8, 2010

Brazil launches major push for sustainable palm oil in the Amazon

Palm oil
The palm oil program marks a new focus for Brazil, which currently produces about 110,000 metric tons of crude palm oil per year, a fraction of the amount produced by market leaders Indonesia (16.9 million metric tons in 2008) and Malaysia (15.8 m tons), according to the FAO.

Photo courtesy of Dennis Clark/Flickr

2 comments:

  1. This looks like a disturbing development against preservation of virgin growth rain forest.

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  2. I don't support this plan by the Brazilian government. The Palm Oil industry has created lots of destruction on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo. The same thing will happen in Brazil over time. The palm oil companies do not care about the forest or the wildlife or the indigenous people. They care about making money first and making money second.

    Planting Palm trees on deforested land will lead to less biodiversity. It will also, in the long term, lead to more deforestation - IMO!

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