Borneo 11: Oil Palm

Look at the list of ingredients on pretty much any processed food product in your home. Usually, close to the beginning is palm oil. There is an enormous global demand for palm oil, leading to the replacement of tropical forests by a single crop, Oil Palm. Flying into any city in Southeast Asia you will see vast areas of Oil Palm. The view above was taken flying into Lahad Datu, but the view is identical coming into Kuala Lumpur.

Huge areas in Borneo have already been cleared for Oil Palm plantations and the greatest threat to maintaining unlogged tropical forest is their continuing expansion. New areas around the Danum Conservation Area are already slated for conversion to Oil Palm. The economics of Oil Palm are so lucrative that it is fast becoming the only product in Southeast Asia. In Borneo, even cocoa (chocolate) is disappearing to Oil Palm.

If the global demand for palm oil crashes, although this is hard to imagine, or a pest runs rampant through these monocultures, the economy of Southeast Asia would be devastated. Still, for those of us from the west, we have little moral high ground. The replacement of huge areas in Canadian forests by Lodgepole Pine is little different, except that in British Columbia we have already seen what happens when a pest (mountain pine beetle) hits a monoculture. While this has devastated the economy of interior logging communities in British Columbia, we at least are part of a much more diversified economy at the national level. This isn't true for Southeast Asia.

Photo Credits: Me