Major Environmental Groups Fight Against the Poor in Developing Nations

Posted on 05-25-2010 | By: admin | 

Category : Environmental Issues, Forest Certification, Forestry, International

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For the large environmental groups, there is a central (mostly closeted)  issue that rises above all others. It  is world population. Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network, Friends of the Earth, etc. have no compassion for people.

The human species is the problem. If there were just fewer of us, then the earth would be so much more “natural”. If we could reduce our industrial footprint, and return to living off the land, then we could all be  “friends of the earth”.

The point is that Greenpeace, and similar organizations don’t believe in sustainability for the human species. The leaders of these groups are cold. They believe that people should be dying. If there were fewer people, there would be fewer poor people. Their lives are not worth living anyway.

We have another great example for you today. The three environmental organizations previously mentioned have been dishonestlycampaigning against growing Palm Oil Trees in the developing world. This growing industry has already pulled millions out of poverty and reduced forest destruction. But they are not the right kind of trees, and they are often grown in plantations, so the environmental groups are opposed to them. The fact that  this growing industry helps people is another problem. This might stimulate an increase in the population.

Read the short story here, Green Guile Exacts High Environmental & Economic Costs. Key passages from the story follow.

I found another story here.

“The only ‘unsustainable’ feature of the palm oil debate is the falsehoods, misrepresentations, and factual errors propagated by the Greenpeace, FoE, and RAN campaigns. World Growth’s new report examines the basis for each of the claim made against palm and finds that, at best, they reflect misunderstandings of facts and, at worst, intentional distortion of the them.”
 
Key Claims and the Facts about Palm Oil:
 
• Claim: A single palm oil plantation can leave forest communities to face poverty, many for the first time. (Rainforest Action Network)
• Fact:  RAN misrepresented independent research which found that the palm oil has rescued at least 6 million people from poverty.
 
• Claim: 85 percent of palm oil in Southeast Asia is grown on industrial plantations. (Rainforest Action Network)
• Fact:  40 per cent of palm oil is produced by small landholders in both Malaysia and Indonesia, not large scale plantations.
 
• Claim: Up to 50 Orangutans are killed every week by the palm oil industry. (Friends of the Earth)
• Fact: Studies by reputable international bodies, such as the FAO,  have found repeatedly that poverty and illegal forest clearance by the poor are the main threat to forest habitat and thereby the Orang-utan, not the palm oil industry which actively supports conservation programs.
 
• Claim: A 2007 UNEP report identified palm oil as the leading cause of rainforest destruction in Malaysia and Indonesia. (Greenpeace)
• Fact:  The report was not endorsed by UNEP, ignores production methods in Malaysia (no land is allowed to be cleared for palm oil) and Indonesia (only land designated for development can be used) and ignores FAO data that poverty drives clearance of forest.
 
• Claim: In Southeast Asia alone 300 football fields are deforested every hour for palm oil. (Greenpeace)
• Fact: Most forest clearance is not for palm oil.  FAO reports global rates of forest clearance are falling globally (now less one percent of forest land per year), as well as in Southeast Asia and in Asia at large, forest areas are expanding not reducing.  It is more relevant that nearly 40 million Indonesians live below the poverty line.
 
 
 

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