About this iReport
- Posted April 9, 2012 by
- Palmhugger Follow
Location
New York City, New York
New York City, New York
More from Palmhugger
- The Rainforest Action Network in the pantheon of cheats on palm oil!
- The Rainforest Action Network sells out again…on palm oil!
- The Nobel Peace Prize to the EU made trite by the EC!
- RAN joins the ranks of doomsayers and cranks on palm oil: Disproven and Debunked
- RAN starts to limbo lower now in their attacks on Palm Oil
More iReports you should see
The social irresponsibility of green groups towards palm oil
“I love you daddy, good night.” These were the last words of the tragic schoolgirl, 14, who hanged herself, unable to take the constant bullying in school that she had been subjected to for years! Eden Wormer, an eighth grade student at Cascade Middle School in Vancouver, Washington, committed suicide on Wednesday after her efforts at trying to fit in failed.
Her older sister Audri said Eden changed her appearance several times, dying her hair, tanning and getting contact lenses, to get the girls to stop harassing her.
The grieving sister told why her sister chose to take her own life: 'My sister killed herself because of evil, evil people in this world, people that feel like they have to run other people down to make themselves feel better.
Eden often took to her Facebook page to voice her feelings, writing: 'im super funny and out going i love all my friends n family n that includes all my haterz.! :)
The situation that Eden faced is the same one that palm oil smallholders have been stoically facing for decades with schoolyard bully “green” and “civil society” groups such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth (FOE), the WWF and even zoos like the Melbourne Zoo, the Auckland Zoo and the Philly Zoo carrying on concerted anti-palm oil campaigns based on false and ridiculous premises such as palm oil causing such massive deforestation as to threaten the extinction of the orangutan.
The stark double standards exhibited by the green groups over the issue certainly grates.
For instance, “Palm oil producing countries such as Malaysia have permanent forest reserves which take up to 55% of the country’s total land area,” pointed out the CEO of the Malaysian Palm oil Council, Dr Yusof Basiron. “NGOs like Green Peace argue that unconverted areas should be declared as forest through a moratorium on deforestation which essentially means a stop to a developing country like Malaysia from using its potential agricultural land to improve the life of its farmers. It is equivalent to asking the EU farmers to reforest back some 50 % of their agricultural land to help prevent global warming and preserve biodiversity. In all fairness, Greenpeace should aggressively campaign for reforesting 50 % of agricultural land of the UK and EU and if successful, Malaysia should have no problem following the standard set by the EU in terms of land use ratio for agriculture,” he opines.
He further noted that “The oil palm planted area of 4.3 million hectares in Malaysia represents a mere 0.09% of the world agriculture land. Assuming these areas were originally forests, Malaysia’s share of deforestation for world food production is 0.09 %.”
Dr Yusof declared: “I wait to see the NGO global warming scientists’ prediction on the rise in global temperature caused by oil palm cultivation in Malaysia that resulted in 0.09 % of total deforestion via agricultural development. Even doubling the oil palm area may not add substantially to the world deforestation total. However, expanding oil palm may save deforestation by curtailing the rapid expansion of other inefficient land-use oil seed crops which need to be grown otherwise to overcome world shortages.”
Finally, contrary to popular opinion, palm oil is not produced by greedy multinational corporations alone, a picture that these green groups try to paint. In fact, more than 40% of global production comes from smallholders who came into palm oil cultivation by participating in rural poverty eradication schemes. These smallholders unfortunately, are the ones who have to bear the brunt of the socially irresponsible and baffling palm oil campaigns initiated by these green groups!
It’s easy for those in the West to pontificate on this issue but surely like the tormentors of Eden Wormer, it is the height of social irresponsibility for these groups to call for an end to the expansion of palm oil cultivation when it is the main source of livelihood for SE Asia’s poor to drag themselves out of poverty!
Her older sister Audri said Eden changed her appearance several times, dying her hair, tanning and getting contact lenses, to get the girls to stop harassing her.
The grieving sister told why her sister chose to take her own life: 'My sister killed herself because of evil, evil people in this world, people that feel like they have to run other people down to make themselves feel better.
Eden often took to her Facebook page to voice her feelings, writing: 'im super funny and out going i love all my friends n family n that includes all my haterz.! :)
The situation that Eden faced is the same one that palm oil smallholders have been stoically facing for decades with schoolyard bully “green” and “civil society” groups such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth (FOE), the WWF and even zoos like the Melbourne Zoo, the Auckland Zoo and the Philly Zoo carrying on concerted anti-palm oil campaigns based on false and ridiculous premises such as palm oil causing such massive deforestation as to threaten the extinction of the orangutan.
The stark double standards exhibited by the green groups over the issue certainly grates.
For instance, “Palm oil producing countries such as Malaysia have permanent forest reserves which take up to 55% of the country’s total land area,” pointed out the CEO of the Malaysian Palm oil Council, Dr Yusof Basiron. “NGOs like Green Peace argue that unconverted areas should be declared as forest through a moratorium on deforestation which essentially means a stop to a developing country like Malaysia from using its potential agricultural land to improve the life of its farmers. It is equivalent to asking the EU farmers to reforest back some 50 % of their agricultural land to help prevent global warming and preserve biodiversity. In all fairness, Greenpeace should aggressively campaign for reforesting 50 % of agricultural land of the UK and EU and if successful, Malaysia should have no problem following the standard set by the EU in terms of land use ratio for agriculture,” he opines.
He further noted that “The oil palm planted area of 4.3 million hectares in Malaysia represents a mere 0.09% of the world agriculture land. Assuming these areas were originally forests, Malaysia’s share of deforestation for world food production is 0.09 %.”
Dr Yusof declared: “I wait to see the NGO global warming scientists’ prediction on the rise in global temperature caused by oil palm cultivation in Malaysia that resulted in 0.09 % of total deforestion via agricultural development. Even doubling the oil palm area may not add substantially to the world deforestation total. However, expanding oil palm may save deforestation by curtailing the rapid expansion of other inefficient land-use oil seed crops which need to be grown otherwise to overcome world shortages.”
Finally, contrary to popular opinion, palm oil is not produced by greedy multinational corporations alone, a picture that these green groups try to paint. In fact, more than 40% of global production comes from smallholders who came into palm oil cultivation by participating in rural poverty eradication schemes. These smallholders unfortunately, are the ones who have to bear the brunt of the socially irresponsible and baffling palm oil campaigns initiated by these green groups!
It’s easy for those in the West to pontificate on this issue but surely like the tormentors of Eden Wormer, it is the height of social irresponsibility for these groups to call for an end to the expansion of palm oil cultivation when it is the main source of livelihood for SE Asia’s poor to drag themselves out of poverty!
- TAGS:
- palm,
- palmhugger,
- oil,
- hugger
What do you think of this story?
Select one of the options below. Your feedback will help tell CNN producers what to do with this iReport. If you'd like, you can explain your choice in the comments below.
Be and editor! Choose an option below:
iReport welcomes a lively discussion, so comments on iReports are not pre-screened before they post. See the iReport community guidelines for details about content that is not welcome on iReport.
© 2013 Cable News Network. 
Comments