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- Posted September 24, 2012 by
- DeforestatnW Follow
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Palm Oil: The European Commission sliding down the slippery slope towards infamy!
A friend who lives in Singapore told me about an old Chinese greeting. Instead of “How are you?” people would ask “Have you eaten until you are full?” The greeting likely originated during a time when food was scarce and many people did not know when they would have their next meal. When food was available, it was advisable to eat until they were full. The same customary greeting is used daily in Malaysia and Indonesia.
The cultural significance of that greeting cannot be understated. It shows that the primary concern of people living in the region is basically survival. Coming from a country like China where famine is not an uncommon occurrence, the immigrants evolve a mindset where filling their stomachs is not something they take for granted, like people in the West do.
That cultural difference, unfortunately, is something that appears lost on the mandarins who walk the halls of power in the Office of the Environmental Directorate of the European Commission. Preoccupied with protecting the EU’s own edible oil industries, these officials did not hesitate to take the low road, funding anti-palm oil campaigns by green groups that they are aware are based on manufactured and false evidence!
In 2005, the supposed Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) published a “report” called “Cruel Oil: How palm oil harms health, rainforest and wildlife” in which they made wild and unsubstantiated claims against the palm oil industry.
The report was later exposed as having been prepared with the assistance of Aid Environment listed as partners with Hivos — a Netherlands based civil society group with direct links to campaigns in Indonesia. Hivos, in turn, is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs for up to 67% of its annual 100m Euro budget.
More recently, an academic study by researchers Caroline Boin and Andrea Marchesetti entitled “Friends of the EU.”(Vide: http://www.policynetwork.net/accountability/publication/friends-eu) showed that the EU, through its environmental ministries and commissions is involved in funding up to 70% of the operating budgets of FOE EU.
If that was not bad enough, Italian think tank, Libertiamo last month blasted the whole shameful sham wide open when they published a study entitled “Taxpayer Funding, NGO Collusion and Manufactured Crises: A Case Study of Malaysia and Palm Oil.” In this study, Libertiamo points out that since 2005, the European Commission (EC) has provided nearly €5million (MYR 19.7 million) to the World Wildlife Fund and €4 million (MYR 15,8 million) to Friends of the Earth. Climate Action Network (CAN) also received nearly €1 million (MYR 3.9 million) in the past two years alone.
Says Libertiamo: European governments are spending significant sums ostensibly to engage in environmental advocacy in the developing world. In reality, their primary concern is to protect the EU’s own indigenous edible oilseed industries such as sunflower and rapeseed oil, which are hapless and unable to compete with the hyper yielding palm oil on the open market!
What is really sad about this act of bad faith by the EC is that their callous actions seriously impacts on the lives of smallholders, who collectively contribute a staggering 40% of global palm oil production! These small farmers depend on the cultivation of palm oil for their livelihood and many of these farmers came into palm oil cultivation by participating in government run poverty eradication programs such as the FELDA schemes which had enable them to drag themselves out of poverty and enjoy a decent standard of living. Some of these farmers have put their children through school with some up to the tertiary level.
Yet, the callous officials in the EC can concoct a slippery slope that has taken the EC down the ignominious path of lies and manufactured evidence. Are the stakes so high that the EC has to resort to such vile and vicious schemes just to peg palm oil back?
Note: Deforestation Watch aka Melbourne Zoo Watch was originally established to drive green issues on palm oil mainstream. However, Deforestation Watch has in the course of its existence evolved into Melbourne Zoo Watch and now considerable time and energy is spent on exposing the sly misdeeds and devious schemes of the Melbourne Zoo in using palm oil to surreptitiously raise funds for the zoo. www.deforestationwatch.org
The cultural significance of that greeting cannot be understated. It shows that the primary concern of people living in the region is basically survival. Coming from a country like China where famine is not an uncommon occurrence, the immigrants evolve a mindset where filling their stomachs is not something they take for granted, like people in the West do.
That cultural difference, unfortunately, is something that appears lost on the mandarins who walk the halls of power in the Office of the Environmental Directorate of the European Commission. Preoccupied with protecting the EU’s own edible oil industries, these officials did not hesitate to take the low road, funding anti-palm oil campaigns by green groups that they are aware are based on manufactured and false evidence!
In 2005, the supposed Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) published a “report” called “Cruel Oil: How palm oil harms health, rainforest and wildlife” in which they made wild and unsubstantiated claims against the palm oil industry.
The report was later exposed as having been prepared with the assistance of Aid Environment listed as partners with Hivos — a Netherlands based civil society group with direct links to campaigns in Indonesia. Hivos, in turn, is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs for up to 67% of its annual 100m Euro budget.
More recently, an academic study by researchers Caroline Boin and Andrea Marchesetti entitled “Friends of the EU.”(Vide: http://www.policynetwork.net/accountability/publication/friends-eu) showed that the EU, through its environmental ministries and commissions is involved in funding up to 70% of the operating budgets of FOE EU.
If that was not bad enough, Italian think tank, Libertiamo last month blasted the whole shameful sham wide open when they published a study entitled “Taxpayer Funding, NGO Collusion and Manufactured Crises: A Case Study of Malaysia and Palm Oil.” In this study, Libertiamo points out that since 2005, the European Commission (EC) has provided nearly €5million (MYR 19.7 million) to the World Wildlife Fund and €4 million (MYR 15,8 million) to Friends of the Earth. Climate Action Network (CAN) also received nearly €1 million (MYR 3.9 million) in the past two years alone.
Says Libertiamo: European governments are spending significant sums ostensibly to engage in environmental advocacy in the developing world. In reality, their primary concern is to protect the EU’s own indigenous edible oilseed industries such as sunflower and rapeseed oil, which are hapless and unable to compete with the hyper yielding palm oil on the open market!
What is really sad about this act of bad faith by the EC is that their callous actions seriously impacts on the lives of smallholders, who collectively contribute a staggering 40% of global palm oil production! These small farmers depend on the cultivation of palm oil for their livelihood and many of these farmers came into palm oil cultivation by participating in government run poverty eradication programs such as the FELDA schemes which had enable them to drag themselves out of poverty and enjoy a decent standard of living. Some of these farmers have put their children through school with some up to the tertiary level.
Yet, the callous officials in the EC can concoct a slippery slope that has taken the EC down the ignominious path of lies and manufactured evidence. Are the stakes so high that the EC has to resort to such vile and vicious schemes just to peg palm oil back?
Note: Deforestation Watch aka Melbourne Zoo Watch was originally established to drive green issues on palm oil mainstream. However, Deforestation Watch has in the course of its existence evolved into Melbourne Zoo Watch and now considerable time and energy is spent on exposing the sly misdeeds and devious schemes of the Melbourne Zoo in using palm oil to surreptitiously raise funds for the zoo. www.deforestationwatch.org
- TAGS:
- palmhugger,
- palm,
- oil,
- hugger
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