The Palm Oil Problem

Palm oil is forecast to be the world’s most produced and internationally traded edible oil by 2012. In Southeast Asia, Malaysia and Indonesia account for 83% of production and 89% of global exports.

Palm oil is grown as an industrial plantation crop, often (especially in Indonesia) on newly cleared rainforest or peat-swamp forests rather than on already degraded land or disused agricultural land. Since the 1970s, the area planted with palm oil in Indonesia has grown over 30-fold to almost 12,000 square miles. On the other hand, the area in which Malaysia devoted to palm oil has increased 12-fold to 13,500 square miles.

elephant-over-fence-2-by-indri-ultimate-wildlife-toursSince then, cultivation of palm oil has been the direct cause to a host of devastating effects on endangered wildlife species, specifically the Asian elephants. For instance when the destruction of feeding grounds and shrinking habitats forces elephants into close quarters with human settlements, they raid fruit orchards and palm-oil plantations in their quest for food, which leaves them vulnerable to retaliatory killings by farmers and villagers. Such phenomenon can be seen in the Sumatran city of Bandar Lampung, where the continuing destruction of trees for palm-oil plantations has driven wild elephants to rampage in residential areas, destroy crops, and kill two people. Such human-elephant confrontation is now believed to be the main cause of elephant deaths in Southeast Asia.

Further, areas of palm oil disrupt animal social systems by hindering migration patterns and blocking travel corridors. Here’s why! Because of their immense size, Asian elephants need to be able to move over large distances under forest cover than most other mammals. However as forests continue to shrink and their ancient migratory routes are cut off, they may become confined to small fragments of their once contiguous habitat. Unable to mix with other herds, they run the risk of inbreeding.

Read More: Threats, Habitat Loss, Human-Elephant Conflict, Genetic Threat