Palm oil destruction is real: we need enforceable standards to stop abuses

A recent posting by the so-called ‘Palm Oil Fact Checker’ questions the motives behind Forest Peoples Programme’s recent sponsorship of indigenous peoples and local NGOs from Indonesia, Cameroon, Liberia, Colombia and Peru to come to Europe. This note is to set the record straight.

Forest Peoples Programme is sponsoring this tour, so that the European Commission and its various directorates, officials in Government agencies and members of the legislature in member countries have a better informed understanding of the problems associated with the palm oil industry and can support the right solutions. The tour was timed to inform the EU process to develop agreed standards for ensuring all imports of palm oil into the EU are ‘sustainable’.

While initial discussions at the EU have focused on the environmental and climate-changing impacts of land and forest clearance for palm oil, most international standards and corporate commitments relating to palm oil give equal emphasis to the need to respect rights, including the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities to their lands and livelihoods. The negative impacts of palm oil expansion on indigenous peoples and local communities are now widely recognised.

That’s why voluntary standard-setting bodies like the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and the Palm Oil Innovators Group (both of which FPP is a member of) require members to respect communities’ land rights and to only develop palm oil on their lands where they have their free, prior and informed consent. For years, FPP has worked with indigenous peoples, local communities and smallholders to make sure that the standards being set really respect their rights.

The problem is that the RSPO standard is not being upheld, even by many RSPO member companies, which is why the RSPO receives so many complaints from communities whose lands are being grabbed against their will. FPP and its partners around the world have provided detailed documentation about these problems working with communities in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Cameroon, Thailand, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Colombia and Peru. And we know that there are equally serious problems in many other countries where we don’t work on palm oil, notably in Central America.

Land grabbing for expanding the global trade in palm oil is a major problem and associated human rights abuses are becoming more and more widely reported. Happily the RSPO is beginning to crack down on malpractice by its members but it still has a long way to go before all RSPO members’ palm oil is conflict-free. The EU however presently accepts imports from many non-certified palm oil producers whose products embody land-grabbing and other human rights abuses. This must end.

Nowhere in FPP’s documentation does it say we are trying to halt the trade in palm oil, but yes we are calling for enforceable standards to protect rights as well as the environment so that the palm oil which is traded is indeed ‘conflict-free’. Maybe it would help if ‘Palm Oil Fact Checker’ could first check its facts!