An information site about palm oil

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Indonesia allocates 18 million hectares of land for palm oil, The Jakarta Post, Dec. 2, 2009

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Why all the fuss about palm oil?

Palm oil is a vegetable oil that is low in transfats.
This fact, along with its relative low cost compared to other oils, has made it one of the most demanded vegetable oils for food industries globally. It is also used in everything else from your washing detergents to cosmetics.

Some form of palm oil product in over 45% of the products you use daily.

Oil palm plantations, where palm oil is produced, are rapidly eating up the rainforests and crucial habitat where species such as Asian elephants, Sumatran tigers and orangutans make their homes.

The clearing of crucial rainforest for palm plantations is also contributing very significantly to the climate crisis.

An aerial view of a palm oil plantation in Malaysia shows the processing plant in the centre of the plantation itself. As a mono culture, palm oil plantations cannot sustain the biodiversity that was in the rainforests.

Palm oil is also being touted as the agrofuel of the future and this is where demand for it could skyrocket.

The palm tree grows quickly to maturity and has the highest yield of any vegetable oil per hectare.

Indonesia and Malaysia are the world's largest producers of palm oil. The two countries together account for over 85% of the world's palm oil supply.

In its rush to capitalize on global demand, Indonesia has, over the past 10 years, expanded its palm oil plantation with reckless disregard for the rich biodiversity that thrives in its rainforests.

Palm oil and global warming

Often wet, swampy rainforests are drained to be cleared for palm oil plantations. As they dry, the peat filled soils release large amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas that has a global warming impact 23 times that of CO2.
The cleared land is highly susceptible to long burning fires that emit large quantities of carbon. Illegally
lit peatland fires in Borneo have for years been one of the largest global sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Fires are used to clear the land because it is cheaper than bulldozing.
It has recently been calculated that 15% of all global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels come from this rainforest destruction. Unfortunately, the international community has no cohesive strategy to address this issue although it is now becoming widely recognised and discussed.
These findings credited to Palm Oil Action.

Palm oil comes in many forms and under many names. In many countries, loose labelling requirements means that palm oil can hide under the generic term "vegetable oil."

Palm Oil names, what to look out for:

Sodium Laureth Sulphate (Can also be from coconut)
Sodium Lauryl Sulphates (can also be from ricinus oil)
Sodium dodecyl Sulphate (SDS or NaDS)
Palmate
Palm Oil Kernal
Palmitate

In cosmetics :