In a scene reflective of their simian mentality, Greenpeace campaigners abseiled into Nestle's annual shareholders meeting on Thursday to urge the food giant to stop using palm oil they alleged were harvested from rainforest destruction.

An AFP photographer saw the two activists break through the roof and abseil into the hall with mountaineering gear. They hung a banner with the slogan "Nestle, Give the orangutans a break!" -- in a play on a Nestle marketing slogan -- and remained dangling about 20 metres (66 feet) above the shareholders' heads as the meeting continued.

Fellow protestors dressed in bright orange orangutan suits handing out leaflets outside the meeting were arrested.

"We are here today to tell Nestle to change its KitKatastrophic policies," said Greenpeace?s International Head of Forest Campaigns, Pat Venditti, in a statement.  "We are urging shareholders to use their influence to ensure Nestle?s products are completely free from Sinar Mas palm oil and paper products," said Venditti.

Nestle announced last month that it was dropping the Indonesian firm, the world's largest palm oil producer, as a supplier following protests, three months after Anglo-Dutch multinational Unilever severed ties.

However, Greenpeace said Thursday that the Swiss food group was now buying indirectly from Sinar Mas through suppliers such as US agricultural commodities giant Cargill.

What these Greenpeacers appear to have left out of the equation is the millions of Indonesian farmers who rely on Sinar Mas to make a living.

Says The Jakarta Globe: ““About 10 million oil palm farmers in 20 Indonesian provinces have stated their readiness to boycott Nestle products. Apkasindo [Indonesian Palm Oil Growers Association] is now preparing to draw up a list of Nestle products on the market,” Asmar Arsjad, Apkasindo secretary general, said over the weekend, adding that if Nestle stops buying from Sinar Mas it would hurt palm oil producers.”

So, as is often the case, environmentalists have indirectly pitted themselves against workers. And given their numbers, these workers may have the upper hand when it comes to persuasion. In addition to the boycott,  Apkasindo called on Indonesian and Malaysian palm oil producers to stop all exports of crude palm oil to the US and the EU if negative campaigns over their environmental practices continue.

In the view of Deforestation Watch, if push comes to shove, the call by Apkasindo which is reminiscent of the oil embargo of the 1970’s which almost brought western economies to the brink of meltdown is not an entirely unreasonable one, considering the patently untruthful, shady and dishonest schemes against palm oil carried out by proxies such as Greenpeace.

No amount of agitating by the merchants of untruth wearing the cloak of an environmental organization can alter the truth.

The truth is that palm oil does not require quite as much land as these Greenpeacers would want the world to believe. After all, all the palm oil planted in this world occupies less than 1% of the world agricultural land. Yet palm oil accounts for more than 30% of the world’s edible oil output!

With a yield of 4 to 5 metric tons per hectare, which is close to ten times the productivity of competing oil seeds, palm oil has the added advantage of a relatively amazing productive lifespan of 20-30 years.  Compare this with its competitors like rapeseed, soy and sunflower which are regularly planted and rooted each year at harvest time.

Deforestation Watch would like to pose this question to Greenpeace: “ How can they fail to notice that many more acreages are annually planted with rapeseed, soy and sunflower and rooted, planted and rooted and planted and rooted to get far less oil than palm oil is able to extract from far less acreages planted and not rooted for the next 20-30 years?”

After all, if it is the carbon loss from the destruction that these Greenpeacers are concerned about, let us do a complete computation then, for instance, over a 20 or 30 year period.

Further, we should also factor in the environment damage caused by the soil and fertilizer runoff.

Why does Greenpeace shut its eyes to the fact that for every acre of palm oil they condemn, they are indirectly supporting 16 or more acres dedicated to rapeseed, soy and sunflower as they all produce about the same amount of edible oil. Similarly, to substitute the palm oil production that will potentially be curtailed if their anti-palm oil campaigns were they to succeed, they need an exponetial factor of that number of acres of palm oil to get from their beloved soy, sunflower, rapeseed or any other edible oilseed.

Palm oil is popular with food manufacturers for several reasons.

First, as a function of its high productivity, it is relatively cheap. Secondly, as a vegetable oil, it is trans fat and cholesterol free. Thirdly, as a cooking oil, it is relatively tolerant of high cooking temperatures, making it a preferred edible oil for use in food manufacturing, baking and fast food chains. Finally, palm oil is naturally endowed with heart friendly vitamins such as Co-Enzyme Q10, beta-carotenes and tocotrienols ( a superior form of Vitamin E).

It is also suitable as a component of biofuel and bio-diesel and in view of its productivity and lower costs, its potential as feedstock in the production of bio-fuel and bio-diesel is enormous.

However, it is precisely for the above reasons that in recent times, palm oil has come increasingly under attack.

With the recent expose that the EU could be wittingly or unwittingly funding the Friends of the Earth’s anti-palm oil campaigns through the European Commission funded DG Environment’s NGO funding program, it behooves one to ask just who is funding these Greenpeace anti-palm oil initiatives?

However, palm oil does not have to put up with these covert trade barriers being erected by proxies like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth for much longer.

As things stand, China and India are fast emerging as the largest purchasers of palm oil and their consumption trends point to the fact that these two countries, together with the rest of the world (apart from the EU) will demand more palm oil than the EU and the USA combined. When push comes to shove, a cartel can be formed and the EU when denied the world’s cheapest cooking oil can then thank Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace and put up with the runaway inflation that such an action will inevitably induce. Perhaps, the time is now considering the fragile state of economic recovery of the EU member states!

Finally, 'treehuggers' like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth should plant their own trees if they truly want to reduce carbon emissions. The EU can also start by withdrawing the subsidies they pay their farmers to produce mountains of commodities they do not need. This way millions of hectares of farmland would be freed for reforestation. If these treehuggers do not wish to plant their own trees, they also loose the right to tell others not to cut down their forest for agriculture purposes. After all, a small country like Malaysia, despite being the world’s largest producer of palm oil for more than a century has managed to retain more than 56% forest cover, which is far higher than the existing forest cover of 25% prevailing in the EU. Indonesia has adopted the 25% forest cover of the EU   as its target.

Deforestation Watch would like to ask this question of Greenpeace: “Why is the 25% forest cover for the EU acceptable to Greenpeace and yet so objectionable for Indonesia, considering that Indonesia is a developing country which is also one of the world’s most densely populated with hundreds of millions of hungry mouths to feed?” It is high time that these teehuggers be exposed for the hypocrites that they really are!  THE END