The zoo’s shrill “Don’t Palm Us Off” campaign is reminiscent of the insufferable, overbearing and tyrannical “My Way or the Highway” decrees of Banana Republic dictators.  Puffed up with self importance and in the typical over exuberant and zealous behavior of girl scouts out on a mission to save the world, the zoo had obviously never stopped to consider the effects and unintended consequences of their actions.

Palm oil is not an industry dominated by multinational corporations. It is the only means to a livelihood for smallholders who contribute more than 40% of the total global production of palm oil in Indonesia and Malaysia, who together supply 85% of the global supply of palm oil. In fact, in Malaysia most of the smallholders came into the cultivation of palm oil through their participation in a wildly successful national poverty eradication program called FELDA.

These smallholders have nothing to do with the problems such as deforestation or orangutan extinction that Melbourne Zoo and their cohorts like the WWF have so recklessly heaped upon them. In fact, in Peninsula Malaysia where most of the smallholdings were started, the orangutans do not even exist in the wild!

In fact, if the Melbourne Zoo had stopped to consider the facts, they’d realize very quickly that something doe not jive with the much ballyhooed 2007 report by the UN that allegedly found that 98% of natural rainforest in Malaysia and Indonesia could disappear by 2022, with palm oil production seen as a key driver of the destruction that sees the equivalent of 300 football pitches of forest wiped out each hour."

Although the irony of a zoo, the ultimate exploiter of animals, campaigning for the very animals that they so cruelly keep in captivity for the enjoyment of a paying public is obviously lost on them, the premises on which Ms Rachel Lowry, Conservation Director of the zoo based their “Don’t Palm Us Off” Campaign is laughable!

The real reason for the zoo's sudden concern for the orangutan and the cynical organization of the anti palm oil campaign is obvious - it brings in donors and cold hard cash!  Sure enough, in recent days, Orange Power has pledged A$150,000 to help fund the zoo's "Don't Palm Us Off" campaign.

Whilst Palmhugger do not begrudge the zoo their fund raising activities, the zoo gave their game away on this one as as at time of writing the zoo has made no attempt to avail itself of a US$7 million Wildlife Conservation matching grant launched by the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC).

It’s easy to launch anti-palm oil campaigns it would appear but not quite as convenient when the zoo has to put its money where its mouth is, as in putting up an equivalent amount for the MPOC matching grant! Suddenly, the plight of the orangutans do not appear to be quite as urgent, important or exigent when  the Melbourne Zoo has to put up its own funds to qualify for the matching grant! The hypocrisy of their anti-palm oil campaign is obviously lost on them!

Apparently, nobody has yet apprized Ms Lowry that the UN’s Environment Program (UNEP) credibility has sunk as low as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) who’d embarrassed the UNEP with their rampant reliance on unreliable sources to justify their claims.

Clearly no one had advised Ms Lowry that although the UNEP sounds officious enough, they are not renowned for fact checking. For instance, the chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had used bogus claims that Himalayan glaciers were melting to win grants worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Rajendra Pachauri's Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), based in New Delhi, was awarded up to £310,000 by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the lion's share of a £2.5m EU grant funded by European taxpayers.

(see: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6999975.ece).

Obviously, no one has yet advised the UNEP that their claims on palm oil deforestation makes them look silly as their claims, if true,  would mean that Malaysia would have forest cover of just 2% in 11 years time.

However, the soundbites of frivolous claims such as “over 300 football fields being cleared every hour” are bound to appeal. These "environmentalists" know that such frivolous claims are not likely to be investigated; certainly not in SE Asia where topographical surveys and maps are not as up to date as in the west.

If we examine the facts, it is indisputable that Malaysia had been the world's largest producer for more than a century. Yet after planting palm oil for more than a hundred years, the country can still boast forest cover of 52%! Remember that Malaysia is a small country with a land mass that’s smaller than most Australian States.

That it can be so is due in large part to the hyper yielding nature of palm oil which has an inherent yield that is up to ten times higher than its competitors.  In fact palm oil is planted on only 0.23% of the world’s agricultural land and yet it produces a staggering 30% of the world’s supply of edible oil, which makes it currently the world’s market leader in edible oil.

It would be instructive to consider what would happen if palm oil planters were to give in to the shrill demands of rabble-rousers and agitators like Melbourne Zoo and choose to plant another edible oil crop instead of palm oil?

The environmental costs would be up to ten times higher as the average palm oil yield per year is nearly 6 times that of its nearest competitor, rape seed which is Australia's third most important crop, 8 times that of sunflower and 10 times that of soybean.

Imagine the deforestation and devastation in the 'developed' countries and tropical forests if oil palm is prevented from production and expansion to meet the world's demand for oils and fats. The oil palm is a perennial tree crop and in no way, can the other competing annual crops be more 'green' or sustainable.


In the final analysis, suffice it for Deforestation Watch aka Melbourne Zoo Watch to ask whether the same degree of hostility and animosity towards palm oil would still exist if palm oil was not quite as hyper yielding as it currently is. Would the market still feel as threatened with the productivity and consequent low cost of palm oil that competitors felt it necessary to indulge in the kind of skullduggery, slush funds, payola and hired “environmental” and “civil society” groups to rein in palm oil with anti-palm oil campaigns? THE END.