“Truth will do well enough if left to shift for herself. She seldom has received much aid from the power of great men to whom she is rarely known & seldom welcome. She has no need of force to procure entrance into the minds of men. Error indeed has often prevailed by the assistance of power or force. Truth is the proper & sufficient antagonist to error”
Notes on Religion (October 1776), published in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson : 1816-1826 (1899) edited by Paul Leicester Ford, v. 2, p. 102
When I contemplate on the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson as he penned those illuminating lines, I can’t help but see how the questionable anti-palm oil campaigns of suspect “civil society” outfits like the Auckland Zoo and the Philly Zoo will eventually and inevitably unravel when the truth outs the error of the zoo’s ways.
Launching “Orangutan Caring Week”, Auckland Zoo Primate team leader, Amy Robbins said shrilly, “With just 6,600 Sumatran orangutans left in the wild, the race to save these extraordinary animals has never been more urgent.” She continued, ““In Indonesia, 3,400km2 of rainforest and peat swamp forest is being converted into oil palm plantations every year. In Kiwi-speak that’s 54 rugby fields an hour!”
Children coming for the weekend activities will be able to hang like an orangutan on the kids’ bungy trampolines, have their face painted, and with the grown-ups, watch trapeze artists performing orangutan-styled sets.
Later in the week, those with a competitive streak can get a team of two to four people together for The Great Ape Race, which the Zoo is running with help from its friends at Lactic Turkey Events.
However, the zoo gave their game away on this one when they promised sample bags of palm oil-free goodies will be available to the first 500 visitors for a gold coin donation!
The fact that the zoo has clearly coordinated their event with the Philly Zoo which “coincidentally” and strangely launched their “Year of the Orangutan” at the end of 2011 (early November 2011), smacks of a carefully planned, coordinated and well funded campaign to discredit palm oil. It certainly appeared that the exigencies and need to show solidarity resulted in the Philly Zoo’s incongruent selection of launch date as one would normally associate a “Year of Anything” campaign to be launched on New Year Day!
Says Andrew Baker, the zoo's chief operating officer: “These could be the first of the modern great apes to go extinct, and could happen in our lifetime.” He later claimed that the exotic animal could go extinct by 2025.
Deforestation watch aka Medlbourne Zoo Watch has a message for these two hypocritical organizations. If you truly care for the orangutans, they have no business sitting in your man-made prisons! Release them back to the wild where they belong. After orangutans are tropical animals totally unsuited for the severe winters of New Zealand and Philadelphia!
At least the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) has launched something more consistent with real love and care for the orangutans. The Council had launched a US$7 Million matching grant called the “The Malaysian Palm Oil Wildlife Conservation Fund”. At least they are not so crass as to appeal for gold coin donations before they put in their money where their mouth is!
Has the Philly Zoo or the Auckland Zoo made any attempts to avail themselves of this matching grant? It would appear that their love for the orangutan suddenly is not quite so great when they have to put up their own zoo’s funds to qualify for the matching grant!
As for the hype that “54 rugby fields an hour” are being cleared in Indonesia, perhaps Mrs Robbins of the Auckland Zoo could explain how Malaysia which had been the world’s largest producer of palm oil for over a century could still manage to retain forest cover of 59.50% (see CIA’s World Factbook 2011) almost double New Zealand’s forest cover of 31.87% and dwarfing Australia’s dismal forest cover of 19%? Remember that Malaysia is a small country with a land mass just 20% larger than New Zealand.
The truth is that palm oil is grown on only 0.23% of the world’s agricultural lands and yet produces a staggering 30% of global supply of edible oil. This is due to palm oil’s inherent hyper yield nature which at 4-5 metric tons per hectare overwhelms its closest competitors like rapeseed, soy and sunflower by up to a whopping 10 times?
Whilst its competitors have probably reached the limit of further yield gains through genetic engineering, the palm oil industry has already developed strains that have exhibited yields of 10 tons per hectare and according to the prediction of experts can probably reach 20 tons per hectare before it hits its genetic limits!
Deforestation Watch aka Melbourne Zoo Watch is compelled to ask “Would palm oil still attract this much flak if the crop was not quite that overwhelmingly hyper yielding and consequently, price competitive?” It’s certainly food for thought! THE END
|
