This is because, according to the Friends of the Earth and other less conscionable environmental NGO's such as Treehugger and Wetlands, it's actually palm oil that's to blame for global warming!

It doesn't matter that the ocean's reefs are disappearing at a rate that is five times greater than all the forests of the world. It also doesn't matter a jot that a supervolcanic eruption would probably pose a greater threat to human existence on this earth than global warming!

This is the primary concern of Deforestation Watch. It is important for our cause that every claim that is made to prevent deforestation is backed by real solid hard facts! When these Environmental bodies make the absurd claim all throughout the year that no progress was possible on climate change as "palm oil causes deforestation at such a rate that will lead to the extinction of orang utans in the jungles of Borneo, as well as lead to global warming,it will damage our cause in the long term as this pointless posturing ultimately erodes attention from the real exigent issues at hand!  It really doesn't matter to these sensation seeking groups with their pointed lack of objectivity, that the albatross and other seabirds and animals are sliding towards extinction in far greater numbers that would make the miniscule decline of the orangutan population in the wild pale by comparison!

There was a time when the FOE was regarded as a legitimate environmental group and at those times that was probably true.  That the FOE is no longer held in that level of esteem is regrettable, albeit for reasons that are thoroughly self induced and not entirely undeserved!

These days, this environmental group falls far short of the standards required of an environmental group of consequence.  Their singular notoriety emerges from their support of the astonishing lobby for the banning of palm oil both as a source of healthy edible oil and as an ideal feedstock for biofuel.  So convoluted has their position been that palm oil is blamed for an astounding assortment of environmental ills, each one more absurd than the preceding extraordinary claim!

From an environmental group the FOE has morphed into a lobby group with a peculiar and twisted extremism and so beholden to other edible oil industry lobby groups with motives so transparent that it'd make clear plastic look opaque!  It is to the FOE's eternal shame that this once respected environmental group can degenerate into one with a reflexive hostility to everything palm oil that now pulsates through their increasingly vitriolical news releases!  Unfortunately, their claims are getting so ridiculous that even the average person can filter out and expose their errors of fact and interpretation!

Now the Gesellschaft fur bedrohte Volker (GfbV) or the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) headquatered in Luxembourg, have jumped on the bandwagon by demanding for a moratorium on the import of palm oil into the EU on the absurd ground that palm oil cultivation is infringing the fundamental human rights of the indigenous people in the region!

In a position paper making the disingenous claim that the palm oil boom in Europe is driving the destruction of the rainforests of Southeast Asia, the last "green lungs of the world," the GfbV goes on to make the facetious assertion that palm oil is not sustainable as it is "systematically deleterious for indigenous peoples, ignores their land rights and human rights, destroys their livelihood, or seriously disadvantages them!"

It doesn't matter to the GfbV that Malaysia has an enviable record of working to improve the lives of indigenous people and their children, some of whom have now joined the ranks of university graduates and medical doctors! It also doesn't matter to  the GfbV that the Government of Malaysia encourages and supports the full and free engagement of indigenous people in the democratic decision-making process in the country.

It concerns Deforestation Watch when What matters to groups like the GfbV is the mindless drum beating that draws attention away from the needs of real people - sick infants, drug-addled adolescents and women who live in fear of domestic violence!

At the heart of the GfbV's argument is the assumption that any change on traditional indigenous culture is unacceptable.  Such advocacy of indigenous rights in the abstract does nothing to help those indigenous individuals who live in poor health and and poverty.  It is as if these indigenous people have no right to improve their lot in life except to live in the ways that their ancestors did 200 years ago - as if these people and their community, by dint of their ancestry, have forfeited their desire and needs to enjoy the security, income and creature comforts that the developed world takes for granted. It also does not matter to them that unlike Malaysia, Australia has recently very publicly, refused to ratify the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People!

What was that about mad dogs and Englishmen coming out in the midday sun?  Now it looks as though European groups like the GfbV are clamoring to earn the epithet!

It will not be long before these NGO's, bereft of even remotely tangentious grounds to attack palm oil will assert that man made climate change continues because palm oil is distracting world leaders from devising a response to global warming.

The major travesty is that these position papers are published and received without even a squeak of condemnation from other environmental groups and responsible European or world leaders!

It indeed boggles the mind that, no matter how distant or ludicrous the proposition, palm oil is unfairly used as a convenient scapegoat and so often portrayed as guilty with the world's media mindlessly lapping-up and disseminating the great untruths put out by these soon-to-be alphabet soup organizations.

The litany of environmental problems down the years that are supposedly due either to or ascribed to palm oil is astounding - deforestation, destruction of orangutan and sumatran tiger habitat, deprivation of human rights. Deforestation Watch have visited Malaysia and have seen first hand with our own eyes that these allegations are fabricated and largely untrue! If we take it to its logical conclusion, it would not be long before tsunamis, earthquakes, the genocide in Darfur and even 9/11 are blamed on palm oil!

Of course, to Deforestation Watch, some criticism of palm oil can be legitimate, but based strictly on fact and the principles of fairplay and the rules of natural justice. This certainly cannot condone positions taken when it is based on fairytales - and ugly ones at that!

Little by little, each false and disingenuous claim peddled by these unconscionable organizations and not condemned allows larger ones to flourish until the point is reached where every environmental disaster is blamed on palm oil!  That will only lead to our cause being eroded and damaged in the long run!  Deforestation Watch will not be a part of this mindless, reckless and unconscionable action against palm oil or any other crop, for that matter!