Over the years, in my mind’s eye the idea of Borneo had not
changed much from what I had seen in that book. Since the age of about five,
Borneo remained a myriad of vivid colours scattered over an endless emerald
expanse. Nothing around me in my insular, too-comfortable upbringing would have
suggested otherwise.
It wasn’t until my late teens and early twenties that I began
to hear murmurs about rainforest destruction and the disappearance of the world’s
‘jungle’ along with its multitude of curious beasts, including my childhood book-cover
hero. The words ‘palm oil’ – something I had never previously heard of, despite
consuming it daily – began to take an ominous tone. Even then, the issue seemed
distant and exactly that – just another issue.
In 2018 I ended up almost by accident in this strange place
I only knew about from that book all those years ago. With much trepidation I
braced myself for a reality check, having already witnessed much of what
so-called ‘development’ had done to the Asia region. However, nothing could
prepare me for exactly what I was about to see.
Venturing only into the Malaysian provinces of Sabah and
Sarawak, my observations of what is occurring across the island were admittedly
somewhat restricted. I didn’t make it to Indonesian Kalimantan, to the south,
nor to miniscule Brunei, in the centre-north. I followed a well-travelled path between
sizeable cities; and the wild, forested areas that I had naively expected to envelop
me were part of institutionalised conservation sites.
Many of these sites have been aided by booming tourism, which
funnels money into the local and national economy. The homestays at Kinabatangan
river are family businesses that rely on the preservation of the diminishing forest
and its proboscis monkey inhabitants, if only to keep a steady trickle of
backpackers coming through. The orangutan and sun bear sanctuaries at Sepilok
do fantastic work rehabilitating animals affected by land-using industries and
maintaining a safe space for them to simply exist. But it all feels a bit false – go anywhere else and you’d be
hard pressed to see these creatures doing their thing outside of tourism-oriented
captivity.
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| Chilling out in his safety net, the sanctuary. |
Before I arrived, an ad from the UK supermarket chain
Iceland had just gone viral as a result of its censorship from television by Clearcast,
which approves advertisements for broadcasters. The story of ‘Rang-tan’ speaks
for itself – the decimation of Bornean and Sumatran rainforests is fuelling the
Pongo’s impending extinction. And it is our consumerist greed at fault.
Put precisely, it’s our greed for palm oil. This is the crux
of it. And driving across the country, the effect of this is patent. Acre upon
acre of uniform shrubbery, plant tombstones standing where magnificent green chaos
once was. Bulldozers churning up the earth right up to the roadside. Plantation
company after plantation company.
According to this
much more in-depth article by NatGeo, since 1973, nearly 16,000 square miles of
rainforest on Borneo have been logged, burned, and bulldozed to make way for
oil palm. It accounts for a fifth of the
total deforestation on the island since 1973—and for 47 percent since
2000.
Seeing something like this in its hard reality of course
makes you reconsider your consumerist habits. Being plant-based, my consumption
of palm oil is perhaps higher than average (and it is for this reason that I cannot
legitimately call myself vegan). Even though my carbon footprint is much lower
than that of a carnist, being confronted by barefaced habitat destruction resulting
from my own consumer indifference was a wake-up call to quit the oil palm.
It’s not as simple as all that though (at least I like to
tell myself). As one of the volunteers for Orang Utan Appeal UK remarked, the
Iceland ad may actually have a detrimental effect if it leads to an overall
boycott of palm oil. This, to most people, would seem the logical course of
action. But palm oil is the most efficient
oil in terms of yield per land use. If we all switched to another source of
oil, for example rapeseed or coconut, the land we would need to clear to fill
demand would be far vaster. And that land might be home to many other species.
Ironically, she also said, a lot of the conservation efforts
in Sabah are in fact funded by the economic growth driven by palm oil exports.
Take that away, and there’s no government money going into the national parks
and reserves. But if there were no danger in the first place, what’d be the
need for preservation efforts?
Additionally, a majority of the palm oil produced is used by
industry
(fuel, transport), not directly by consumers. Naturally, as with most emissions-heavy
resources, the onus is on us to do something about our rampant hunger for the
stuff. Perhaps the greatest good can be done by turning it around and putting
pressure on the suppliers; corporations who have a grip on the consumer choices
of millions around the world, and the means to satiate them.
This pressure has been formalised under the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil, who it’s
worth mentioning here. Though they are under much scrutiny
over the stringency of their standards and close relationship with companies
that caused many of the problems, they do send the message that people want edible
oil that doesn’t come with a hefty death toll. You can check which brands are
RSPO-certified on their website before you buy
that next loaf of bread.
Research done by National Dong Hwa University in Taiwan and
UC Berkeley has also shown that besides land clearance, the proliferation of
palm oil production has secondary effects, namely species overpopulation. Their study
in peninsular Malaysia demonstrated that this explosion in wild boar numbers
has led to too many tree saplings being prematurely broken off, not allowing
new trees the chance to reach maturity and restore lost forest. There may be
many more similar unknown effects of palm oil production that we are yet to
see.
Who is to be held accountable? Do the governments of capitalist-consumerist
countries need to put their foot down and insist on sustainable-only palm oil?
Or is it the companies and retailers who use it in their products who must sign
up to the RSPO scheme? Or finally, is it the Malaysian and Indonesian
governments who should jeopardize their socio-economic development by
restricting the activities of plantation companies to satisfy the demands of a
vocal minority of environmentalists?
I don’t claim to have the answer. But already it seems the
West’s disdain for the razing of rainforests for the red kernel has reached the
ears of the average local Malay Bornean. A few noted the trade-off: bad for the
land, but good for the economy. One guy we hitchhiked with proudly told us that
the plantation he worked for was RSPO-certified – and he had a nice big family
car.
Perhaps the most magical encounter of the whole trip was unexpectedly
stumbling across a pair of massive, nonchalant orangutans when visiting Gomantong
cave, where swiftlet nests are harvested, just a few kilometres away from Kinabatangan.
Bypassing no entry signs and climbing to the cave’s pinnacle, there was a small
community of harvesters living in rusty corrugated shacks right beside these
beautiful beings, all respecting each other’s space. Safely just out
of arm’s reach (but close enough to pee on us), the orangutans had found true
sanctuary in this area that was closed off to tourists. How telling that is.
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| Unexpected resident |
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