Stop Burning Rain Forests for Palm Oil
In the Tripa forest in Indonesia's Aceh province, the rare Sumatran orangutans were dying. Trees in their habitat were being burnt down to clear the land to make room for planting oil palms, whose fruit produces palm oil, a main component of biofuels, cosmetics, and food. The land was supposed to be protected under a permit, the permit was revoked. The destruction of such places like the Tripa Forest is not good. Although countries who produce palm oil greatly benefit the production, it comes at a terrible price. It costs us our environment.
Palm oil is greatly used around the world as it comes at a low price but has many uses. It's used as cooking oil in many places around the world. Palm oil is also a major cash crop for poor farmers in developing countries like Indonesia, the world's largest producer of palm oil. Palm oil alone brings Indonesia and Malaysia a whopping $40 billion a year. But is it really worth it? Converting areas from forests into palm oil plantation not only destroys the homes of many different species but releases massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
After reading this article, I realized that we really need to stop destroying habitats just so we can build something there and make money out of it. Cutting forests down just to make palm oil is just another one of the many examples where we have destroyed an area to get something out of it. I understand that palm oil is essential for a lot of things all around the world, but is it really necessary to cut down forests to make room for them? Once we do that, that's irreversible, we can't go back after that. We need to be absolutely sure that that is what we want to do, and make sure it's worth destroying our beautiful forests before we do anything we regret.
Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stop-burning-rain-forests-for-palm-oil/
Article in source written on December 12, 2012
Palm oil is greatly used around the world as it comes at a low price but has many uses. It's used as cooking oil in many places around the world. Palm oil is also a major cash crop for poor farmers in developing countries like Indonesia, the world's largest producer of palm oil. Palm oil alone brings Indonesia and Malaysia a whopping $40 billion a year. But is it really worth it? Converting areas from forests into palm oil plantation not only destroys the homes of many different species but releases massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
After reading this article, I realized that we really need to stop destroying habitats just so we can build something there and make money out of it. Cutting forests down just to make palm oil is just another one of the many examples where we have destroyed an area to get something out of it. I understand that palm oil is essential for a lot of things all around the world, but is it really necessary to cut down forests to make room for them? Once we do that, that's irreversible, we can't go back after that. We need to be absolutely sure that that is what we want to do, and make sure it's worth destroying our beautiful forests before we do anything we regret.
Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stop-burning-rain-forests-for-palm-oil/
Article in source written on December 12, 2012