Is Cargill Behind a New Palm Oil Greenwashing Campaign?

Golden Agri Resources’ recent move to stop swapping rainforests and peat land for palm plantations was a landmark achievement in efforts to curb the palm oil industry's environmentally-destructive reputation. And if a recent paper by the free-market, libertarian think tank the Adam Smith Institute is any indication, it’s clear that the move has sent more than a few ripples through the ranks of industry apologists.

The ASI paper blames the ‘environmental lobby’ for distorting the truth about the palm-oil business in Southeast Asia. Among the ‘distortions’ cited in the report is the well-founded fact that the deforestation and other land use changes associated with palm growing are contributing to climate change. Indeed, the authors went so far as to assert that palm plantations actually help mitigate climate change. They also attacked conservationists’ concerns about the destruction of orangutan habitat, characterizing them as “a cynical device” that could “have profoundly negative consequences for people trying to work their way out of poverty.”

Setting aside arguments about the absurdity of a right-wing, free-market think tank caring about climate change or people working their way out of poverty, what do environmental groups have to say about this boldface challenge? For a recent article in the UK’s Gaurdian newspaper, journalist, Leo Hickman asked the same question of Kenneth Richter, the Friends of the Earth's biofuel campaigner. Ricther made short work of report’s claims about orangutan habitat and deforestation:

In 2007, the United Nations concluded that today's rapid growth in plantations is "one of the greatest threats to orang-utans and the forests on which they depend", and now "the primary cause of permanent rainforest loss" in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Ditto for the carbon sink claim:

Leading scientists have refuted the palm oil lobby's claim that palm oil plantations are better carbon sinks than the forests or peat lands they are replacing.

Considering the shoddy research behind this ASI “research product” one can’t help but wonder whether palm-oil PR gurus didn’t have a hand in its authorship. It certainly seems plausible enough.

While GAR may have decided to amend its clear-cutting ways, other major players in the palm-oil industry such as the American agri-business giant Cargill have yet to show any such inclinations. Cargill has significant palm oil interests in Malaysia and if you combine this fact with their refusal to adopt and promote more sustainable practices, it hardly seems far-fetched to imagine that they could have been involved the ASI report.

Leo Hickman investigated such suspicions for his Guardian piece, only to find that if the industry was behind the study its ASI authors certainly weren’t going to tell.

Of course, whether Cargill had anything to do with the ASI report is a somewhat beside the point. Whether the company engages in PR trickery or not, the simple fact remains that it has stubbornly persisted in its environmentally destructive palm-oil practices in the face of an international campaign to stop it. It’s high time that we changed that. Sign the Rainforest Action Network petition today to send Cargill the message that no amount of libertarian greenwashing can cover up the crimes they’re committing against our planet, and that the time has come to act responsibly and follow the example set by GAR.

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Photo Credit: a_rabin via Flickr