Turnbull’s tangle: palm oil grown to earn Australian subsidies clears SE Asia forests and creates greenhouse effect, Australia to pay Indonesia to replant

The death of Indonesia’s forests was ahead in 20 years, aided by Australiabn subsidies for imported Palm oil. The managing director of Australian Renewable Fuels, John Lillywhite, said the government should not be subsidising biodiesel made from imported palm oil as it did little to help development of the local industry. According to Angus Grigg in Jakarta, environment minister Malcolm Turnbull pledged during last month’s Asia-Pacific Economic Co­operation group meeting to put forests at the “top of the climate-change agenda”.

Forest ecosystems cleared in 20 years: About 300,000 hectares of forest were cleared every year in Indonesia to make way for palm oil plantations. This land clearing, which at the present rate will wipe out the country’s forests in 20 years Turnbull acknowledged it was “a very real problem” that growing demand for palm oil for biofuels was promoting deforestation. The Australian Financial Review, (8/10/2007), p. 4 said he would take a proposal for international action to ensure palm oil was sourced from sustainable plantations to the UN Convention on Climate change meeting in Bali in December.

“Public policy car crash”: Labor’s environment spokesman, Peter Garrett, described the issue as a “public policy car crash”. “The government’s left hand really doesn’t know what the right hand is doing when it comes to climate change,” he said. For too long, forestry had been neglected, Turnbull told Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono during a recent ceremony in Sydney, where Australia pledged $30 million over four years to preserve and replant forests in Kalimantan. The funding aims to preserve 70,000 hectares of forest in the province, reflood 200,000 hectares of dried wetlands and plant 100 million trees.

Indonesia land-clearing a big air-pollutor: But this is dwarfed by the 300,000 hectares of forest cleared every year in Indonesia to make way for palm oil plantations. This land clearing, which at the present rate will wipe out the country’s forests in 20 years, has made Indonesia the world’s third l­argest polluter behind China and the United States.

The Australian Financial Review, 8/10/2007, p. 4