A recently published report sheds light on how 350 big companies and 150 financial institutions are falling behind with goals to halt and reverse deforestation.
Our grocery stores are increasingly filled with ultra-processed foods, which have little to no nutritional value and a huge environmental impact.
(Nathalia Rosa)
Ultra-processed foods are bad for our health and our planet and must be central to any efforts to reduce our carbon emissions, and waistlines.
A Malaysian worker harvests palm fruits from a plantation in peninsular Malaysia, on Wednesday, March 6, 2019. Though labour issues have largely been ignored, the punishing effects of palm oil on the environment have been decried for years.
(AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)
Palm oil is used in half the products sold in global supermarkets. Much of the oil comes from Indonesia where it is grown on plantations that are relatively inefficient, but occupy huge areas of land.
As a researcher of sustainability transition, I still believe we can create a more sustainable palm oil industry in Indonesia, where millions of small farmers rely on palm oil for their livelihood.
A burnt area in Amazonas state, Brazil, Sept. 21, 2022. Fires in the Amazon are often set to clear land.
Michael Dantas/AFP via Getty Images
Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva says he will end land clearance in Brazil’s Amazon region. But powerful forces profit from rainforest destruction.
Biofuels are heralded as a climate-friendly replacement of fossil fuels, but encouraging people to drive less and shift to other modes of transport would cut more emissions.
Aditya Alta, Center for Indonesian Policy Studies e Nadaa Jauzaa, Center for Indonesian Policy Studies
Indonesian government’s interventions in regulating prices and supplies for palm oil and its derivative products were short-lived and have instead created confusion.
A farmer holds kernels of oil palm fruits in Jakarta, Indonesia, on May 17, 2022. Indonesia, one of the world’s top palm oil exporters has banned exports of cooking oil and its raw materials to reduce domestic shortages and hold down skyrocketing prices since late last month.
(AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)
Over the past two years, labour restrictions, climate change and violent conflict have contributed to the record-breaking high prices of vegetable oil around the world.
A tub of palm oil in Nimba County, Liberia.
Edwin Remsberg/GettyImages
More than 100 world leaders have pledged to end the destruction of forests by 2030 as a way to slow climate change. That will require changing how the world produces four widely used commodities.
Palm oil is responsible for widespread deforestation and labor abuses, but it’s also cheap and incredibly useful. That’s why many advocates call for reforming the industry, not replacing it.
Penambahan caampuran solar dengan nabati ol.
ANTARA FOTO/Oky Lukmansyah/foc/16.
Microalgae taste like grass and are packed with nutrients.
Land conflicts in Indonesia are commonly the result of a lack of prior consent from people who have lived in the area for generations.
Jonathan McIntosh/Wikimedia
Instead of boycotting palm oil, source it from pastureland and not recently logged forests.
Forest fires hit parts of Sumatra and Kalimantan islands of Indonesia this year due to illegal slash-and-burn activities by companies and local people.
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Indonesia’s forest fires forensics, Bambang Hero Sahardjo, receives a prestigious award, John Maddox prize, opening hope for scientists to use scientific evidence for law enforcement.
Honorary Fellow, Law School; Associate of the Sydney Democracy Network of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sydney University, The University of Western Australia