Stop Burning Rainforests for Palm Oil
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Summary:
Forests in Indonesia are diminishing through intentional fires. They are being burned down to make more land to grow oil palms for the production of palm oil. Palm oil has a long shelf life and is used for cooking oil in many parts around the world. Poor farmers grow these plants as cash crops to bring in profit. Palm oil brings in $40 billion in Indonesia and Malaysia alone. These economic benefits come with costs. The conversion of forests into oil palms destroys the habitats for many animals, including endangered species. Burning forests also creates a large amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The United Nations are pushing to stop this by having developed countries pay developing countries to stop burning forests. Consumers are forcing companies to replace palm oils with other vegetable oils.
The things we think that are really small, like palm oil, actually have a lot of costs to make them. Habitat loss will cause many species to die, possibly keystone species to the ecosystem. The large amount of released co2 is also going to contribute to many other problems. Making palm oil is such a big source of income in Indonesia that if they stopped their economy would be crippled. I don't think that there's much we can do besides paying them to stop this because it would be wrong to just stop their major source of income. It would be like forcing Saudi Arabia to stop drilling oil. However, teaching the public that we should use alternatives to palm oil is a great idea because it changes the demand for a product, which will make the producers change.
Forests in Indonesia are diminishing through intentional fires. They are being burned down to make more land to grow oil palms for the production of palm oil. Palm oil has a long shelf life and is used for cooking oil in many parts around the world. Poor farmers grow these plants as cash crops to bring in profit. Palm oil brings in $40 billion in Indonesia and Malaysia alone. These economic benefits come with costs. The conversion of forests into oil palms destroys the habitats for many animals, including endangered species. Burning forests also creates a large amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The United Nations are pushing to stop this by having developed countries pay developing countries to stop burning forests. Consumers are forcing companies to replace palm oils with other vegetable oils.
The things we think that are really small, like palm oil, actually have a lot of costs to make them. Habitat loss will cause many species to die, possibly keystone species to the ecosystem. The large amount of released co2 is also going to contribute to many other problems. Making palm oil is such a big source of income in Indonesia that if they stopped their economy would be crippled. I don't think that there's much we can do besides paying them to stop this because it would be wrong to just stop their major source of income. It would be like forcing Saudi Arabia to stop drilling oil. However, teaching the public that we should use alternatives to palm oil is a great idea because it changes the demand for a product, which will make the producers change.