This is our 2003 group about to enter an oil palm mill in the Kinabatangan area of Borneo. The program was about conservation of wildlife in what is left of the forests in this part of Borneo. This day we are to have a look at the oil palm industry's side of the story.

To the Oil Palm Mill

Coming at the issue from the viewpoint of a conservationist (as we did) oil palms at first glance don't look seem that nice: Pristine rainforests are stripped and the land gouged to be replaced with one species of an alien palm (Oil palms are native to West Africa)

Converting rainforests

This is a view from near the famous orangutan sanctuary in Sepilok, Malaysia; looking towards the Kinabatangan river in the distance. All this was once lowland rainforest.

A sea of oil Palms

My first introduction to oil palms - and the most shocking - was in central Sumatra. Here the process of 'conversion' of a rainforest into a plantation is still underway and it is an ugly thing to see.

The top picture believe it or not is taken in the buffer zone of a national park (a national park!!!) - where these sort of things are not supposed to happen.

The lone tree in the bottom picture is a reminder of the height of the original rainforest.

Sumatra

I saw these three trucks about to enter the highway not far from Jambi, in central Sumatra. The patch of forest in the distance is where they came from. These sad little patches of forest are all that is left. They have been stripped of the bigger timber trees and the remainder is junk, only suitable for paper pulp. And that is where these logs are going: to the pulp mill further north.

Rainforest trees does not make very good paper it seems. Better for this is the acacias that are also replacing rainforests in yet another sad story in other places.

The last trees to disappear

Still in sumatra. All this was in 2002, and the roads were full of rainforest logs on the way to the mills and oil palm fruits being taken to the mills. Of course, for the forest logs will soon run out (if they havenft already) and the oil palm traffic will increase as the plantations mature.

I am told that virtually all this logging traffic is illegal.

Timber traffic

So that was my introduction to the Oil palms I always wanted to see a processing mill, and in Kinabatangan, one of the companies there was kind enough to show our group around

So in we went.

I should point out that half of the students in this group were local, from a high school in Sandakan.All I believe were from middle class families, and many of whom I guess were direct or indirectly benefiting from the economic boon that Oil palms have brought to Malaysia.

The other side of the story

The scale of production was impressive, and a bit of jolt in tone from the green and natural rainforest activities we had been doing in the program till now

Processing

The first surprise was that the oil palm fruit is an incredibly productive fruit. 30% by weight of the huge and heavy fruit is harvestable oil.

Palm oil is used in many of the products we find in our supermarkets, including those that pride themselves on being made exclusively from environmentally-friendly plant oils (as opposed to mineral oils).

The fruit

Like a many factories I suppose, the smell and heat started getting to us after a while. The smiles dropped of the faces one by one.

But the point was made. There is no doubt that losing a rainforest is an incalculable loss. But all participants (including the Japanese) were in some way beneficiaries of the an oil palm-driven economy.

Overwhelming

We are on a boat going through a mangrove near Dumai in west-central Sumatra. I am with Waldemar for the Sumatran Tiger Conservation Project.

We are here to see about a tiger that has been roaring at the community from the edges of their oil palm plantations.

>Tigers & oil palms

This is a new community - arriving about five years earlier they tell us, from Java.
They are near the edge of an extensive, but over-logged and ravaged rainforest, carve out a new existence for themselves with oil palming.

Small scale farming

Oil palm it seems is not only productive but also need intensive work. The great thing for the people is that it provides them with a lucrative and steady income from a small, fixed area of land. These people are working two-hectare lots.

Intensive work

I have heard it argued that in some cases like this, oil palm can actually help the rainforest. Why?
Unlike seasonal crops (and slash & burn), it keeps them busy on a fixed area of land, with no time or need to open new areas of land or engage in logging of the nearby forest.

Oil palms help save the rainforest?

I saw this also in Sumatra: the fruit husks used to stop erosion of road embankments.

Erosion control

Back to the huge 2,000 hectare corporate plantation in Malaysia...

This one is doing at least something to become eco-friendly. The hedgerow in the top picture is planted to attract certain insect pests out of the palms. Apparently it works, and supposedly saves using insecticides.

The heart-shaped pond is surrounded by rainforest tree seedling planted to restore and protect the river banks.
About 2 hectares out of 2,000. Better than nothing.

Getting Eco-friendly