Among the oil palms

You can't spend much time in Borneo without becoming aware of palm oil and its implications.  There are plantations everywhere and the roads are full of trucks loaded with oil palm fruit for processing at one of the many mills on the island.  And, you don't have to drive far to find an area of forest being bulldozed into terraces to make way for new plantations.  In the West this activity is almost universally reviled: rainforest is being destroyed to make way for new plantations; if you have too many plantations you create a "monoculture" which reduces biodiversity and increases vulnerability to disease and disaster and; the oil itself is not as good for you as many other vegetable oils.

There is a large area of mature plantations a few kilometres from Saratok in which we have begun to walk and bicycle.  I've also talked to a few local people about the issue and as a result things seem to be far less clear cut than I had thought.  A mature oil palm plantation, especially if it's in a hilly area and mixed in with patches of forest, is actually a very pleasant place to be - shady and mysterious and full of the sound of birdsong and animal cries.  If you are a local with access to capital then buying a patch of land and turning it into an oil palm planation is a no-brainer:  the palms start to produce fruit after three years and the crop is continuous throughout the year; at current prices you can expect to achieve payback on your investment in less than ten years and; with increasing demand for bio fuels and food there is only one direction the price is going to be going over the next decade.

I'm not saying that there are not problems with the rapid expansion of plantations and one does hear dark talk of corruption and illegal planting and depredation of the rainforest is a major issue, but sat here in Borneo the criticism one hears from Europe and the US about palm oil does sound like hypocritical bleating from parts of the world that have already destroyed most of their so-called natural environment in the name of economic growth and development and now want to stop the rest of the world doing the same.  Take our home in Southern Italy.  When I stand on the ridge near our house and look out over the coastal plain to the Adriatic what do I see?  A monoculture comprising endless hectares of olive trees.  But, the utterly man-made landscape of Italy is considered to be "beautiful" and the fruit of the olive tree to be a "natural" and healthy product, largely because the virgin forest that covered much of the peninsula was raped hundreds of years ago not today.

To cap it all, since 2003 the European Union has been legislating for vehicle fuel to contain an increasing percentage of bio-fuel, thus further driving up demand and prices for the palm oil so many European greens seem to despise.

Double standards or what?