Palm before the storm

摘要

It's beginning to feel like deja vu. With global demand for cosmetics, soap, biodiesel and vegetable cooking oil ever on the rise, the African oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) has been a boon, providing the essential ingredient for all these. So much so, that it is now widely cultivated beyond its native range, notably in South-East Asia, where the creation of vast oil-palm estates has caused massive deforestation and the local extinction of some species. Anthropologist Joshua Linder at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, called it "private-enterprise-driven tropical deforestation from agriculture".