From keeping your peanut butter smooth to making your shampoo foamy, palm oil plays a role in about half of the products you see on grocery store shelves. The already extensive demand for palm oil continues to rise as it has been explored as an alternative to fossil fuels in recent years. In order to match supply to this demand, the area of land used to grow oil palm trees has doubled to 74 million acres since 2007. This thriving industry appears to promise fortunes for the foreseeable future, but the palm oil story is far from a fairytale in the eyes of wildlife — particularly orangutans.
The story of orangutans and palm oil began in the 19th century when oil palm trees were brought from West Africa to Southeast Asia, capitalizing on the region’s abundant, undeveloped land to expand the budding business. Plantations exploded across Indonesia and Malaysia, where around 85% of the world’s palm oil supply is produced today. Among other oils on the market like canola or soybean, palm oil provides the biggest bang for your buck as the cheapest option both to buy and produce. Multinational corporations have jumped at this opportunity of a straight shot to colossal profit, often buying out smaller local plantations for their land.
Tremendous amounts of untouched tropical rainforest are converted to palm oil plantations every day, and the immediate consequence of this change in land use falls on the shoulders of orangutans. All three species of orangutan are critically endangered and populations are plummeting, a decline credited primarily to habitat loss from mass deforestation for the creation of palm oil plantations. These great apes are only found in the same Southeast Asian forested isles where oil palms are planted in vast monocultures, or agricultural fields consisting of only one crop. Monocultures form what Dr. Gary Shapiro, founder of the Orang Utan Republik Foundation, calls ecological deserts: essentially uninhabitable plots of land, barren of any native plants or animals that used to thrive in these regions. Palm oil corporations use an intense burning regimen to clear plots of land for development into plantations, destroying the existing vegetation community and impairing the local air quality. Recent wildfires across the island of Borneo have only amplified these desert-like conditions that threaten the tigers, elephants, and orangutans that occupy the region’s historically lush forests.
Image 1: Monoculture oil palm plantation in Malaysia (source)
Often dubbed “gardeners of the forest”, orangutans play a crucial role in engineering the plant communities in their habitats, spreading seeds of the fruits they eat as they swing through the dense tropical canopies. This role has earned orangutans the title of a keystone species; their existence has such a large effect on their ecosystems that in their absence, these ecosystems would collapse. As much as the trees rely on orangutans, orangutans also rely on the trees. Their bodies are designed to move by swinging, and they even spend their nights up in the canopies. In areas fragmented by these monoculture plantations, orangutans are forced to the predator-laden ground. Unfortunately, their low reproductive rates work against them when it comes to stabilizing their populations after a seemingly minimal loss of individuals. Females birth an average of just one individual every eight years, sporting the lowest reproductive rate of all mammals. Because of this, catastrophes like the Bornean wildfires have had an outsized effect on orangutan populations.
Conservation advocates like Dr. Shapiro have worked tirelessly to restore orangutan habitats to what they once were, but they struggle against the powerful hand of the palm oil industry. Recognizing that palm oil cannot be entirely phased out, Dr. Shapiro suggests returning to small-scale palm oil production as an option to combat ecological concerns while restoring the local, more sustainable industry. In the meantime, increasing the protection of habitat is considered the most effective potential conservation action that can be taken to maintain Orangutan populations in Indonesia and Malaysia. Protecting orangutan habitats from being developed into palm oil plantations is no small task, and has been continuously met with opposition from the influential industry.
The loss of orangutans from Southeast Asia would have monumental effects on their environments and human life alike. As a keystone species, orangutans are critical to the survival of the hundreds of birds and small mammals that rely on the plant community they propagate. As humans, we are just as dependent on these ecosystems for the resources and services they provide us. Poor air and water quality, food insecurity, and economic upset at local and global scales are just a few of the countless consequences we face with the loss of this biodiversity. Opportunities to conserve orangutans only dwindle alongside their populations. There is no second population, no second habitat, and no second chance to bring them back when they are gone.
If you want to reduce your consumption of palm oil products, click here for a list of common products using alternative ingredients.
Listen to Dr. Shapiro dive into the socio-economic side of the palm oil industry on this episode of EcoJustice Radio.
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