{"id":2553,"date":"2018-04-16T10:49:49","date_gmt":"2018-04-16T10:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/?p=2553"},"modified":"2018-04-16T10:49:49","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T10:49:49","slug":"icelands-move-to-ban-palm-oil-products-could-backfire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/2018\/04\/16\/icelands-move-to-ban-palm-oil-products-could-backfire\/","title":{"rendered":"Iceland&#8217;s move to ban palm oil products could backfire"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dr <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/sac\/staff-profiles\/profiles\/conservation-biology\/research-staff\/bicknell_jake.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jake Bicknell<\/a> and Dr <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/sac\/staff-profiles\/profiles\/conservation-biology\/academic-staff\/struebig_matt.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Matthew Struebig<\/a> from DICE explain why the decision, while positive at first glance, could have unintended consequences:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Iceland\u2019s move to ban palm oil in its products\u00a0is unsurprising\u00a0given the recent news that\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/science-environment-42994630\">100,000 orangutans have been killed in Borneo since 1999<\/a>, most attributed to deforestation. Much of this deforestation has been associated, rightly or wrongly, with\u00a0palm oil\u00a0production. Retailers are therefore\u00a0under a lot of pressure\u00a0to ensure that their palm oil products are sourced responsibly.<\/p>\n<p>Palm oil is in numerous food and cosmetic products because\u00a0it is cheap to produce. Compared to other sources of vegetable oil (e.g. rapeseed and soybean oil), palm oil yields up to five times the oil per unit of land and requires far less pesticide and fertiliser. This means that, in order to feed the world, palm oil is actually part of the solution,\u00a0because fewer resources are required.<\/p>\n<p>However, because palm oil grows in tropical areas, when forest is cleared the impacts on climate and biodiversity are high. Certification \u2013 by which consumers pay higher prices for more sustainably-sourced products \u2013\u00a0is one way to safeguard rainforests, but unfortunately less than 20% of palm oil is\u00a0currently certified as sustainable. The industry has come a long way but still has much to do to improve environmental practices.<\/p>\n<p>To help this problem, we are working with palm oil certification bodies and companies to improve\u00a0the way in which palm oil cultivation affects the environment. This involves\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/full\/10.1111\/1365-2664.13023\">demonstrating the advantages of connecting high-quality rainforest patches in oil palm plantations<\/a>\u00a0to<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>allow wildlife\u00a0to move freely. As certification of palm oil\u00a0becomes more widespread, with it will come\u00a0improved prospects\u00a0for wildlife.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, Iceland\u2019s move to ban palm oil products,\u00a0rather than work with the industry to seek sustainably-sourced solutions,\u00a0could be viewed as a step backwards. Environmentally-conscious consumers should\u00a0demand palm oil from certified sources, but avoiding it altogether runs the risk of\u00a0putting pressure on other crops that are equally to blame for the world\u2019s environmental problems.<\/p>\n<p>Time will tell whether retailer moves to withdraw palm oil will\u00a0exacerbate environmental problems\u00a0in the long term or provide the added\u00a0pressure\u00a0needed\u00a0for producers\u00a0to implement certification practices.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr Jake Bicknell and Dr Matthew Struebig from DICE explain why the decision, while positive at first glance, could have unintended consequences: &#8220;Iceland\u2019s move to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/2018\/04\/16\/icelands-move-to-ban-palm-oil-products-could-backfire\/\">Read&nbsp;more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40284,"featured_media":2554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6599,124,70,6600],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2553"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2553"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2555,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2553\/revisions\/2555"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}