Has the BBC lost its capacity for objective and fair reporting?

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by: Palm Oil Truth Foundation
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Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 Time: 11:06 AM
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On 5th June 2009, Victoria Gill the Science Reporter for BBC News filed a report entitled "Rainforest is worth more standing". The report focuses on a proposed scheme called
Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (Redd), a UN initiative to protect forests. The report asserts that payments to reduce carbon emissions from the forests could generate more income than palm oil production on deforested land.

However Ms Gill in filing the report, which sadly fails to reflect the usual high standards of the BBC and bereft of the painstaking research normally associated with the BBC prior to the filing of a report, recklessly charged that "in Indonesia and Malaysia, which are its major producers, companies clear and often burn swathes of forest to grow their crops." She went on to allude to the potential extinction of the orang utan by alleging: "These ecologically-rich forests are home to a huge variety of species, including endangered orangutans, and to very carbon-rich peat swamps."

In the view of the Palm Oil Truth Foundation, for Ms Gill to paint Indonesia and Malaysia with the same brush betrays a stupendous capacity for ignorance of the very different oil palm planting environment in the two countries and erodes the BBC's reputation for fair and objective reporting.

For one, Malaysian planter have largely been planting on legitimate agricultural land, replanting on old palm oil or rubber estates or on previously logged over areas. This is due mainly to the fact that palm oil is the most sustainable of ALL the oilseed crops with a yield close to 10 times that of its nearest competitors such as soy, rapeseed or sunflower. For instance, palm oil has a typical yield of 4 to 5 metric tons per hectare planted which dwarfs the typical yield of 0.5 metric tons per hectare for its competitors.

What this extreme productivity translates to, in practical terms, is that palm oil requires an extremely small footprint in terms of land use to yield the same unit of edible oil as its competitors. To allege then, that Malaysian planters "clear and often burn swathes of forest to grow their crops" is surely stretching it and reflects on the propensity of environmental types for fact bending, magnification and misrepresentation, to achieve their ends!

Furthermore, the oil palm tree, as a full grown tree, has a high leaf index and a productive life of 20-30 years, dispensing with the requirement for annual tilling and replanting that renders it remarkably effective in sequestering CO2 and supporting biodiversity when compared to its closest competitors and other oilseed crops. For example, olive farms are notorious for using too much water or need irrigation; prone to desertification and soil erosion by wind with almost no biodiversity, and thus contribute minimally in combating global warming. The olive plantations are so inferior in environmental sustainability compared to oil palm plantations in Malaysia. Thus it is indeed baffling why palm oil has been singled out for criticism.

It should also be observed that a Malaysian planter, Sime Darby and various other stakeholders in the Malaysian palm oil industry have successfully sequenced the genome for palm oil which augurs well, not only for the industry, but for the environment as well for such a development can only mean even higher yields. This will translate to even greater sustainability and even less land use as some have predicted a doubling and perhaps more in the yield of palm oil once the newly developed strains are planted.

For Ms Gill to highlight the plight of the orang utans in the way she has done, really plumbs the depths of journalistic bias for recent studies appear to point to the fact that the orang utan population in the wild which currently is estimated to stand at between 45,000 and 60,000 could actually be growing rather than diminishing. The recent discovery of more than 2,000 previously undiscovered orang utans living in the wilds of Borneo had left many environmentalists red-faced as it confirms the findings that the orang utan population in the wild may not be as threatened as they are made out to be by "environmentalists" and media organizations.

Is Ms Gill even aware of the many orang utan conservation initiatives put in place such as the orang utan conservation centres established in Indonesia including those at Tanjung Puting National Park in Central Kalimantan, Kutai in East Kalimantan, Gunung Palung National Park in West Kalimantan, and Bukit Lawang in the Gunung Leuser National Park on the border of Aceh and North Sumatra.

In Malaysia, conservation areas have been set up and they include the Semenggoh Wildlife Centre in Sarawak and Matang Wildlife Centre also in Sarawak, the Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary near Sandakan in Sabah and the Orang Utan island, an orang utan conservation and rehabilitation center established at Bulit Merah, Perak. The Malaysian Palm Oil Council had also launched a S$5 million wildlife conservation fund largely directed at orang utan conservation.

In the final analysis, the Palm Oil Truth Foundation is moved to ask two questions of Ms Gill and the BBC. One, would the criticism of palm oil be just as loud and vociferous if the British (which established and owned most of the palm oil plantations in Malaysia right up to the 60s and 70s) had continued to own and operate the palm oil plantations of Malaysia? Finally, would palm oil have had to face such concerted attacks if the crop had been less productive with the attendant low price and growing popularity as an edible oil for food manufacturers and as a feedstock for biofuel in the global market? THE END

About the Author

Palm Oil Truth Foundation (TRUTH Foundation) is an international non-governmental and not-for-profit organisation, without strings to the world of commerce and power. We are a people organisation, organised for the people and founded upon the principles of integrity and responsibility as a global citizen with the sole purpose of representing TRUTH to the global community about health, environmental and economic benefits of palm oil.

The TRUTH Foundation is an international network of social conscience and cooperation among peoples in industry, government, academia and the ordinary global consuming public, strengthening the forces devoted to respect, justice and equality for a more just and sustainable world and for global peace.