Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The tragic consequences of the destruction of large areas of tropical rainforests should be described
The tragic consequences of the destruction of large areas of tropical rainforests should be described
Unsustainability of palm oil production
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: The tragic consequences of the destruction of large areas of tropical rainforests should be described
Rainforests are the most diverse biomes on the earth. The rainforest house many different species and support the lives of the indigenous tribes who depend on the forests for habitat, food, and way of life. The palm oil companies are spreading to many parts of the world, taking out regions of the forest in order to make room for their palm oil plantations. Palm oil is found in 50% of products we use every day from items like shampoo and conditioner to the food we eat (Rainforest Rescue 2013). If the rain forests are fragmented too much, not only will it cause the species to possibly go extinct but it will cause issues with tribes like the Waorani, who are nomadic and depend on the forest for food, shelter, and clothes. If we treat the forest like we did with the Indians in North America, their culture and way of life may not survive. They may not have enough forest left to continue their nomadic life.
The Waorani are dependent on the forest for their survival. The Waorani depend on the animals for food, the plants for medicine, the crops to build their homes and beds (Nova 1984). If the company’s palm oil plantations take away the forest, then they are taking away their source of protein as the monkeys will become scarce for them to find. The medicinal plants will be taken away as deforestation occurs and biodiversity among plants and animals decreases. The palm oil companies build large plantations that take away from the amount of land the Waorani will have access to. If these companies continue like this they will end up taking away too much of the forest and the Waorani’s nomadic way of life will no longer be successful and may even disappear.And the Waorani will not be the only tribe affected by the palm oil industry the Q...
... middle of paper ...
...lm Oil Through Sustainable Plantations." Sustainable Palm Oil. http://www.sustainablepalmoil.org/palm-oil-production-through-sustainable-plantations/ (accessed March 24, 2014).
"Facts about palm oil and rainforests." Topic. http://www.rainforest-rescue.org/topics/palm-oil (accessed March 28, 2014).
"Resisting Land Grabbing in Ecuador | Cultural Survival." Resisting Land Grabbing in Ecuador | Cultural Survival. http://www.culturalsurvival.org/ourpublications/csq/article/resisting-land-grabbing-ecuador (accessed March 28, 2014).
“Oil Palm and Other Commercial Tree Plantations, Monocropping: Impacts on Indigenous Peoples’ Land Tenure and Resource Management Systems and Livelihoods.” Victoria Tauli-Corpuz and Parshuram Tamang. (accessed April 30, 2014)
“Nomads of the Rainforest “ PBS Nova 1984 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn8gk67s6YM&hd=1 (accessed April 30,2014)
The message of the film is to describe the Waorani lifestyle and how the rainforest is critical to their maintaining their nomadic lifestyle that has been a part of their culture for centuries. Wade Davis’ article, Among the Waorani, provides much of the content brought to
One of the main features of Ecuador ’s economy is its dependence on only a few key export commodities, most importantly oil and bananas. Oil accounts for approximately 40% of the export economy, while bananas are responsible for about 17%, and Ecuador is the largest producer of bananas in the world. The rest of the economy is mostly based on less important agricultural exports, such as shrimp and flowers, which account for 6% and 4% of exports respectively. Ecuador is almost completely reliant on the success of these few industries, particularly oil, and so has suffered through a cycle of boom and bust economies over the past several decades, since oil was discovered in the 1970s. Furthermore, in the last six years Ecuador has had four different presidents, and the national office has been dogged by scandals and corruption. This environment has made it very difficult for the government to accomplish the reforms that are necessary to stabilize the nation when the economy faces a serious downturn.
The Huaorani is an Indian tribe in Ecuador whose livelihood and culture was threatened by corporate companies exploring for oil. These oil companies invaded Oriente with the support of the national government, leading to destruction of the environment that served the way of livelihood for the Huaorani. Different human right and environmental organizations tried to find a solution for the situation but were not conversant with the natives needs. In contrast, their actions only misrepresented the Indians’ interests and placed them in more difficult situations. The Huaorani have to get involved in the fight for their land, but there are still those among them who betray their course. The most unusual
Many companies have turned to sustainable palm oil, palm oil that is produced on plantations that reuse the land for their agricultural purposes, thus supplying more palm oil without the destruction of natural forests. Some choose to boycott palm oil entirely, but this alternative will not significantly change the demand for palm oil. Vegetable oil is used abundantly and oil palm trees are the quickest producing oil crops, concluding them necessary to satisfy the demand for edible oils. Not only is palm oil versatile for its uses and quick to produce, but it is a major component to the economy in Indonesia and Malaysia. Many people living in these countries struggle with poverty, and agriculture of sustainable palm oil is how a great deal of people support themselves and their families. If the boycott of palm oil were successful, a considerable population of people would be unemployed and
It was my first semester at West Hawaii Community College in Dr. Stevens’ world history class when I discovered the suffering state of our native lowland dry forests and the endemic tree species disappearing within them. Human interaction is the source of this degradation, so I took it as a moral obligation to work strenuously toward its revival. As a class, we were told that the land surrounding our campus at Palamanui was once teeming with the endemic lama tree, hence the name ‘Palamanui’. With very few lama trees that can be spotted from the college, members of the community, along with students at our campus came together to create a trail connecting these remaining trees.
The Human Impact on Rainforests Human Impact on Rainforest is it a necessity? Rainforest are the beautiful gift of Mother Nature. It consists of the most magnificent species and plants in the world. 4.2% of the world’s animals live in the rainforest. This statistic it self shows how bad it would be to destroy such essential part of the worlds biodiversity.
Palm oil is used in a wide variety of foods and hygiene products. It is an oil made from the pulp of the oil palm, usually the African oil palm. There has been a lot of controversy on the health effects that palm oil has; a recent study has shown that regularly ingesting this oil can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, while another shows no correlation between the oil and the risk of coronary artery disease (Loki). While the health effects are still being debated, there is no question that this highly-used ingredient is killing rainforests in Malaysia and Indonesia, threatening many species, including the Sumatran elephant, tiger, and orangutan, as well as the Bornean orangutans and pygmy elephants, all of which are critically endangered
Simply speaking, rainforests are basically the foundation of the earth. The most important role that rainforests play is ‘the lungs of the earth’. This is extremely vital to the earth’s survival as the trees and plants absorb carbon dioxide which they use to help grow and let out oxygen which we need to live. This system is known as the carbon-oxygen cycle and with numbers of rainforests declining, it is highly threatened. The largest rainforest in the world, the Amazon, alone is known to produce half of the world’s oxygen. A break down in the carbon-oxygen cycle means that we will not only have less oxygen, but an increase in carbon dioxide which eventually leads to global warming. This occurs as carbon dioxide traps heat which actually keeps the earth warm, with the right amount of carbon dioxide that is. This is called the greenhouse effect and occurs naturally however due to decreasing number of trees, there is more carbon dioxide than needed which traps extra heat making the earth hotter than needed, this is known as global warming which also causes a rise in sea level.
GreenPalm (2015) states how ‘the removal of acres of rainforest threatens the rich biodiversity’ in the ‘ecosystems’. Highlighting the risks of the cutting of the oil palm trees to produce the palm oil to both the environment and also the organisms which live within the areas, as certain species in the areas of the clearing of land, mainly with the palm oil ‘exported from Indonesia and Malaysia’ according to Say-No-To-Palm-Oil (2015), face possible extinction. There is still however ways in which the production of palm oil can be sustainable to the environment, as palm oil is essential for the use by humans because of the containment of the nutrients and also with the production of foods and
The social and moral implications of diminishing rainforest biodiversity are great. From a human welfare perspective, the livelihoods of tens of millions of indigenous peoples depend on the forests, but thousands are being pushed out of their homes because they lack the shelter and support that the forest once gave them (Salim 3). These groups have "developed knowledge and cultures in accordance with their environment through thousands of years, and even physically they are adapted to the life in the forest" (Nyborg). For many of the people living in these areas, the forest is the only resource they have providing them with food, shelter and cultural ties. With the invasion and destruction of their homeland, rainforest peoples are also disappearing.
This is alarming since recent data indicates these enormous forests are land-dwelling carbon absorbers that could help to slow worldwide climate alteration. The United Nations ' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates “eighteen million acres of forests have been destroyed worldwide;” and NASA forecasts “that if current deforestation rates are not reduced, rainforests could become entirely eradicated in a century.” The nations with substantial deforestation are Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand, Africa (The Democratic Republic of Congo included), and remote areas of Eastern Europe. Indonesia, the country with the greatest deforestation within the last century, has lost approximately forty million acres of indigenous
It has been suggested that 300 football fields worth of palm trees are removed every hour just for manufacturers to get their grubby hands on Palm Oil. The United Nations Environment Programme {UNEP} acknowledges that Malaysia and Indonesia are the main cause for this destruction is the development of palm oil plantations. The burning of these plantations is causing major air pollution in Southeast Asia. It releases Carbon Dioxide into the air and atmosphere that contribute to global warming. Research shows that 20% of all global carbon emissions comes burning fossil fuels come from rainforest destruction. Deforestation of palm oil plantations is alone responsible for the habitat loss of threatened and endangered species. Superiorly clearing of the forests impacted the Asian Elephant, Tiger, Sumatran Rhinoceros and the Orangutans. The Asian elephant and Bornean Orangutans are endangered and t...
The land of Jambi, Indonesia, on the island of Sumatra, has been incredibly blessed with the palm oil seed. The impact of palm oil has transcended time, boundaries and borders as it has become to most widely used product for consumer good. Not one day goes by where the average consumer doesn’t utilize a product without palm oil. It is every, it is necessary and it is in high demand. This is where the role of the corporations come in. Wilmar International Limited is a corporation which has descended upon the palm oil industry with the purpose of essentially and quite literally, spreading the wealth.
Although subsistence activities have dominated agriculture-driven deforestation in the tropics to date, large-scale commercial activities are playing an increasingly significant role. In the Amazon, industrial-scale cattle ranching and soybean production for world markets are increasingly important causes of deforestation, and in Indonesia, the conversion of tropical forest to commercial palm tree plantations to produce bio-fuels for export is a major cause of deforestation on Borneo and Sumatra.
Indonesia dates back to 1871, with the first commercial production beginning in 1885.” The success of one of the very first wells, drilled at Telaga Tunggal in 1885, triggered the explosion in the Indonesian oil industry. At a depth of only 121 meters, this well was producing commercial quantities of oil. This immediately led to further exploration and drilling of new oil fields throughout the region. The Royal Dutch Company and Shell Transport and Trading were the first two companies to spearhead the start of the oil industry in Indonesia. In 1890, the Royal Dutch Company was created to produce and refine oil as Shell Transport and Trading focused on the marketing and transportation side of the market. They merged in 1907 to form Royal Dutch Shell. In the literary work, “Earliest Days of Petroleum Industry in Indonesia,” it states that at this time “total production increased to 62,000 barrels per day, of which 95 percent was produced by Royal Dutch Shell.” By the turn of the century, there were about twenty companies exploring, if not already producing, oil in Indonesia. However, Royal Dutch Shell and the U.S. companies Stanvac and Caltex dominated the industry in Indonesia in the first half of the twentieth century. The major oil fields included Kruka and Ledok in East Java, Kampong Minyak and Sumpal in South Sumatra, and Perlak in North Sumatra. With these abundant fields and other new fields being discovered, crude oil production reached a new high in 1939. The production of crude oil reached 170,000 barrels per day, while approximately 180,000 barrels were being refined each day. As a result, nearly 75 percent of crude oil in the Far East came from I...