World Growth blasts Green NGO's for anti-palm oil campaigns

A new initiative aimed at correcting, what the organization describes as, the myths, misconceptions and falsehoods perpetuated by environmental NGOs against Palm Oil was launched on 28th Spetember 2009 by the NGO World Growth.

The launch of World Growth's "Palm Oil Green Development Campaign" took place at the United Nations climate change meeting in Bangkok.

In a statement realeased by the group it explained that environmental groups like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace are propagating myths and misconceptions about palm oil, demanding production and exports be restricted. World Growth argues that, for poor countries, expansion of this crop promises opportunities to reduce both poverty and greenhouse gas emissions.

World Growth Chairman Alan Oxley explains: "The Greens campaign against palm oil is very short-sighted. The anti-poor message it carries will be enough to tip the scales -- already ominously leaning the wrong way -- against success at Copenhagen.

"Environmental groups have made palm oil a poster child in a wider campaign to pressure developing countries to stop converting forest land to productive agro-industries. They are ignoring the requirement in the Bali mandate that climate change strategies should support, not undermine, economic development."
World Growth's program is based on five principles:
1. Alleviating Poverty through Wealth Creation: Palm oil provides developing nations and the poor a path out of poverty.
2. Sustainable Development: Sustainable development of palm oil in developing nations can and will be achieved through collaboration with industry, growers, and the wider community.
3. Climate and the Environment: Palm oil is a highly efficient, high yielding source of food and fuel, providing an efficient way of producing fossil fuel alternatives and capturing carbon from the atmosphere.
4. Opportunity and Prosperity: Developing nations must be allowed the chance to grow and develop without political intervention by environmental groups or developed nations.
5. Property Rights: Growing demand for palm oil world-wide give smaller land holders in developing countries greater opportunities to make a living off their land, maintain their ownership and support their rights to property and prosperity.

This development is long overdue as the actions of Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace has brought discredit to the environmental movement as it has long been considered as anti-poor and anti-development! The anti-palm oil campaigns carried out by these NGO's are so incongruous and inconsistent with responsible environmentalism that their office bearers have been described as having "rocks in their heads" by at least one farmer!

In the view of Deforestation Watch, if we consider the potential deleterious impact of their actions on the livelihoods of poor small land holders in developing countries, it would not be far fetched to accuse Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace of having rocks in their hearts too! THE END

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