All around the world, palm oil consumption is increasing. However, it is a highly controversial food.
The most alarming effect of palm oil production lies in how negatively it impacts the environment. Because of the ever-growing demand for palm oil, more and more land is being turned over for production. What’s more alarming is it’s not just agricultural land but more importantly, native rainforests are being burned down for providing more area for palm oil trees. Countries which are affected by this agriculture are especially Indonesia and Malaysia. The consequences are large-scale forest conversion and the loss of habitat for animals and a lot of plants.
https://biofriendlyplanet.com/environment-issues/what-is-the-problem-with-palm-oil-why-should-we-care/
An other aspect is that rainforests are the world’s most significant ‘sinks’ of carbon dioxide, but since the palm oil production startet turning over the land, a lot of carbon is released into the atmosphere.
https://biofriendlyplanet.com/environment-issues/what-is-the-problem-with-palm-oil-why-should-we-care/
In addition, it’s not just the environment that suffers a lot due to unsustainable production of palm oil, it’s also the social impact. The indigenous people who live in these lands also lose their homes and their livelihoods as well and this is a really important point.
https://biofriendlyplanet.com/environment-issues/what-is-the-problem-with-palm-oil-why-should-we-care/
What you can do for protecting the rainforsest is to consum less products with palm oil as ingredient like chocolate, crisps and chocolate spreads. However, it’s not simple to not buying products that contain palm oil and there are no many alternatives to palm oil. But everybody can try to reduce the consume of palm oil.
One comment
bibuchri
Hi Charlotte, your topic “palmoil comsumption” is a highly discussed problem of our generation. I like that you wrote a blog post about this topic.
I had to change your formatting though, as you use a lot of quotes without showing. If you take somebody else’s texts or sentences, you have to add quotation marks. Please do not underestimate this.
I could see that you used your own words in the last paragraph. That’s great, Charlotte. Your English doesn’t need to be perfect. You learn much more by expressing your own thoughts instead of copying and pasting. I like how you give advice to the readers on how to help solve the problem of a growing palm oil consumption.