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| Tuesday, 1 January 2002 |
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Oil Palms vs Rubber by R. Senanayake Dr. Tillekeratne, Director of the RRI must be congratulated for his enlightening article on the folly of attempting to replace rubber with oil palm (Daily News 28.12.01). The points made on biodiversity are clear and confirmed by my own research. Comparisons between the vertebrate biodiversity in oil palm and rubber at Nakiyadeniya Estate off Galle demonstrate that many fishes and amphibians found in rubber plantations are markedly reduced or absent in oil palm plantations. The small streams and marshes are eliminated by oil palm. However the oil palm industry has some very powerful multilateral backers and the last two decades has seen an exponential increase in oil palm plantations the world over. The emerging scenario is tragi-comic. The experts and consultants of the multilateral banking system saw oil palm as a good investment. It did command a good price a couple of decades ago. But the same advice given to all interested countries have witnessed a massive expansion of oil palm plantations in much of Central and South America. As these massive areas of oil palm come into production the price is expected to drop and stay low due to oversupply. Perhaps these low prices were planned for those interested in oil palm as industrial oil. Whatever the case, to invest in oil palm at the expense of natural rubber is a very dangerous path for Sri Lanka. The rubber estates of this nation replaced the mature rainforests that created the microclimate of the south. This was not a wise replacement. But at that time there was no concern for biodiversity, water quality maintenance, maturity or even sequestered carbon as biomass. However rubber proved to be the best at maintaining some elements of forest function. The current dependence on palm oil is also a process that bears some investigation. The palm oil imports from Malaysia grew at the expense of local coconut oil. The havoc that the trading patterns caused the local coconut industry is well known by now. The need to set up Plantations to account for imports may be pecuniary! Oil Palm proponents are a funny lot. At one time they were requesting land in the Mahaveli to grow Oil Palm irrigated by Mahaveli waters. Opposing them and their paid politicians and bureaucrats cost 20 years of victimization at the hands of those with vested interests in their own pockets I trust that Dr. Tillekeratne will be listened to and the current proponents of oil palm present their case for public debate. |
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