K.

That’s a little bigger an issue than RSPO haha. Again, I can see where you come from. RSPO is one of those “green” tools cooked up by mainstream industrialists and mainstream NGO leaders to prevent deep ecologists from overhauling (and taking over?) world order, i.e. “industrial civilization”.

Fine.

[Excuse me for the edits, Eric, but it’s the easiest way to respond…]

There have been good and bad revolutions in world history. What scares me about the deep ecology view on the world is that they don’t have a convincing answer to the question how 6 billion people, most of them urban nowadays, are going to survive in a world that is both ecologically sound AND democratic. So long as those things are not cleared, I prioritize fighting the ills and greed of the present “system” and fighting for a fairer deal for nature and affected people.

But, enlighten me if you have your vision of the world all worked out. You’re coming out with a book on this?

[Yes, it’s very difficult to summarise such a dense and long book in a small space. I don’t have a vision of a world, but I do have a vision of groups of people working out what is best for their parts of the world — small groups of people living with rather than against the natural world, but it’s a long journey and impossible to shorten while still being meaningful.]

I was once involved in a research project that gave me a lot of the answers: take the world’s resources and divide them equally among all present and future population; then compare that to current consumption patterns and draw your conclusions: there’s still growth possible if certain areas are off limits and the rest is managed sustainably, and (access to) the produce equally divided. Needless to say that this requires “the North” to do something about overconsumption. The sweet outcome was that China and India could still grow as their per capita consumption was well below “sustainable yield” (non renewables were dealt with differently).

[Contraction and Convergence is probably the only type of system that would work within civilization to give it a chance of survival, but civilization is as civilization does, so it will never adopt C&C. Just too damn fair.]

This was a long time ago, and I’ve now come to see that it is not just a North-South issue, but rather a urban - rural conflict. Just consider the amount of food that needs to go into New York or Jakarta each and every day. Whether or not urbanization is an offshoot of “industrial civilization”, I don’t know. Perhaps.

[Completely agree. Civilization is, by definition, rooted in city living - urbanisation creates massive divisions between people and the resources they use. The more urbanisation, the more disconnected the population becomes.]

But if you refer to “industrial civilization” being the problem, then that suggests a conspiracy by industrial (and mainstream NGO) leaders. I think that gives them too much credit, and I think that it’s an autonomous process that is very much driven by the fact that it is comfortable to live in cities for a very large group, while for others it is a necessity because they’re driven from their land. Assuming that at least part of this last group prospers in the cities, sooner or later they too become part of the problem, i.e. dependent on rural production, expansion etc.

[The surprise is that there probably is no conspiracy. I go into this into great length in the book, and don’t want to give too much away. The problem, though, is far closer than we realise.]

Resettling 6 (or 9, or 12) billion people in rural areas on a subsistence base is perhaps an option but - how shall I put it? - it’s also kinda “ambitious” and I question if it can be done democratically. Enlighten me, especially on the democracy aspect.

[Democracy can’t exist under industrial civilization. Voting is just an illusion of control and changes almost nothing. The numbers really are huge, and the bigger they are, the worse the crash will be — there is no easy way of saying this, there must be fewer people for many reasons. The only kind of fair systems are not rooted in our culture at all; they existed long before the Greeks “invented” representative democracy, which itself was only granted to a few elites. That’s just about the size of it now.]

Meanwhile, I still believe that the answers must be found in making consumption in urban centers more efficient and based on production methods that are less of a strain on nature and local people. What worries me most is that no one is really effectively fighting for consumption reduction anymore. But it’s not hard to understand: if you isolate yourself (by not buying the product any longer) you can’t influence the way a product is produced anymore. The world market has become too big for effective boycotts.

[Too big for boycotts, yes, but boycotts are targeted by their nature — refusal to take part in *any* of the functions of civilization is a different thing entirely. You are spot on about reduction, and that is a key sentence in the book: “the act of reducing must always be the first option in the decision making process.”

Thanks, Keith.]

Biofuels are totally beyond the pale: they are just part of the growing industrial economy and a response by business to the realisation that there isn’t enough cheap oil to keep the transport and energy industry growing. Biofuels are being made out to be a “greener” answer; but, of course, they are simply grist to the mill - a bloody great mill that is eating up habitat.

As for the other oils, I think we need to examine why so much oil is being used in the first place in food. I use hardly any but it’s a filler to make processed food more palatable; and also feed the desire for more fried food — another gift from the West to the rest of the world.

K.

The issue of deforestation has been addressed in the P&C. There are even High Conservation Value (HCV) areas that are supposed to be off-limits 100%. What is left to see now would be implementation via audits.

What is your take on soybean and rapeseed oil? Since the farmers there ARE subsidized by the government, which would indirectly mean that the government are supporting cultivation and expansion of non sustainable crops.

Personally I am against biofuels, with food shortage crisis at hand, we can’t really afford to be using oil to fill up the tanks of the rich.

These few months would be interesting to watch. The audits seems quite stringent. Growers are becoming more aware of the current consumers who are more socially and environmentally conscious.

I think also that the individual country’s laws (and implementation) are also vital in addressing these issues.

Cheers,

Sidney

I wouldn’t have a problem with Palm Oil if it was planted where previously the land had been agricultural - but it seems that option is being ignored because there is no “value” attached to forest, whereas farmland is “owned”.

If the Roundtable is to have any credibility it needs to show massive reductions in deforestation by the end of 2008, and have moved the production of palm oil from previously or currently forested areas to land currently used for non-staple food crops.

I don’t do compromises: they are what make people stop acting.

Keith

What about rapeseed and soy bean? Isn’t it even worst? Yields are low and there are less if any ground cover.
To make matters worst its a seasonal crop and requires the earth to be mixed up again after replanting.
At least oil palm land is forested and can act as a carbon sink instead of oil crops planted in the western countries.

So are you proposing to remove all forms of oil all together?

The RSPO is still young and would require time to grow and have credibility. As much profit as one would like to make, producers still can’t escape the scrutiny of NGO’s and other interested parties outside of certification. Reports can still be filed to create a put forth what is right (case in point, Wilmar International).

Perhaps you should come to the ground and see what has been done so far by oil palm growers instead of just commenting from afar.

If you have a better solution, perhaps you can share it with the industry. The RSPO is as close to a compromise as we can get.

The mainstream environmental movement are not my partners - they are fighting to save civilization, they are not fighting to save the planet. This is the same game the corporations play. The activists and other workers on the ground *are* my partners: I have no fight with them — it is the leadership of the NGOs and the lacklustre games they play which cause the problems.

I am far closer to the native tribes and the fragile ecosystems which they are an intrinsic part of than you realise: I have learnt how to connect and by doing so have recognised that the NGOs (let alone the so called roundtables and “representative” bodies) are hopelessly deluded if they think that industrial civilization is going to solve the problem. Industrial civilization *is* the problem: if it weren’t for the lies we are told and the ways we are forcibly disconnected from the real world then the rainforest destruction would not be taking place at all.

You know this, but it isn’t in your worldview so it can’t be true…can it?

You are right about one thing, though: there is no one solution — except all of the solutions that will make a difference involve removing industrial civilization for good.

I urge you to think about this.

Regards

Keith

P.S. Who are you?

Eric

Prevent deforestation, stop climate change, stop corporations running your world?

Gee, I’d love to see what “moderate” environmentalism is in your book (actually it would probably be the same as that of FoE, Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy, WWF…

K.

—————

Sorry Keith, I’m not going to play the game of the “real” activists versus their “moderate” partners. Based on your response, I’d say you’re too busy fighting your partners and way too little concerned about those who are really causing the problem.

I just came back from the field, and have seen and documented how an oil palm group is stealing community land, deforestation magnificent rain forests, burnt it all and at large operates illegally. The communities that I worked with have no idea what is happening to them and they called upon me to start a big time international campaign.

But, you know, your palm oil boycott is not going to help these people and their forests. By the time you have mobilised a 1000 people or so, their forest is will already be converted into oil palm. That will only enforce your position, but it will not have helped the affected people a single bit.

You can boycott palm oil and RSPO as much as you like under the populist banners of preventing deforestation, stopping climate change and stopping corporations running the world, but I guarantee you that it not going to change a single thing for the communities and the forests on the ground simply because you are not there with them.

NGO activists typically move in with too little and waaay too late because they will only move when a link to their marginal elite market is established, rather than to think ahead and move in. This is why I think fundamentalist boycott approaches are useless. Moreover, if you’re not careful, your actions are going to piss of the very communities whom you depend on for political support. Seals, whaling.. need I say more?

To dismiss RSPO at the very moment when it is yet to show what it does in practice, in my view, is so cheap and easy. You have never attended a single RSPO meeting and you have not contributed a single bit of decision making to the system better. Come on, with your angry and symbolic RSPO boycott, do you really feel that you have the ultimate answer for all the problems we are facing??

You are also misinformed. There are various social NGOs in the RSPO board and they have pretty much gotten what they have fought for. The social issue is, of course but not exclusively, tightly connected to the forest issue.

But if you believe that forests in Asia can be saved without the full support and consent of local communities: forget it. If you think that these communities will save the forest because there’s an orangutan or two: forget it. If you think that the government will change their policies because you boycott palm oil: forget it. If you think that people should be removed from these forests because they hunt and burn the forest for their livelihoods, I wish you best of luck.

You have to accept that there is no single simple solution to this problem. The worst, in my view, is to dismiss what the people who think like you are trying to achieve, especially when you come in with too little, too late.

RSPO offers communities (and forests) a real tool to fight. This is a tool they have never ever had before (the list of sad stories is endless). How can you possibly kill this opportunity before the system has even proven itself?

There is one high level case (Wilmar) at this very moment, do you dismiss that too merely because you have some pre-conceived fundamental disliking for people who work with the reality as it is? Don’t you think you should comfortably await the result before you dismiss the whole process? Hey man, help out on the ground! The Cenaku case is all but completed. The Cenaku case is all but completed.

Rather than you bla-bla-ing about RSPO and it’s mischiefs, why don’t you help out save some forests on the ground? I’ve got some magnificent rainforests on offer in Sambas District. Don’t hesitate: they’ll be chopped up in a blink. And, we need help, badly!

I agree, first “The Corporation” then, after a short break, “What A Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire”.

By that time my book should be out, and anyone will be able to download it for free.

Best

Keith

S.