Prince Charles Advisor Criticizes Anti-Palm Oil Video

THE LEADING environmentalist and advisor to Prince Charles, Sir Jonathon Porritt, criticized video advertisement showing anti-palm oil campaign used by Iceland, a supermarket chain in the UK. He said the video is “deeply manipulative”, “makes no sense whatsoever” and “is actually counter-productive”. On an article in The Star Online, (3/12/2018), he wrote that the video was made for specifically “political” reasons, with no requirement on it whatsoever to worry about being “fair, decent, honest and true”. The video was originally made by Greenpeace and rebadged by Iceland for Christmas advertisement. Greenpeace has a strong relationship with Iceland, the only UK retailer which has committed to phasing out the use of palm oil in all its own products by the end of the year. Later on, the ad was blocked from airing on television by the UK’s ad watchdog because it was “too political”. The animated ad, which was timed for the run-up to Christmas, features an interaction of a young girl and a baby orang utan in her bedroom after it had been driven out of his forest home. Porritt is a British environmentalist and co-founder of Forum for the Future, a UK’s leading sustainable development charity. He was a prominent member of Green Party of England and Wales. Porritt also acts as advisor to many bodies on environmental matters, as well as to individuals including Prince Charles. “To be honest, that’s a laugh. The film is unashamedly propagandistic and emotional – as John Sauven, CEO of Greenpeace UK, has explicitly acknowledged,” Porritt wrote. He said the video is well-made, and effective – but deeply manipulative. For example, It implies that the oil palm industry is the biggest cause of deforestation anywhere in the world. “It is not. Not by a long chalk,” Porritt said. He explained that more deforestation today is caused by beef, by soy, and by maize, than by palm oil. Especially beef, which is responsible for 80% of deforestation across the Amazon, and 65% of total deforestation. In his opinion, boycotting palm oil is purposeless, as has been recently acknowledged by the International Union for Conservation of Nature – in that the world will still need cooking oils, and all the substitutes will cause more damage than palm oil does. “The reason for that is simple. Palm oil provides 35% of global edible oils and yet takes up only 10% of the total global acreage devoted to edible oils. It is so much more efficient than sunflower or rapeseed oil, let alone soybean oil, which is itself a massive driver of deforestation throughout South America.” Porritt also criticized Iceland CEO Richard Walker who doesn’t know how to tell the difference between certified sustainable palm oil and uncertified palm oil. Today, palm oil industry in Indonesia and Malaysia implement sustainable practices which is certified by The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). The certification system has just incorporated strict “no deforestation criteria” into its basic principles and criteria. “So there is now no excuse to go on arguing that RSPO certification does not help reduce deforestation,” Porritt wrote. *** (Source the Star Online, Human Faces of Palm Oil)