J

an. 3, 2016

Indonesia has strongly protested France'€™s plan to issue a biodiversity law that will triple import taxes on palm oil products, one of the country'€™s main export commodities.

The Office of the Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister said the proposed law was rife with protectionism, although the French senate has claimed that environmental protection was the reason for the law.

'€œThis doesn'€™t have anything to do with the ecosystem, as it will be imposed on both crude and processed palm oil products, including Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil [ISPO] products,'€ Arif Havas Oegroseno, an assistant to the coordinating maritime affairs minister, said in Jakarta on Monday.

Your comments:

I think it should be based on how many fires there will be in 2016. If there is just one fire, maybe the tax should be 1,000 percent?

Abdul Malik

Luckily, France is not too serious about deterring the use of palm oil, or else they might have slapped a 170 percent tax on it, just like their wines and spirits are taxed here.

Bohongbohong

Do you fail to see the connection between global warming and heat waves, or between global warming and palm oil?

Benam

They are busy trying to improve the health of French people. Meanwhile here in Indonesia, the government supports the tobacco industry and fails to act against the pollution that is killing us by the thousands.

Mrpig96

Let'€™s first see whether the Peatland Restoration Agency is able to do things properly or not. I strongly doubt it, though. Creating such an agency in Jakarta to please foreign investors and to make people believe that the Indonesian government is committed to protecting peatland, does not mean that peatland forests will be restored anytime soon. It is just a first step. It may take decades before peatland forests show signs of recovery.

Silvio Bari

Please don'€™t tell me that you expect us to believe that these protests are for the benefit of Indonesian farmers. It may benefit big pockets and small minds.

L. Millar

Don'€™t we know that over 45 percent of all oil palm growers are smallholders and poor farmers? These are hardest hit, simply because they have lower yields and can'€™t afford superfluous certification scams like POIG & RSPO.

Wong Jowo

We should stop exporting palm oil and at the same time stop importing crude oil, since palm oil can be turned into biofuel to replace oil for our domestic consumption. We should export palm oil only if we have a surplus.

Jalasveva

Palm oil is the most sustainable oil crop, since it needs 10 times less land than to harvest the same amount of oil from other perennial crops.

The fact that France already grows 11 millions hectares of perennial seed oil and still cannot compete with Indonesian'€™s palm oil quantity, proves this fact.

The fact that you only plant the tree once and you can harvest the oil for over 20 years is also more eco-friendly than other oil crops that need to be replanted each year because this destroys the topsoil and creates erosion and decrease soil fertility.

As for orangutan (and other macaques), it is the government and Indonesians who must change their bloody behavior in hunting these animals. Most of the macaques are dead due to being slaughtered.

Sumatran elephants were already endangered more than 60 years ago (before oil palm plantation began), because they were being slaughtered by Indonesians and the Europeans colonials.

You can still have biodiversity by growing palm oil on the side if
you don'€™t murder the endangered animals. There is also no scientific evidence that palm oil is not healthy.

The published articles that say so are mostly junk science based on '€œobservation'€ without placebo controls. It'€™s too easy these days saying this and that food is unhealthy.

Sadly, many Indonesian celebrities also jump on the '€œunhealthy palm oil'€ bandwagon campaign.

India and Australia have cut funding for Greenpeace, we need to do the same.

SW

Indonesians should open their eyes '€” Westerners and Europeans including many foreign commentators here, operate freely in Indonesia, then take photos and write smear articles for the international audience and their lawmakers.

This is the exact end result '€”boycott and discriminatory levies against Indonesian exports.

Greenpeace & Co'€™s so-called industrial espionage causes an estimated US$716 billion in economic losses to Indonesia in a decade.

Palm Parmer