Archived News

22/10/2009 (AFP), Kota Kinabalu - Cinta, a baby orang-utan found lost and alone in a vast Borneo palm oil plantation, now clings to a tree at a sanctuary for the great apes, staring intently at dozens of tourists.

21/10/2009 (Bernama) - OIL PALM planters in Sabah and Sarawak may soon recruit workers from China, Bangladesh and the Philippines. "This is our effort to ensure sufficient workers in addition to those from Indonesia," the East Malaysia Planters' Association (EMPA) chairman Othman Walat told reporters in Sibu, Sarawak last night.

19/10/2009 (Greenbang) - Growing palm oil for biodiesel not only not only contributes to the deforestation of tropical peatlands, but can end up generating as much as 2,000 per cent more greenhouse gases than fossil fuels, according to a new report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

16/10/2009 (Panap.Net) - Global climate change and the food crisis are taking centre stage in the international policy arena. Today is World Food Day and in November the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) will host the World Summit on Food Security in Rome. In December, Copenhagen will host the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15), which will attempt to produce a viable framework for tackling climate change and the Kyoto Protocol.

16/10/2009 (The Jakarta Post) - Because a report published on the eve of the visit to Jakarta by Lord Stern, the British Climate Change expert, late in 2007, said so. On the basis of that report, the Indonesian government is being pressed to adopt a strategy to cut emissions by 40 percent by 2030.

14/10/2009 (Planet Earth Online) - Planting oil palm plantations where rainforests once stood could have unplanned and unwelcome side-effects on air quality, scientists say.

14/10/2009 (The Star Online) - IN three short years, the fledgling palm biodiesel industry in Malaysia is fast heading for a bust.

14/10/2009 (Planet Earth) - Oil palm trees produce unusually high levels of so-called volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These react with nitrogen oxides (NOX) in the presence of sunlight to form ozone. While ozone is welcome high in the atmosphere shielding the Earth from damaging ultraviolet light, at ground level it causes breathing problems and damages plants.

14/10/2009 (The National) - IN recent months, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have mounted a major campaign against palm oil in markets of industrialised economies, threatening to campaign against brand name consumer businesses unless they vow to cease using the product.

14/10/2009 (Daily Monitor (Uganda)) - Ms Stella Ddambya, a teacher at Bishop Dan Stan Secondary School in Kalangala District seemed weary of the debate on the economic and environmental merits and demerits of Kalangala Oil Palm Project.

12/10/2009 (Biodiesel Magazine) - New York City’s feedstock procurement firm, Tri-State Biodiesel LLC, which provides recycled restaurant greases to biodiesel producers, has received the 2009 Innovation Award from the Social Venture Network. Brent Baker, CEO of Tri-State, has been a member of SVN for several years and will be accepting the award at the organization’s fall conference, which starts Oct. 22 in La Jolla, Calif. “These are business leaders who are dedicated to making the world a better a place, and support a mission to work with other members,” Baker told Biodiesel Magazine.

12/10/2009 (The Times Of India), Ludhiana - Avoiding adulterated food in the city is becoming difficult as all five samples of cooking oil that health department took during raids conducted on September 26 have failed the purity tests.