18/04/2011 (Helsingin Sanomat) - Speaking at a Greenpeace press briefing in Helsinki on Thursday, director Lukas Straumann from Swiss NGO Bruno Manser Fonds, specialists in defending rainforests and indigenous people in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, urged the Finnish oil refiner Neste Oil to stop using palm oil in biofuel production.

Neste Oil uses palm oil and other renewable raw materials for the production of biological diesel fuel at its refinery in Porvoo in Southern Finland.
     
According to Straumann, the destruction caused by the palm oil production to the environment and inhabitants in Indonesia and Malaysia is so significant that palm oil should not be used for fuel production at all. Nevertheless, he accepts the use of palm oil for human nutrition.

Neste Oil buys palm oil from the Malaysian producer IOI.

Straumann argued that IOI destroys valuable rainforests when expanding its palm oil plantations, thus weakening the livelihoods of indigenous people in the region.