Palm oil has been and continues to be a major driver of deforestation of some of the worlds most biodiverse forests, destroying the habitat of already endangered species like the Orangutan, pygmy elephant and Sumatran rhino. What is palm oil deforestation?
The process of palm oil deforestation
It is the production of oil, which has been extracted from seeds that are left after the fruit has been eaten by a specific species of fruit bat. The fruit is then carried by the wind or the rain into a plantation, where hundreds of people working under deplorable conditions harvest the oil from the seeds. The process of deforestation is so that we may have what we call ‘palm oil’.
The production of palm oil
Palm oil is extracted from orangutans habitat and is produced for use in everything from food to soap to cosmetics to fuel to lamps and so on. The demand for palm oil is such that forests are being cleared in Central and South America to make way for plantations. This is causing the extinction of some of the rainforests most endangered species like the orangutan, Sumatran rhino, Giant panda and rhino, destroying the habitat of the …