Amidst the growing concerns and objections on oil palm cultivation across the globe, citing environmental hazards and human rights violations, Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh had on 12 November (2020) pushed forward oil palm cultivation in Manipur
TFM Report
Unheeding global call to stop promoting oil palm plantations in biodiversity-rich tropical rainforest zones, the Government of India is all set to usher in a spell of environmental crisis in North East India with its plans to introduce oil palm plantations in the region.
The Union Government’s cabinet recently cleared the deck for an INR 11,040 crore plan to take up oil palm plantation under its National Mission on Edible Oils – Oil Palm with the Ministry of Agriculture at the helms. Under the plan, the North Eastern Regional Agriculture Market Corporation Limited is to get a revival package of INR 70.45 crore to kick start the project.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi touted the project as a major thrust of the Government, stating that “India can cultivate around 2,800,000 hectares of land for palm oil trees, especially in the northeast region, where over 900,000 hectares is feasible for such cultivation” (Agencies, 19 August, 2021).
The plan seeks to boost domestic production of edible oils as the country faces deficit in stocks due to the ban on import of palm oil following the international outcry on environmental hazards like massive deforestation, land degradation, water insecurity, and concerns on human rights violation resulting from large-scale oil palm plantations.
Luring farmers to grow oil palm trees, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar assured to provide special assistance at INR 250 per plant ‘to replant old gardens for rejuvenation of old gardens’, and assistance for planting material to increase from INR 12,000 per hectare to INR 29,000 per hectare.
In tune with the PM’s decision to accelerate the project, Manipur Government under Chief Minister N.Biren Singh’s stewardship placed ‘The Manipur Oil Palm (Regulation and Production and Processing) Bill, 2021’ seeking assent of the State Assembly on the first day of Monsoon Session of the 11th Manipur Legislative Assembly on 21st August.
The Bill seeks to regulate the operation of oil palm plantation in the State under mission mode by the State Agriculture Department. TFM understands the State Government is pushing for the project in Imphal West, Ukhrul, Chandel, Churachandpur, Thoubal and Bishnupur districts with nurseries already being developed in preempted assumption that the project is highly feasible economically.
In the Northeast, Assam, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram have already initiated oil palm plantation since 2017. Barely four years into the project, concerns on environmental degradation and displacement of indigenous peoples by incoming companies’ interests is already surfacing, with civil societies in Mizoram pushing forward objections to large scale oil palm plantation in the State.
At the global context, in May earlier this year, Sri Lanka imposed a total ban on palm oil imports and ordered oil palm plantations in the country to be replaced with rubber trees and other crops over the next decade, citing adverse environmental and social impacts.
Speaking to the online portal Mongabay (9 May, 2021), Gamini Hitinayake, Professor at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, said, “Oil palm is a threat to the existence of all traditional plantation crops such as rubber, tea and coconut which are far more environment friendly”. Professor Gamini is on the expert panel formed by the country’s Central Environmental Authority (CEA). The panel identified soil erosion and drying of springs as among the potentially irreversible impacts of oil palm plantations on the island nation’s biodiversity and livelihood of local communities. The panel’s report, published in 2018, outlined several recommendations to create the foundation for banning oil palm cultivation on the island.
In Peru, the indigenous Shipibo-Conibo people won a significant battle in December, 2020 when the Peruvian Government temporarily halted oil palm cultivation in the Shipibo territory over allegations of human rights violation linked to the expansion of oil palm plantations.
Earlier this year in January, in Indonesia the indigenous Auyu tribe of Papua launched a massive campaign to halt the operations of the palm oil company PT Indo Asiana Lestati alleging that the company failed to obtain the consent of the community for the project. The protest came in the wake of the apprehension that the company could raze their ancestral forest for oil palm cultivation.
In 2019, the Government of Malaysia considered ban on further expansion of oil palm plantations in the country in response to wide criticism over palm oil’s link to large-scale deforestation in Southeast Asia. The criticism over-flowed in response to destruction of vital rainforests cover, threatening livelihoods of forest dependent communities and endangering wildlife.
Loren Bell writing for Mongabay (30 November, 2020) cited an international team of researchers which assessed the socio-economic impacts of oil palm development on 36,311 villages across Indonesia between 2000 and 2018 reported that ‘Certified’ palm oil is linked to worsening social, ecological outcomes for Indonesian villagers.
The researchers are quoted as saying, “Our finding that oil palm development has failed to improve well-being in rural subsistence villages, calls for careful consideration by key decision-makers of unintended indirect impacts of pushing large-scale industrial oil palm into frontier forest areas where local communities still rely heavily on environmental services”.
A research paper by Serge Morand and Claire Lajaunie in the Frontiers Veterinary Science (24 March, 2021) reported that “zoonotic and vector-borne diseases showed an increase in the number of their outbreaks that appear to be linked with deforestation globally over the period of 1990 to 2016, with vector-borne diseases showing a most dramatic increase over the last years of the period considered. Our results also show a positive association between the number of vector-borne disease outbreaks and the increase in land areas converted to oil palm plantations”.
Amidst the growing concerns and objections on oil palm cultivation across the globe, citing environmental hazards and human rights violations, Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh had on 12 November (2020) pushed forward oil palm cultivation in Manipur stating that the project ‘would uplift the economic status of local people by taking up oil palm cultivation in lieu of poppy plantation’, and would be ‘a better option to jhum culture’.
Environmental activists and other concerned citizens in the State are skeptic over the Government’s move to promote monoculture oil palm cultivation in view of the expected environmental hazards and human rights violations associated with oil palm, as experienced in several regions across the globe. They cautioned the Government from hastily taking up the project without proper and extensive consultations with local communities.