Palm Oil. Such a benign name for a product so cheap and so adaptable that it has found its way into a dizzying array of our foodstuffs, cosmetics and household products. There is palm oil in everything from pizza to deodorant, chocolate to shampoo. This vegetable oil is obtained from the fruit of the oil palm tree, Elaeis guineensis, originally grown in West Africa but transplanted to Southeast Asia a century ago, where Indonesia and Malaysia now grow over 80 per cent of the world’s supply. The story of how this little fruit has been, and continues to be, at the centre of so many of the planet’s woes is told in Jocelyn Zuckerman’s sobering investigation, Planet Palm.
Beginning with an historic overview of palm oil’s development, she shows how its spread was built on slavery, land theft and cultural destruction. Running as constant threads through this story are exploitation and colonialism. Massive land clearances and deforestation to grow vast palm oil plantations have had devastating environmental consequences, from carbon emissions to deadly smog and habitat loss for endangered species such as orangutans and hornbills.
