The high demand for palm oil has created a large environmental problem as palm oil plantations are quickly replacing forested lands and peat swamps in Eastern Asia, which now leads the world in deforestation. Large areas of forest are cleared by slash and burn techniques to make room for monoculture oil palm plantations, greatly reducing biodiversity and producing massive carbon output into the atmosphere. These lands are also often habitats of native endangered species such as the Orangutan and Sumatran Tiger. Indeed, even old polyculture rubber plantations have been largely replaced by monoculture oil palm.
Another part of the problem with palm oil is on the side of the consumer. Palm oil’s environmental impacts are not highly publicized. It is not currently a “hot topic” in the the world and is known mostly to those who are environmentally aware. Even though it is found in so many products, not many people think about its implications as it is marketed as a “natural product,” which conjures an environmentally friendly image. This is due to a culture of commodity fetishism which obscures the origins and the process that goes into the production of a commodity.