Searching For Palm Oil Transparency Without RSPO?

Palm oil and resulting deforestation are transforming the tropical forests landscapes across great ape range states. This impact has has been devastatingly felt in Borneo and Sumatra where 70 percent of the natural forest has been destroyed. That juggernaut of destruction is now advancing on the Congo Basin. The group initiated to clothe the juggernaut in sustainability seems inept to do so — what next?

British journalist Fred Pearce asked this question, “Who is to blame for this transformation? Is my tub of margarine or your jar of cosmetics made from the palm oil growing down here? And if we knew, could we stop the continuing tropical carnage?”

There might just be a trace of hope answering that question, in TRASE – Transparency for Sustainable Economies. A collaboration of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the UK-based Global Canopy Programme (GCP), and supported by funders like the EU and Moore Foundation, TRACE’s Toby Gardner, told Pearce, “Over the next five years, we aim to cover over 70 percent of the total production in major forest-risk commodities, for the first time laying bare the flows of globally traded commodities that are driving deforestation,”

Commodity production drives two thirds of tropical deforestation worldwide. This accelerates climate change and is associated with many other social and environmental impacts. But links to the markets engaged in commodity trade remain obscure.

Notes & Source

http://www.trase.earth