UK stops Malaysian palm oil ad after complaint

Business Times 11 Jan 08;

Environmentalists protest that impact of using palm oil as biofuel is unproven

(LONDON) Britain's advertising watchdog on Wednesday ordered British television to stop airing two commercials suggesting palm oil production in Malaysia is good for the environment, calling them misleading.

The independent Advertising Standards Authority accepted complaints by environmentalists that the net impact of using palm oil as a biofuel is still unproven, and that the Malaysia Palm Oil Council's commercials could mislead viewers to think palm oil plantations are as environmentally friendly as natural rain forests.

The ruling was the latest skirmish in the global warming debate on the benefits of palm oil as a substitute for fossil fuels. The arguments before the authority covered a broad range of issues by both sides.

The dispute tested claims by Malaysia and Indonesia, the world's largest producers, that palm oil plantations have a minimum impact on biodiversity and that they are more efficient than other types of agriculture in controlling climate change by soaking up carbon from the air and by producing cleaner fuels.

'Because there was not a consensus that there was a net benefit to the environment from Malaysia's palm oil plantations, we concluded the ads were misleading,' the watchdog said.

The two ads were shown in July on BBC World, the British Broadcasting Corp's international news and information channel.

One commercial showed a palm oil plantation while a voice-over said: 'Its trees give life and help our planet breathe, and give home to hundreds of species of flora and fauna.' The second ad's voice-over said: 'Its trees give life and help our planet breathe. Its fruit provides vitamins for our bodies and energy for our daily lives.' Malaysia argued before the board that new palm oil plantations have not displaced rain forests since 1990, and instead were planted on converted rubber, cocoa and coconut plantations.

That was challenged by Friends of the Earth, which filed one of the complaints. It said huge tracts of forests had been cleared in Malaysia between 1995 and 2000 for palm oil development, further threatening endangered species such as the orangutan and proboscis monkey.

'The draining and deforesting of peatlands in South-east Asia, predominantly to make way for palm plantations, releases huge amounts of soil carbon into the atmosphere, accounting for a massive 8 per cent of global annual CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions,' the group said in a statement. -- AP