Palm Oil DetectivesDeadly Harvest: How Demand for Palm Oil Fuels Corruption in Honduras
Latin America is the fastest-growing producer of palm oil, but at what price for the environment and its defenders? Park rangers in Honduras tell harrowing tales of daily threats to their lives and real dangers they face in the long-term fight for protect Honduran rainforests, indigenous peoples and animals from annihilation #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife
đż #LatinAmericaâs #Honduras is rapidly increasing #palmoil production â at HUGE cost. Rangers face daily death threats đ while defending #rainforests đł #indigenous peoples and #wildlife. đ Fight back! #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife @palmoildetect https://wp.me/pcFhgU-8YV
Share to BlueSky Share to Twitterđ Park rangers in #Honduras đđł #SouthAmerica risk their lives every day to protect animals đ #indigenous peoples and #rainforests from #palmoil plantations. Their fight is real. Resist when u shop! đȘ #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife @palmoildetect https://wp.me/pcFhgU-8YV
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterWords and photography by Fritz Pinnow in Tela, Honduras. Originally published in The Guardian, 27 November, 2023 and republished via the Guardianâs open license agreement, read original article.
Park ranger Adonias Cruz was out monitoring illegal oil palm crops in Blanca Jeannette Kawas national park, on the north coast of Honduras, on 10 September, when an unknown armed man came to his flat and rang the bell. When the stranger realised Cruz was out, he left him a death threat.
Oil palm fields growing at the edges of the national park in Honduras. Photography: Fritz Pinnow.âI had already received death threats from people in the community for leading a team to eradicate a new oil palm plantation in the central zone of the park,â says Cruz. âIt was frightening to know they were in my flat and that everything could have ended differently if I had been home that day.â
Cruz, 28, is one of four park rangers dedicated to protecting national parks and monitoring illegal oil palm crops in Honduras. It is a high-risk job: groups linked to the exploitation of palm oil in environmental reserves and drug trafficking have made it clear they are ready to kill if they think the agents interfere too much in their business.
âMost people see us as their enemy. We can have friendly conversations with everyone here, but you never know who will be behind the next assassination attempt,â says Cruz.
Park ranger Adonias Cruz and colleagues patrol a mangrove lagoon in Blanca Jeannette Kawas national park looking for signs of illegal oil palm. Photo: Fritz Pinnow.Fellow park ranger Cesar Ortega, 22, adds that the teamâs work is monitored by the criminals. âFrom when we leave the office, they know exactly where we are and where we are heading. They have people at every intersection calling in our position and asking if we are with soldiers,â he says.
Cruz and Ortega are two of the many rangers who have been threatened while fighting against the rapid spread of oil palm plantations. Palm oil, especially from the oil palmâs fruit, has become an essential export business in Honduras, used in the food industry, in beauty products and as a biofuel. Its low production costs make it a cheap substitute for most oils, such as sunflower and olive, significantly lowering manufacturing costs in global markets.
Palm oil accounts for about 40% of global demand for vegetable oil as food, animal feed and fuel â about 210m tonnes. Between 1995 and 2015, annual production quadrupled, from 15.2m tonnes to 62.6m tonnes, and it is expected to quadruple once more in 2050. Latin America, the fastest-growing producer, accounts for almost 7% of global palm oil production.
Park ranger Cesar Ortega points out newly planted oil palm: âWhen the oil palm is still so young, it is critical to remove itIn Honduras, oil palm gained traction as a crop in 2014, when the former president Juan Orlando HernĂĄndez invested almost $72m (ÂŁ57m) in loans and grants to incentivise its cultivation. âAll one needed was the willingness to plant oil palm, and the rest was served on a plate,â says Pablo Flores VelĂĄsquez, professor of environmental investigations at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH).
For the traffickers, oil palm crops are a way of legitimising their presence in the territory and securing physical control over the land.
Frances Thomson, Latin America specialist
The problem is that the extensive cultivation of oil palm has not only proved to be lucrative, but also poses a risk to the environment. âThe oil palm presents a serious threat to the biodiversity of the wetlands and the water quality communities depend on,â says VelĂĄsquez. âAs a monoculture, the installation and establishment of the crop necessitates the complete eradication of the biodiverse area, paralysing the ecosystem completely and permanently.â
In Honduras, these crops â whose harmful effects on the soil can create âgreen desertsâ â account for almost 4% of all exports, mostly going to the Netherlands, the US, Italy and Switzerland, with a value of $334m in 2021. Six large companies control the production, and two claim more than half of all exports.
Nevertheless, 60% of the production in Honduras is in the hands of smallholders, who sell to corporations for refinement and export. Palm oil is highly lucrative for the farmers and provides an income every 15 days. The regional price of palm oil fruit varies greatly, from about 2,400 lempiras (ÂŁ77) a tonne during low season to double that in summer.
Cesar Ortega looks at an area deforested for oil palm plantations. âThey have stopped because of flooding, but as soon as they can access this area again this will all become palma,â he saysRead the remaining article on The Guardianâs website.
Words and photography by Fritz Pinnow in Tela, Honduras. Originally published in The Guardian, 27 November, 2023 and republished under Guardianâs open license agreement, read original article.
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