Depok, September 30, 2023 – EWIRI hosted its first public lecture in collaboration with the Faculty of Social Science UIII, with Adrienne Johnson, an Associate Professor from the University of San Fransisco.
Dr. Adrienne Johnson is an expert in geography and approaches to environmental governance in Latin America, specifically Ecuador, as well as Indonesia, where she spent a total of 15 years of research in the palm oil industry. In Indonesia, she spent her time with the SPKS (Serikat Petani Kepala Sawit) in Kalimantan for her undergraduate research, and completed her BA and MA at York University and PhD at Clark University, Canada.
In this forum she presented her lecture titled “Private Standards, Plant Disease, and Power: Governing the Ecologies of Palm Oil Industry through the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)”, where she explained how does RSPO standards reshape local governance structures and notions of power. The case study she used was the Ecuador Palm Oil Industry, with several conclusions drawn from the findings.
Palm oil is a ubiquitous good used in many products; cooking oil, candy and cosmetics to name a few. The global production of palm oil amounts to 77.56 million metric tons in total, with 3 Asian countries leading the production (Indonesia 59%, Malaysia 24% and Thailand 4.0%). Ecuador on the other hand, contributes 0.6% of the global production. (Source: USDA Foreign Agricultural Service)
RSPO was initiated by the coalition between the World Wildlife Fund, the Malaysian Palm Oil Association, Unilever, AAK, and Migros in response to the global call of sustainably produced palm oil. It was established in 2004 with the mission to promote and develop the use of sustainable palm oil products through international standards and a practice of governance that recruits a variety of stakeholders together for decision making. Their satellite office resides in Indonesia while the secretariat office is based in Kuala Lumpur.
Adrienne Johnson with UIII Students post-public lecture.
There seven core principle for palm oil producers to be RSPO certified, listed below:
- Behave Ethically and Transparently
- Operate Legally and Respect Rights
- Optimize Productivity, Efficiency, Positive Impact and Resilience
- Respect Community and Human Rights, and Deliver Benefit
- Support Smallholder Inclusion
- Respect Workers Rights’ and Working Conditions
- Protect, Conserve and Enhance Ecosystem and Environment.
Read more here: https://rspo.org/wp-content/uploads/Draft1_-_INA_NI_-_RSPO_PC_2018_270819_English_(CLEAN).pdf
Despite the great intent from the standardized sustainable palm oil productions, a polarized reaction was observed between the Global North and the Global South. The Global North has shown great support of a private standardized production, while the mass producing Global South countries shows disdain, viewing the standards as western imperialistic intervention.
Dr. Adrienne Johnson continues to present her findings based on her research in Ecuador as follows:
Policies from RSPO derives from Transnational Hybrid Governance (THG), where social environmental and economic regulations take place outside of formal international agreements, bringing inclusiveness, flexibility, and resource mobility unlike the traditional dichotomy between state and non-state actors. Concerns on accountability and fragmentation is due to the multiple actors within THG, especially with corporate practices that maximizes profits over a secure relationship with palm oil farmers.
Furthermore, palm oil farmers face their own challenges in overcoming a particular plant disease rampant in plam oil trees known as Bud Rot or Pudricion de Cogollo (PC), which leads to a slow death of the tree. Once contracted, it is highly unlikely that the tree will survive. Scientists are still baffled on how the disease spreads – leading to multiple dead plantations resulting in unemployment of the palm oil farmers.
R. palmarum with Pudricion de Cogollo (PC) a.k.a the Bud Rot Disease, (A) Healthy Tree (B) Infected Tree, courtesy of José Eduardo Serrão
Diseases such as PC challenges RSPO in establishing a sustainable palm oil industry. The government of Ecuador has formulated fixes such as hybrid palm oil seeds resistant to PC, credit and tax exemptions to contaminated plantations and preventing the spread by destroying infected trees. Havier Ponce, the Minister of Argiculture of Ecuador mentions that palm trees are put on strict surveillance; technical support plan made for palm oil plantations management to prevent the spread of PC.
In conclusion, the Ecuador palm oil governance is complex, characterized by formal and informal arrangements and non human relations. Ultimately, local entrenchment of global standards alters the structures and relations of environmental governance to a large degree, but it rarely indicates a rebalancing of power.