Forest Footprint

Ecological footprint measures people’s demand on nature and compares human consumption of natural resources with the Earth’s ecological capacity to regenerate them. The Living Planet Report 2006 confirms that humanity’s footprint has exceeded the planets biocapacity by 25 per cent indicating “our footprint is too big for nature”. The report also shows that there is a rapid and continuous loss of biodiversity. The report ranked India as the third in terms of gross foot print ( 802 million gha) followed by US (2819 million gha) and China (2152 million gha). India’s ecological footprint is likely to grow faster and its implications on forest resources are a matter of concern. The programme has identified timber, paper and pulp, palm oil and soy  as potential sectors for assessing India’s footprint.

Sustainable Palm Oil

Conversion of forests for cultivating oil palm and soy has been identified as a major threat to forest conservation and biodiversity in the tropics. Southeast Asia experienced the largest decline in forest area, with the annual net loss of more than 2.7 million ha per year between 2000-2005. Indonesia experienced the greatest forest loss (1.9 million ha per year). Most of the lowland rainforest on the Indonesian Island of Sumatra has already been lost, largely because of the clearance for oil palm plantations. Indonesia and Malaysia share more than 80 per cent of world production in Palm Oil. The global demand for palm oil is projected to increase from the current level of 22 million tones to 40 million tones by 2020. This increase in demand is likely to force the producing countries to establish new plantations, by converting high conservation value forests.

India is the fourth largest edible oil economy in the world . The nation is also the world’s largest importer of palm oil, followed by EU and China. Currently, India is importing around 3.8 million tones of palm oil annually in order to meet one-fourth of its edible oil requirements. Of these, 95 per cent are from Indonesia and Malaysia. The key players in the oil palm sector in India can reduce India’s “ecological foot print” related to oil palm production in SE Asia if they commit themselves to socially and environmentally friendly purchasing decisions and engage in the international process for more sustainable palm oil world wide, including the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).

Presently, the participation of India in RSPO is inadequate. The preliminary results of a scoping study undertaken by WWF-India in 2005 reveal that there is strong potential to constructively engaging business and industry in India to address forest conversion and ecological foot print issues associated with oil palm production in Indonesia and Malaysia. Accordingly, a step wise approach has been initiated to engaging Business and Industry in India to promote sustainable palm oil started this year. The Godrej Group joined RSPO in 2006 and became the first Indian company committed to sustainable palm oil.  A workshop on Sustainable Palm Oil and Ecological Footprint was conducted on 21st March 2007 in collaboration with RSPO Secretariat to discuss the issues and concerns of the key stake holders in India.