Has the BBC lost its capacity for objective and fair reporting?

On 5 June 2009, Victoria Gill on Science Reporter for BBC News filed a report titled "Rainforest worth more standing." This report focuses on the proposed program, called
Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (Redd), a UN initiative to protect the forest. This report asserts that the payment to reduce carbon emissions from the forest can generate more income from the production of palm oil in the deforested land.

But Ms Gill in filing a report that failed sadly reflects the usual high BBC standards and bereft of painstaking research usually associated with the BBC before the filing of a report, the hit-filled "in Indonesia and Malaysia, which is the main producer, the company is often clear and burn the forest swathes plants they grow. "He went to allude to the potential extinction of the forest by alleging:" This rich ecological forest-home to a huge variety of types, including the endangered orangutans, and very carbon-rich peat swamps. "

In view of the Palm Oil Truth Foundation Ms Gill paints for Indonesia and Malaysia with the same brush betrays a great ignorance of the capacity is very different environment of palm oil in both countries, and erodes the BBC's reputation for objective and fair reporting.

For one, Malaysia is a large plantation planting on legitimate agricultural land, back in the year of palm oil or rubber plantation or the region previous log. This is due mainly to the fact that palm oil is the most sustainable of ALL oilseed crops with the results of almost 10 times that of the nearest competitors, such as soybean, rapeseed or sunflower. For example, palm oil has a typical result from 4 to 5 metric tons per hectare of crops that produce dwarfs that of the typical 0.5 metric tons per hectare for the competitors.

Is this extreme productivity translates into practical terms, is a palm oil requires a very small footprint in terms of land use the same unit to produce edible oil as competitors. For then, that the Malaysian planters "clear and often swathes burning forests to grow their crops" is really stretching and reflect trends in the environment for this type of fact-bending, stiffening and misrepresentation, to achieve their ends!

In addition, palm oil, as a full grown tree, leaves have a high index and productive life of 20-30 years, Dispensing with the requirement for annual tilling and re-renders it that truly effective in sequestering CO2 and supports biodiversity when compared to its nearest competitors and other oilseed crops. For example, the olive farm notorious for using too much water or irrigation needs; prone to desertification and soil erosion by wind with almost no biodiversity, and thus contribute at least in the fight against global warming. Olive plantations is very low in comparison with the environmental sustainability of oil palm plantation in Malaysia. So that really surprising why palm oil has been singled out for criticism.

He must also be observed that the plantation Malaysia, Sime Darby and various other stakeholders in the Malaysian palm oil industry has been successfully sequenced the genome for palm oil which augurs well, not only for the industry, but also the environment for such development can only mean higher results. This will translate to greater sustainability, and even less for some land that has been predicted to double and perhaps more in the results of palm oil that is developed is a new type of plant.

Ms Gill to highlight plight of the Orang Utan in the way he finished, really plumbs the depth of journalistic bias to a study recently appeared to point to the fact that the population in the wild forest that is currently estimated to stand at between 45,000 60,000 and can actually grow rather than diminishing. New discovery of more than 2000 people before Sals Utan living in the wilds of Borneo are still a lot of environmentalists shame because the findings confirm that the wild population in the forest may not be as threatened as it should be made by the "environmentalists" and the media organizations.

Ms. Gill is a lot of people even realize forest conservation initiatives put in place as the center to establish forest conservation in Indonesia, including in the Tanjung Putting National Park in Central Kalimantan, Kutai in East Kalimantan, Gunung Palung National Park in West Kalimantan, and Bukit Lawang in the National Park Gunung Leuser on the border of Aceh and North Sumatra.

In Malaysia, conservation areas have been set up, and they include Semenggoh Wildlife Center in Sarawak and also cooked Wildlife Center in Sarawak, the Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary near Sandakan in Sabah and the Orang Utan Island, one of the forest conservation and rehabilitation center was established in the Red Bulit, Perak. Malaysia Palm Oil Council has also launched a S $ 5 million wildlife conservation most of the funds directed at the forest conservation.

In the final analysis, the Palm Oil Truth Foundation moved to ask two questions of Ms Gill and the BBC. One, which will be criticism from palm oil to be as loud and vociferous if the British (who founded and owned most of the oil palm plantation in Malaysia, right up to 60s and 70s) should continue to own and operate a palm oil plantation in Malaysia? Finally, the palm oil has been integrated as the attack if the plant has been less productive with the present low prices and growing popularity as a manufacturer of edible oil for food and as a feedstock for biofuel in the global market? THE END