Biofuels and Animal Habitats
The preservation of natural habitats is crucial to protect the
welfare of individual animals as well preserving biodiversity and
other environmental benefits for the sake of both the natural world
itself and a sustainable and healthy human society.
However, increasing
demand for fuels made from plant material - ‘biofuels’ -
has proved to be a leading driver of deforestation in some of the
most biodiverse places on earth, causing widespread suffering and
death to many animals. Government incentives supporting the use
of palm and other vegetable oils as fuel for transport, power generation
and heating in the EU, driving animals such as orangutans to the
brink of extinction.
Biofuels from crops and trees thus means using
far more land for monocultures and thus more destruction of rainforests
and other biodiverse ecosystems as well as more hunger, more land-grabbing
and human rights abuses. The conversion of grasslands used for
grazing to jatropha (1), soya and other
biofuel crops is accelerating the development of factory farms
and thus intensifying animal cruelty.
The government enforces mandatory
blending of all transport fuel with biofuels and, on top of that,
gives subsidies for burning vegetable oil - mostly palm oil - in
power stations and has proposed new subsidies for biofuels for
home heating. Biofuels are not a sustainable solution to climate
change, unlike truly renewable energy from sources such as sustainable
wind and solar which do not harm habitats, animal welfare and biodiversity.
Here
are some examples of the devastating impacts of biofuels on wild
animals:
- The Tana River delta in Kenya is being converted to
monocultures, including sugar cane plantations for biofuels for
export. It is home to thousands of pelicans, storks, egrets and
terns as well as rare vultures, warblers and pipits who will
lose their habitat, while local communities are losing their
livelihood.
- In Argentina and Uruguay, hares, frogs, armadillos,
turtles and fish have been dying in large numbers as a result
of toxic pesticides sprayed indiscriminately on and around soya
plantations. Even children have died from the same pesticides,
for example in neighbouring Paraguay. Biofuels guarantee long-term
high soya prices and have triggered a new wave of soya expansion
in South America. Most of the soya is herbicide-resistant GM
soya which is sprayed with a variety of highly toxic agro-chemicals.
- In Paraguay’s Chaco forest a company has been awarded
a concession over 15,000 hectares to grow jatropha while soya plantations
are advancing, two of several threats to the forests. According
to Birdlife International, several endangered bird species as well
as jaguars, armadillos, ant eaters, peccaries and maned wolves
depend on Paraguay’s Chaco forest. The survival of the
indigenous Ayoreo who live in voluntary isolation is also threatened.
- In Indonesia and Malaysia, palm oil is the main driver
of permanent forest loss according to a UN report and biofuels
are the main drive for expansion, with some 20 million more hectares
of plantations planned by the Indonesian government alone. Thousands
of species, including Sumatran tigers, elephants, rhinoceroses
and gibbons depend on Indonesia’s rainforests which are
being destroyed faster than forests anywhere else in the world.
The Centre for Orangutan Protection has described a case in which
surviving orangutans were rescued from a plantation in Central
Kalimantan, Borneo, where biofuel company IOI Group had cleared
rainforest. The surviving orangutans were transferred to an area
which the company had designated as a protected area. Eight months
later, the company destroyed that forest, too.
- Across Europe, the requirement to set aside 10% of agricultural
land for natural habitat was scrapped in 2008 following lobbying
by biofuel companies. Nesting farmland birds have declined by
60% since 1970 - now ever more will be unable to find food
and nesting sites as their habitat is being ploughed up and sprayed
with pesticides.
Do you support only giving subsidies to sustainable forms
of energy production that protect animal welfare, and ensuring
that biofuels - with the exception of those sourced from true
waste products (e.g. biogas from sewage) - are not supported
through targets and incentives?
YES / NO
For further information see Biofuelwatch.
REFERENCES:
- Jatropha is a tropical plant, whose seeds yield
oil that can be used as a biofuel - see www.theecologist.org.
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