The Kezekevi Thehou Ba (KTB) held a virtual meeting on August 19 to discuss various facets pertaining to oil palm cultivation currently being aggressively promoted in the Northeast.
The meeting was attended by 66 people, which also included representatives of organisations from Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland, to hear the hitherto “untold” facts associated with oil palm cultivation from several subject matter experts.
In a statement, KTB said India was the world’s largest importer of palm oil. Despite being self-sufficient in vegetable oil production from locally cultivated and diverse oil crops until recently, it mentioned that the country moved to a massive reliance on non-native palm oil at the expense of enhancing the production of traditionally used oil crops such as mustard and coconut.
India domestically produced 1% of its oil palm requirement and imported 99%, mainly from southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia, with an import bill of over Rs 1.50 lakh crore.
This significant shortfall in domestic palm oil production prompted the government to push for vegetable oil security under the banner of the National Mission on Edible Oil–Oil Palm (NMEOOP). The north-eastern states and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands top the government’s agenda for its robust expansion plans.
However, the KTB accused the government of not taking into account the fact that these two regions were home to three global biodiversity hotspots and habitats for globally threatened species, including several endemic ones. It pointed out that the regions also retained some of the most extensive tracts of forest in the country.
The organisation cited research papers and articles to point out that “These forests are crucial for biodiversity, climate resilience and intrinsic protection for indigenous cultures, their lifestyles and livelihoods. Because of their ecological and cultural significance, both these regions should be no-go areas for oil palm cultivation”.