Biofuel Impact on Environment & Society

1383 Words6 Pages
Biofuel Impact on Environment & Society Ben L. I. Introduction In search for alternative fuel, people have discovered to utilize oil from plants as a substitute for petroleum. This type of fuel is called Biofuel. With the rise of Biofuel, most of the people in the world think that this is the beginning of high-efficiency, and environmental friendly fuel era. Unfortunately, Biofuel leads to other problems that may change the way you are thinking towards Biofuel. II. The Case In 2005, a group of village men went hunting in the forest several hours from Pareh and stumbled on a clearing in which the trees had recently been felled. That was how they discovered that Perseroan Terbatas Ledo Lestari, or PTLL, a subsidiary of an Indonesian company named Duta Palma Nusantara, was seizing their ancestral land to establish a massive plantation of oil palms, a tree whose oil is rendered and refined into biodiesel. Over the next two years PTLL destroyed 15,000 acres, which the Dayak say amounts to three-quarters of their "customary forest"—land that's vital for their survival and to which they have certain rights under Indonesian law. The plantation also uprooted monkeys and wild boar, which began raiding the community's food supply. Because PTLL replaced diverse forest with a monocrop, pests invaded Pareh's subsistence gardens. Rice crops failed. The Dayak filed complaints with regional and national officials; at one point they commandeered one of PTLL bulldozers. The clearing went on. Increasingly desperate, in 2007 the people of Pareh offered PTLL a drastic compromise. The villagers would surrender every acre the plantation had illegally seized if the company agreed to take no more land. There was no response. Soon after, a villager obtained a PTLL map showing the company's long-term plan: It aimed to clear-cut

More about Biofuel Impact on Environment & Society

Open Document