Palm oil: EU ban won’t save Asian rainforests, but here’s what might help

Anyone lucky enough to visit Ghana could do worse than order a plate of boiled yam and red-red – a stew made with beans and tomato paste. A Sunday morning treat in Europe might be homemade crepes and hazelnut chocolate spread. Both of these meals – though part of very different cuisines and eaten in different places – contain palm oil, an edible vegetable oil extracted from the fruit of the oil palm (Elaeis guineensis).

The link between palm oil production and deforestation in the tropical regions where it is grown is well known, but few people realise how prevalent palm oil is in items consumed every day, such as cleaning products and biodiesel.

Global production of palm oil has increased rapidly since the 1990s, with plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia supplying around 85% of the global trade.