Palm | Kelapa Sawit

This year's PostEurop announced the annual theme  is "Forests". Therefore the Czech Post issued the single stamp depicts the alluvial forest and its environment on May 4, 2011. This stamp was designed by Adolf Absolon.

The presence of a stream or river, or a high level of underground water leads to a lower amount of oxygen in the soil and subsequent reduction processes. The products of the processes contribute to the typical bluish colour and special smell of the so-called gley soil.

Primary trees found include poplar (Populus L.), oak (Quercus L.) , ash (Fraxinus L.) , elm (Ulmus L.) , alder (Alnus L.) , willow (Salix L.) , lime tree (Tilia L.) . Shrubs and small trees, such as cherry (Prunus serotina) , honeysuckle (Lonicera) , cornel (Cornel) , viburnum (Viburnum) , elder (Sambucus) , are present at places with more light.

The mix of plants found in alluvial forests depends on the shadow prevailing in the lower layers of the forest. Creepers, such as hop vine (Humulus lupulus) , try to penetrate into the upper layers. Other plants, such as ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea) , bramble (Rubus) , catchweed bedstraw (Galium aparine) , spread by vining stems.

Light-demanding herbs flowering before leaves bud on the surrounding trees give the forest so-called spring aspect. Spring snowflake (Leucojum vernum) , snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis) , lesser celandine (Ficaria verna) , yellow star-of-Bethlehem (Gagea lutea) , starwort (Stellaria holostea) , lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis) , early-dog violet (Viola reichenbachiana) , hollowroot (Corydalis cava) , are among the herbs most commonly encountered in spring.

A mix of grass species and other shadow-demanding herbs such as wild angelica (Angelica sylvestris) , true forget-me-not (Myosotis palustris) , yellow flag iris (Iris pseudacorus) , enchanter's-nightshade (Circaea lutetiana) , European birthwort (Aristolochia clematitis) , moneywort (Lysimachia nummularia) , creeping buttercup (Ranunculus repens) , common comfrey (Symphytum officinale) , common figwort (Scrophularia nodosa) , touch-me-not balsam (Impatiens noli-tangere) , cover the ground in summer.

The patchy mossy underground tends to cover maximum 10% of the forest floor.Soil fauna in alluvial forests is relatively rare due to the high amount of water in the soil. Earthworms and harvestmen are among the most common species.

Amphibians are frequent in wet areas. Birds typical of alluvial forest include yellow throat, different species of warbler, chaffinch, whitwing, robin, starling, stork, silver and night herons, bee eater, buzzard, kite, hawk, falcon, sea eagle.(Resources from Czech Post Information)

Around 60 % of Åland is covered by forest.  More than 40 varieties of trees and shrubs can be found in the Åland forests.Pine-forests dominate the northern parts of Åland, whereas the southern parts consist of deciduous forests. On the main Åland mostly found mixed forest.

Spruce, pine and yew are three types of conifers native to Åland. Pine is the most common type of tree, both in dense forests and on bare cliffs. Spruce, on the other hand, needs nutritious soil to thrive.

Recently, the Malaysian and Indonesian Ministers in charge of the palm oil industry had a roundtable dialogue with US NGOs, government officials and other food and non-food customers to discuss palm oil sustainability issues. Both the Malaysian and Indonesian delegation members were keen to hear green NGOs views and were prepared to provide counter viewpoints explaining how palm oil is produced sustainably in their respective countries.

What I have noticed lately is that the ultra green NGOs often fail to attend these dialogues. They prefer instead to raise their same old issues not in a face to face manner, but via their media channels on the internet, where they can repeat their infamous allegations on oil palm linking it to deforestation. This time, they broadcasted their counter views through the internet just a few days after the dialogue ended when the Ministers had returned home to their respective countries. In fact, our organizers informed us that the NGOs were so paranoid about the dialogue being held that they sent out emails twice unethically informing all invitees that the dialogue had been cancelled! The unscrupulous attempt to sabotage the meeting did not work and merit our condemnation. More than 50 important stakeholders including friendly NGOs attended the meeting. Nevertheless, we have to take this threat seriously. Next time around, the sabotage could be life threatening.

The Ministers decided to make a trip to the land of the green NGOs to dialogue on palm oil sustainability and to convey their convictions that palm oil does not cause any significant deforestation nor does it contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions(GHG). They were ready to explain these to the dialogue participants and additionally, share the more important secret of the vital contribution of palm oil towards global food security, national employment opportunities and lifting developing country farmers out of poverty. Palm oil as an agricultural crop has that potential.

I did notice, in reading the ultra green NGO statements which make reference to issues raised at the dialogue, that the information they received from their friends present at the meeting seemed to have deviated substantially from the original consensus arrived at the dialogue. All questions were fully answered by the delegation from Malaysia and Indonesia during the dialogue which ended with everyone fairly contented that their doubts and wrong perceptions were satisfactorily addressed.

During the dialogue, I elaborated on the progress made towards ensuring that our palm oil is the most sustainable in the oils and fats industry and this is restated as follows:-

Globally accepted definition of sustainability contains the three Ps: concern for the People, Planet and Profit. Palm oil fits the three Ps rather strategically.

1. People: People globally benefit from palm oil through improved food security and an access to cheaper supply of cooking oil; and for the two main producer countries, namely Malaysia and Indonesia, palm oil earns an estimated US$40 billion a year in terms of export revenue. Most of the income would be well distributed to families in the rural farming communities who can then send their children for basic education which will enable them to earn a decent living in future, and live comfortably in the modern world where hand phones are a common need and ipads are occasionally a new household item to replace the need to buy newspapers.

Green NGO allegations of oil palm plantations encroaching into land belonging to indigenous people in Borneo are already being addressed by the authorities. The indigenous people truly want a share of income from the development of the land in the vicinity of their traditional villages and long houses. Oil palm will help them achieve this, thus enabling them to have an assured income as opposed to their past and traditional practice of cutting logs and hunting animals from the forest (often illegally and unsustainably). In Malaysia, the authorities are undertaking perimeter survey of indigenous people community land-claims to ensure ownership is clearly established and overlapping claims on land are minimized. This will take some time to resolve and in all cases, the courts are there to help settle outstanding issues. Developed countries should understand that developing countries have to face such unresolved issues. That is why we are called developing countries.

2. Planet: Planet means environment conservation. Oil palm occupies only 6 % of the total land area of Indonesia. The ultra green NGO allegations that 2 million hectares of forests are destroyed to make way for oil palm cultivation every year in Indonesia is pure rubbish. The arithmetic simply does not add up. With these half baked figures, there would be 20 million hectares of oil palm plantations added between the year 2000 and 2010. The fact remains that Indonesia has only over 7 million hectares of oil palm plantations and not over 20 million hectares as implied by the ultra green NGOs!

Malaysia has a land area of 33 million hectares. It has envisaged that its total oil palm plantations of 4.85 million hectares are part of it allowable agricultural land which occupies about 25 % of the total land area of the country. The country has pledged to keep at least 50 % of its land area as permanent forest. The remaining 25 % of the country’s land area would be utilized for industrial development, cities, towns and villages and other infrastructural facilities such as roads and highways, recreation areas, lakes and other water bodies. Under this strategy, the entire palm oil produced in Malaysia is already sustainable as it has a balanced provision of permanent forest and agriculture areas that meet the standard practiced by any developed country. Ideally, certification for sustainability should be undertaken for the whole country as one production unit for palm oil. All the elements relating to palm oil’s sustainability, such as the need to conserve forests, are met when the whole country is regarded as one production facility for palm oil.

Ironically, the oil produced by developed countries is not sustainable and cannot be certified sustainable partly because it is often genetically modified and NGOs such as WWF have not been successful in forcing the US soyabean farmers to agree to have a sustainability scheme for soya bean oil.

3. Profit: The profit component in the requirement for sustainability is sufficiently met by palm oil production. Oil palm cultivation has undergone many cycles of replanting and yields have been maintained at a high level reflecting no deterioration in land fertility. The high yield of 10 times that of rivals such as soyabean means that oil palm plantations remain profitable whether operated by big plantation operators or by smallholders.

Misguided campaigns against palm oil
The current contention by green NGOs that only WWF introduced RSPO certified palm oil must be used in their countries is a big disservice to the thousands of small oil palm farmers globally who aspire to have fair access for their palm oil into the world markets. These farmers have similar aspirations to those of developed country small farmers who hope to export competing oilseeds and oils that they produce to the rest of the world. The recent initiative of green NGOs to use girl scouts to propagate campaigns against palm oil is indeed shameful. It will only poison their young minds by teaching them to spread lies. Their actions may well lead to a restricted market access for palm oil which will affect the livelihood of millions of poor farmers in the developing countries. Without a steady source of income, poor farmers and rural communities who need to survive will resort to more deforestation and animal hunting, leading to unsustainable conservation of forests and wildlife. Will the girl scouts take responsibility for putting developing country farmers and their families into a life of misery?

The ultra green NGOs, the green politicians and some concerned individual consumers who act against palm oil should read the latest interview given by a WWF official where he states that the anti-palm oil campaign is a result of their environmental protection strategy based on their skewed definition of sustainability and transformation of markets.. WWF, as claimed, has identified some 15 top sectors with environmental risk which needs to be saved from further destruction. It appears that only environmental conservation is important in their definition of sustainability and not the 3 Ps as practiced universally. According to the WWF philosophy, as long as there is deforestation, the producers will be harassed accordingly. In addition, big international corporations have been identified to be shamed for using ‘unsustainable’ raw materials. WWF has proudly cited palm oil as their most successful project where some 6% of palm oil exports has been certified through the WWF introduced RSPO scheme for the last two years, while for other commodities, there was a poor success rate of the WWF initiated certification campaigns with no more than 1 % adoption after years of campaigning.

Palm oil producers did realize the skewed definition of sustainability propagated by WWF. As palm oil is already highly sustainable, the producers nevertheless agreed to give the RSPO scheme a try, hoping that those needing certified palm oil can have access to such products. It does not mean that non-certified palm oil is less sustainable or not sustainable. It is just that it has not undergone a certification process. For example, small holders who have operated their oil palm plantations for generations cannot afford the certification cost. WWF or other NGOs have not provided them with financial assistance to enable them to be certified. The RSPO scheme, if made mandatory will mean that the smallholders who are long established farmers (nothing to do with deforestation) will be victimized and their produce will be denied market access because they do not have the money to employ costly foreign auditors to certify their farms as per RSPO criteria in order to have certification for the palm oil produced.

It is therefore important for WWF to revise its strategy and devise a better scheme to include participation of the small holders which form 40% of the producers of palm oil in Malaysia. One way is to regard the whole country as one production unit for producing palm oil sustainably. Sustainable principles and criteria can be devised accordingly at a macro level to ensure there is proper balance between the need for the three Ps. Malaysia is probably ready to adopt such a scheme if NGOs such as WWF can support this move. Otherwise, there will continue to be a clash of definitions relating to sustainability. The end result will be a lose-lose situation with WWF failing to save the forests and conserving the environment and the oil palm farmers becoming victims of vicious NGO campaigns.

No sovereign government will agree to subject its most important economic sector such as oil palm to be dictated by NGOs such as WWF on how to produce this crop. This is akin to allowing backdoor legislation where rules governing the country’s land resources are made not in parliament but by NGO driven organizations such as the RSPO.

Fearing that the monopoly of the WWF initiated RSPO scheme for palm oil will cost producers dearly, the Indonesians have established an alternative national sustainability scheme for palm oil (ISPO) to compete with the RSPO. ISPO is offering sustainability guarantee on a macro national scale since it is mandatory for all producers to comply. In addition, Indonesia has already initiated a moratorium on deforestation, to further give assurance that their oil palm cultivation does not cause deforestation.

Similarly, the Malaysians would probably introduce their own national sustainability scheme (MSPO) to be operated on a macro level by viewing the whole country as a single production unit for palm oil. The Germans have already introduced their own scheme for sustainable supply of raw material for biodiesel under the ISCC standard and the US has introduced a similar sustainability standard scheme under the EPA RFS series. None of them chose a WWF driven sustainability scheme as such a process would be tantamount to surrendering country level rule- making to foreign based NGOs.

While sustainability in raw material production is a common aspiration shared by producer countries and the NGOs, both defer on the definition of the concept. Producer countries cooperation to implement the NGO initiated RSPO scheme has been abused by the appearance of anti-palm oil campaigns where the demand is unclear. Many of the NGOs and green politicians take the stance that the oil palm should not exist because it was planted on former forest land and therefore causes deforestation. This extreme view has no room or provision for developing countries that need to develop their land assets, stabilize their forest reserve areas and generate employment to provide income for the rural farmers.

It must be realized that forcing unfair schemes to be adopted by poor farmers will be a futile attempt. The NGOs are not elected representatives of the farmers. It is the politicians who are entrusted to make legislations and look after the needs of the voters. There must be a better approach for attaining sustainability objectives perhaps through international agreements on how much forest each developing country should preserve and how much of the country’s land area is allowed for agriculture. For now, it looks like it is a free- for- all rule of the jungle that the NGOs are practicing, condoning one set of rules and exemptions for the developed world and another set of rules on sustainability for Malaysia and Indonesia even though the two countries have shown willingness to get its palm oil certified for sustainability on a voluntary basis. Little appreciation is given to the fact that by using only 14 % of its land area to plant oil palm, Malaysia is able to supply almost 30 % of the world’s oils and fats export requirements with 20 million tonnes of palm and palm kernel oils produced. If Malaysia were to produce the equivalent of 20 million tonnes by growing soyabean like the US or Brazil where no certification is needed to enter the world market, a land area of 50 million hectares would be needed compared with only 33 million hectares available as total land area of the country. The world should be thankful for the high productivity of oil palm. Income from palm oil generates enough prosperity to prevent forest from being converted into agriculture areas. Oil palm is a better paymaster for keeping forest intact as desired, compared to developed countries who have failed in their promise to compensate developing countries for keeping their forests conserved under the REDD scheme introduced by the UNFCC climate change agenda.

 

 The National Park Poloniny is the eastern-most Slovak large protected area. It lies on the Slovak-Polish-Ukrainian border. The forests are dominant in the national park – they cover more than 90 % of the area. Those most precious ones are declared to be the national natural preserves or natural preserves to protect the old forest community. They are unique for human-impacted or only slightly impacted forests called primeval forests. It is a community where everything flows in an integrated circle. It represents the peak of natural ecosystems.

 

The main wood species of the Carpathian forests is the European beech (Fagus silvatica). Together with white fir (Abies alba) they create precious beech and fir-beech communities. More than 40-meter high beeches are 200 to 250 years old. Slim, more than 50-meter high firs reach the age of 300 to 500 years.

 

 

 Primeval forests are a suitable refuge of a wide variety of animals. In the wood of the lost beeches, the larvae of precious longicorns can be found – Rosalia Longicorn and Leptura (=Strangalia) Thoracica. Amphibians are represented by Yellow-Bellied Toad, Carpathian Newt, Fire Salamander. Of the reptiles typical is Aesculapian Snake, randomly also Common European Viper can be found.
 

 

Western Environmental NGOs (WENGOs) often attempt to undertake studies to demonstrate the impact of deforestation on climate change or biodiversity losses in collaboration with universities in order to establish credibility in the final reports generated. However, many of these studies are not based on valid experimental designs or sound methodology.

In studying deforestation activities, for example, the outcome may change drastically if you choose and pick specific cut-off periods and regions as these will highlight and include only selected data while oppressing other data sets. The deliberate omission of data may then lead to possible biasness and potentially wrong conclusions. If the study’s intention is truly to evaluate a very specific narrow objective, then the conclusions should be restricted to the limits set initially and should not be generalized to support claims over broad and multi-causal topics like deforestation or global warming.

This blog had earlier commented on the fallacy associated when study results are generalized beyond the restricted objectives of the researchers. For e.g. , a study on biodiversity in an oil palm plantation can have ‘unfavourable’ out come if it is compared to biodiversity in virgin forest but it will have ‘favourable’ effect if compared to biodiversity of other agricultural areas. It is common for WENGOs to use such studies to conclude that biodiversity in oil palm plantations is less than that in virgin forest when the logical comparison should be with biodiversity existing in other agricultural crops as oil palm is an agricultural crop. Biodiversity in an oil palm plantation should be compared with that of forest plantation as oil palm is a forest plantation crop.

A recent study using satellite imaging analysis was quoted to have found a high rate of deforestation between 1980 and 2000 period, and the result was (wrongly) interpreted to mean that such a deforestation rate will cause global warming. Since most of the deforestation occurred in the developing countries, these countries were therefore linked to the cause of global warming. In the minds of the WENGOs, this is a clear case supporting their demands for no deforestation and an attempt to stop further development in developing countries. As a result of these type of restricted studies, ministers and government opinion leaders in the EU are convinced that deforestation is bad and therefore it must be stopped at all costs without realising that such studies are biased by the selective use of specific period when developing countries were indeed developing their agricultural industries. Conclusions derived from such studies are not considered valid by government leaders, opinion makers and NGOs in the developing countries.

For these developing countries, development is an important component of economic survival and they aspire to use the examples set in the developed countries as their model of development. They would disagree if developed countries attempt to dictate on the need to curb deforestation especially if this is without any substantial compensation. Furthermore, many realize that developed countries became developed by clearing their forests to grow industrial crops and establish other industrial activities on their (previously forested) land assets. Therefore, a deforestation moratorium has to be linked to an adequate compensation mechanism so as not to stifle the development needs of developing countries.

If deforestation and forest cover are important, the trend set by the developed countries with regard to the extent of forest cover should form the basis for future guidelines. Forest cover is a reversible process of deforestation and aforestation. A developed country can re-establish its forest area to similar high standards that it desires other developing countries to have. Therefore, a developed country that has only 10 to 20 % forest cover with no serious aforestation trend and policy has no moral right to call on developing countries with a larger percentage of forest cover to start aforestation programmes or to stop deforestation without offering adequate compensation.

The developing countries have a sovereign right to develop their land for economic growth in order to become developed nations in future. If the period on which the deforestation study is undertaken is extended back by 100 or 200 years, then it will be obvious that deforestation mainly took place in the developed countries and they would be implicated as the main contributor of global warming through massive cumulative deforestation. Selective studies designed to omit consideration of past emissions was cleverly deployed to show that the USA and EU emit less carbon as compared to developing countries as only present level of deforestation was compared. They do not include the massive deforestation and emission of CO2 in the past which have accumulated in the atmosphere, causing global temperature to increase gradually over the last 100 years.

The other real major flaw in the WENGOs’ argument is to ignore the massive contribution (more than 80%) of the fossil fuel sector toward global CO2 emission and global warming. Most of the emission during the last 200 years was from fossil fuel emission of industrial activities in developed countries. Deforestation which occurred mostly in developed countries during this period was estimated to have contributed about 17 % of the emission and global warming effect.

There was no analysis to show conclusively that the 11 million hectares of oil palm plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia representing 0.1% of global agricultural areas have contributed to significant global rise in temperature even if it is assumed that these oil palm areas were originally forested land. Logically that 0.1 % of world agricultural land used for growing oil palm would not show any significant effect on global warming compared to the use of fossil fuel and the past deforestation in developed countries, as 0.1 % is far too small to have any significant effect. Even tripling the oil palm planted area to 0.3% of world agricultural land would not have any significant effect on global warming.

On the other hand, should oil palm plantations not be expanded, this will cause 10 times more forest land to be converted for growing soyabean crop to meet future world shortages in oils and fats supply as argued in my previous article. Because of the potential deforestation avoidance effects of palm oil by a factor of 10 times, it would clearly imply that the more palm oil produced to meet world shortages, much more forest areas will be saved from being cleared to plant lower yielding oilseed crops. Deforestation studies which ignore these effects will grossly underestimate the global warming mitigation effects of palm oil and researchers conducting such biased studies will do injustice by masking the excellent potential capacity of the oil palm to mitigate global warming.

The biased results of studies on deforestation have contributed to the grave mistake of focusing world attention on deforestation in developing countries while ignoring the real culprit: the huge emission of CO2 contributed by the fossil fuel sector. It is important that the focus should be to reduce fossil fuel use in the developed countries.

The above argument explains the suspicion by developing countries that WENGOs are conducting a bogus campaign against the oil palm industry. The motivation must be to divert attention away from the real culprit who contributes to global warming : the fossil fuel sector which is allowed to continue to expand as it is vital for developed countries economic performance. Another motive is to protect their indigenous oilseed sectors, which are not sustainably produced, from competition coming from cheaper and more efficiently produced palm oil.

The Western Environmental NGOs (WENGOs) are well known for their ruthlessness: they are deeply ideological, almost like religious fanatics in some cases. They are also relentless, well funded and cunning. In many instances they have no regard for facts. They shape their arguments on the basis of their effectiveness irrespective of facts, and their war aim is clear, to destroy your industry if you are the intended target.

This is the challenge faced by the oil palm industry which has been targeted by the WENGOs. Their aim is to destroy the oil palm industry starting with a day at a time, followed relentlessly by weeks, months and years of negative campaigns. For example the ruthless campaign by Zoo Victoria against the palm oil industry was based on mere exaggeration rather than on facts. A recent report by the Australian Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) finds that 10 out of 12 facts used by Zoo Victoria in its anti-palm oil campaign are either false or cannot be substantiated.The Zoo campaigner Ms Lowry later admitted working closely with the WWF.

Oil palm happens to be an agricultural crop of developing countries where farmers who were plagued by poverty may now have an opportunity to earn a decent living of up to US$ 20 per day compared to US $2 before they cultivated oil palm trees on the land. These farmers are crying for fair trade to prevail especially in the EU, USA and Australia where WENGOs campaigns have smeared the good image of their agricultural produce leading to new barriers being imposed to imports of palm oil.

In some instances the anti-palm oil campaigns have infiltrated policy makers in formulating regulations which are essentially trade barriers disguised as sustainability issues. The EU Renewable Energy Directives (RED), with their highly controversial system of default figures assigned especially to foreign raw materials like palm oil for use as biofuel is a clear example of a discriminatory trade barrier. No sound minded scientists will be able to justify assigning a pathetic low carbon emission saving figure of 19 % for palm oil, but it can happen in the EU as found in the RED regulations as a result of the influence of the WENGOs in policy making circles.

Similarly, the infiltration of WENGOs ideology in the World Bank has led to a departure of its policy which no longer promotes growth in developing countries when oil palm cultivation is involved. But WENGOs can avoid the path of destruction of developing countries agricultural industry and still contribute to a better world if their campaigns to save forest and mitigate green house gas (GHG) emissions are linked to actual sectors and countries that are truly involved in deforestation or those rampantly contributing to GHG emissions.

One area of potential progress is to focus on deforestation taking place in developed countries. I have pointed out this previously citing Canada as an example and since then some progress was observed. Recently, Canada made peace with the WENGOs by signing a moratorium on logging to reduce deforestation. This is a good example for other developed countries to follow. Deforestation moratorium alone is not sufficient. In order to increase forest cover, reforestation campaigns should be launched especially in the EU where forests have been decimated to less than 20 % of total area in many countries. They should follow the good example of Malaysia where forest cover is more than 50 % of the total country's area. Such re-establishment of forest cover will help mitigate global warming and provide habitats for animals.

Present focus by the WENGOs to restrict oil palm cultivation expansion in order to conserve forests is likely to stifle an important economic activity of developing countries. Other more feasible options should be considered. For example, deforestation in developing countries and coal mining in developed countries share common characteristics in that both are economic sectors which contribute to emission of CO2. If the WENGOs were to focus solely on no deforestation by preventing expansion of oil palm plantation in developing countries and yet allow the continuation and expansion of coal mining in developed countries, the emission of CO2 will continue undiminished.

Therefore, developed countries will continue to enjoy economic activities with substantial CO2 emission while poor farmers in developing countries are unfairly asked to make sacrifices and denied further access to an economic activity in order to save emission of CO2.

In reality, replanting of degraded forest land with oil palm is the most productive and useful thing to do, as it is the best way to reforest an area, sequester carbon and contribute to economic development. On the other hand, coal mining is a one way process of releasing locked carbon to the atmosphere causing global warming. The developing countries are also the least able to make the sacrifice to reduce their economic activity compared to developed countries.

This is where the WENGOs can re-align their campaigns by focusing on what developed countries could do in order to make a more meaningful contribution to their objective of reducing global CO2 emission and not just focus on stifling the growth of agricultural commodities of developing countries such as palm oil which will harm the income potential of the poor farmers who are only trying to earn a decent living. These oil palm farmers have a right to have a better life just like the WENGOs and they should be given a chance to improve their agricultural practices while facing the harsh realities of poverty which is common in developing countries. They are working with local NGOs to adopt the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) practices which takes time, and they need support in improving their sustainability practices instead of harassment by some WENGOs from far away lands on how best to cultivate their crops.