Video: One day, one man, one tree

Video: One day, one man, one tree

Despite the ever increasing rates of deforestation, annual wildfires, species extinction, top soil loss, and other problems directly connected to the palm oil industry, more and more plantations are being cultivated each year. What is sold in the West as a “green” fuel devastates the environment in Southeast Asia, South America and West Africa.

Palm oil is one of the main agricultural and industrial sectors in Southern Thailand, so we are literally surrounded by palm trees. Our place used to be a palm oil plantation, too, but one by one we cut them down, since they are not quite as useful as every other tree in our garden – and there’s already plenty of them, so no need for conservation efforts.

One more time we got rid of a palm tree, so now there are 10 oil palms left in our garden (of over 65 when we started five years ago). We plan on cutting all of them down over time (except maybe one for personal use), whenever we want to use an area for something else, need a bridge over the pond or simply don’t like looking at them anymore, we cut them down with an axe, which usually takes about one day – those trees consist out of a very hard, strong fiber that causes your axe to be blunt within five minutes of work.

Another reason why we cut down oil palms is to make a small but symbolic gesture that we do things differently, that we try to make a difference. The world needs it.

One day, one man, one tree – fuck the palm oil industry!

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How do we justify killing a tree out of an animist, “arborphile” perspective? Well, first of all one tree makes room for many other trees. Secondly, those trees didn’t grew here because they wanted to, they were cultivated, domesticated, systematically enslaved and mutilated every two weeks for profit. If there is living conditions for humans that are considered inhumane, monocultures are “inplantane” – degrading and beneath the dignity of the plant. Some people might agree that in certain conditions it is probably better to die, as some form of final salvation, so in a way we delivered the oil palm from a inplantane life full of suffering.