A palm oil alternative could help save rainforests
People don't cut the rainforest to produce palm oil. They cut it to make money and improve their livelihood in a political environment that places no value on rainforest. If palm oil prices drop tomorrow to zero, those people will become even poorer, the value of the rainforest will remain zero, so they will cut it even further to plant the next best profitable cash crop not yet made obsolete by technology.<p>This is a common pattern among green initiatives, trying to solve things by creating poverty and scarcity, expecting people far away to happily plow in manure so that they can buy a pair of jeans made from organic cotton at the latest pop-up fashion store.<p>Survival is the most powerful force driving the human race forward. If you want to save the rain forest, there is a very simple trick to it: make sure the economy in the area is able to create 1000$/month environmentally sustainable jobs. At that labor price, survival farming and destroying the habitat does not pay, the palm oil farms will not find labor and will close down.<p>Since in economic reality that's not at all a simple trick, we can suplement it with political measures, things that give value to the rainforest or strongly penalize its destruction: international agreements, subsidies and tariffs, sustainable tourism etc.<p>But whatever method we chose, it should not ignore the actual people living there, their intelligence comparable to our own and their fight for survival.