So long as the industry abides by rigorous standards of sustainability, oil palms can be cultivated in an environmentally friendly manner. That’s the idea behind the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), an industry watchdog that seeks to ensure that palm oil is produced sustainably. But what if the RSPO…

First came the accusations, now comes the rebuttal. The accusations: In an op-ed published recently in The Borneo Post, BLD Plantation Bhd, which has come in for flak from Malaysian environmentalists for clearing large tracts of peatland for oil palm plantations near Sibu in Sarawak, lashed out at some of those…