Plantations in danger

to plantations as slaves to white masters.

Tropical forests were cut down to expand the plantations.

Europeans colonized the Caribbean islands as sugar plantations, ruthlessly bringing African slaves by the millions to work, and die young, on those plantations.

All plantations require slaves and a colonial system of management.

Sustainable palm oil means it is sourced from haze free plantations.

In 1985, Indonesia had less than 2,500 square miles of palm oil plantations.

At the time of independence, Portuguese owned plantations occupied 90 of the cultivated area.

In the process, families were split up and sold to different plantations in different states.

Butler neglected to tell Fanny that his income came from cotton and rice plantations in Georgia.

Another major issue plaguing the data today is whether monoculture plantations should be counted as forests.

FAO says it does not include oil palm plantations or fruit tree monocultures under its definition of forests, but it does include pulp and paper plantations as well as replanting efforts that usually depend on a single species.

In this sense, large plantations such as Validebağ and Emirgan assume a special significance to local people.

One producer, Asian Plantations, estimates that global demand for edible oils will more than quadruple by 2050.

Most of the small businesses, small factories, plantations still rely on cheap labor to make a hefty profit.

The first distillation of rum took place on the sugarcane plantations of the Caribbean in the 17th century.

Protesting farmers tear up their pay slips, showing the meager salary they receive by working in the sugar plantations.

And most analyses of satellite data sets don t distinguish between forest plantations and diverse forests, meaning that research dependent on satellites usually counts mature oil palm, rubber, acacia or other plantations as forest simply because from the a bird s eye view they look like forest.

For instance, plantations in our region supply much of the world s palm oil, a key ingredient in food products and cosmetics.

The latter are blamed on the slash and burn practice of farmers and the land clearing operations of palm oil plantations in Indonesia.

Twenty years later, they covered 21,621 square miles, and by 2025 the Indonesian government projects plantations will cover at least 100,000 square miles.

FAO says it does not include oil palm plantations or fruit tree monocultures under its definition of forests, but it does include pulp and paper plantations as well as replanting efforts that usually depend on a single species. Taken together, data give us a more complete understanding of how forest landscapes are changing, says Petersen.

China, for example, has undertaken ambitious forest planting programs to combat desertification and soil erosion (although most of these are monoculture plantations rather than diverse forests).

During the dry season, farmers and plantations routinely clear peat and rainforest in Indonesia by burning it, creating a toxic haze that blankets the wider region.

The exponential growth of palm oil plantations is to a large degree an unintended consequence of economics, and food and energy policies elsewhere in the world.

For most of the 20 th century, Brazilian elites thought that they could get by on natural resources cattle ranches, coffee plantations, fruit juices, and soybean farms.

They claim that companies are even promoting the consideration of palm oil plantations as a reforestation activity, as well as the government incentives given to that crop.

DeGraft Hanson began researching the history of the Butler plantations, and found a list of the names of the people sold as slaves during the Weeping Time.

But the Union of Concerned Scientists, in its report Recipes for Success, notes that the increased profits that accompany improved yields can spur further expansion of plantations.

While stricter enforcement of rules against deliberate fires in Indonesia s 1999 Basic Forestry Law and the 2014 Law on Plantations will help, far more needs to be done.

And, like coal, peat stores massive amounts of carbon, which is released into the atmosphere when the land is burned, cleared, and drained to make way for plantations.

Last August, from the window of a jet high over the Indonesian island of Sumatra, I counted nearly a dozen plumes of smoke rising from the vast jungles and plantations below.

Fires associated with clearing land for oil palm plantations in the Indonesian province of Riau release massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and spread health harming haze across the landscape.

Haze pollution is a recurring problem in Southeast Asia, mainly caused by deforestation and burning of peat lands in western Indonesia to make way for the expansion of palm oil plantations.

Tiempo Muerto, or The Dead Season, visits sugar plantations across the Philippines, when many farmers struggle with hunger and deprivation because there s no work during this off milling period of the year.

In 1998 DeGraft Hanson was invited by the local historical society to talk about the Butler plantations on St Simon's Island, near to Hampton plantation, which is now a wealthy gated residential community.

Despite the passage of numerous land reform laws mandating the distribution of lands to farmers, many of the haciendas (plantations) in Negros have remained intact and in the hands of politically powerful family dynasties.

It could also help provide jobs for villagers who would be willing to work as firefighters and watchmen of the plantations to prevent fires or to testify against companies who run afoul of the law.

To support this demand for the molasses to produce rum, along with the increasing demand for sugar in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries, a labor source to work the sugar plantations in the Caribbean was needed.

On our way to the Port of Veracruz, we stopped at Yanga and saw the agricultural fields full of caña and corn surrounding the area, also rich in coffee plantations the tropical weather invites you to be outside, under the sun's open arms.

When forests are cleared to make way for oil palm plantations, the area is usually burned, and most of Riau s massive fires burn on peat swampy layers of partially decayed vegetation that spreads up to 60 feet deep beneath most of the province s forests.