New Zealand dairy farmers reject link to Indonesian forest fires

New Zealand dairy farmers Wednesday denied that their industry is fuelling the devastating fires raging in Indonesia, where rainforests and peat lands have been set alight to clear the ground for palm plantations.

International environmental campaign group Greenpeace on Monday claimed New Zealand's biggest company, the Fonterra farmer-owned cooperative, was feeding the demand for palm products as it was the world's single biggest importer of palm kernel expeller (PKE).

Almost a third of the global trade in palm kernel was bought by New Zealand, mostly as feed for the dairy industry, Greenpeace New Zealand executive cirector Russel Norman said in a statement.

"Fonterra buying huge volumes of PKE from these plantations to feed the expansion of industrial dairying in New Zealand clearly links them to the fires, destruction of rainforests and peatland, massive greenhouse gas emissions, and unprecedented human suffering as a result of the smog from the fires," Norman said.

The Federated Farmers industry group said Wednesday it shared the concerns of Greenpeace about the devastation and environmental impact of the forest fires, but the use of PKE as feed for dairy cows was not to blame.

PKE was a by-product of the extraction of palm oil and palm kernel oil that would otherwise be treated as waste, Federated Farmers dairy industry chair Andrew Hoggard said in a statement.

"Dairy farmers are taking this waste product and making use of it as a supplementary food source, used mainly as an alternative to pasture during adverse weather such as droughts, to maintain the welfare of herds and the productivity of New Zealand's vitally important dairy industry," said Hoggard.

"Fonterra and its dairy farmers source their PKE from a single suppler that operates on a sustainable basis," he said.

The fires, which have been raging for more than three weeks, have been described as the biggest environmental crime of the 21st century, and are reportedly destroying the habitat of a third of the world's wild orangutans and other endangered species. Enditem