I am empowered, page-2

Opportunistic Environmentalist or “Follow the Money” Environmentalist. Little Yeo Bin Yin grew up on an oil palm estate (Gomali) where her father was a clerk. When she was five, the man who would become her future father-in-law bought the Gomali Estate. She didn’t have to worry about the cost of schooling because the company gave her academic awards for primary and secondary school. During those years, she was immersed in the palm oil industry that was all around you and supported her family. You might say that palm oil runs in her veins.

Yeo Xiao Jie recently married, Lee Yeow Seng, son of billionaire ($4.7 billion to be more precise), Lee Shin Cheng, the patriarch and founder of Malaysian real estate and palm oil conglomerate IOI group. Dad just passed away and new hubby, Lee Yeow Seng, is the company’s CEO. This is one of Malaysia’s biggest conglomerates, employing 30,000. It is among the 30 largest companies listed on the main board of Bursa Malaysia. Most of the firm's profit comes from 230,000 hectares of oil palm production from 90 plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia. They own oil mills, oil refineries in several countries and resorts. They also have a huge new project, IOI Palm City, a mega scale urban mixed-use development project in Xiamen, China (see link below) that will represent an investment of $(US) 1.1 billion. In Singapore, they have developed five luxury, high rise residential complexes (see link below). Thank you palm oil plantations!

This is the dripping with palm oil money world into which Yeo married. Unfortunately, palm oil plantations have been ecological disasters. They have been responsible for deforestation over millions of hectares of tropical forests and for peatlands degradation. Such habitat destruction of diverse ecosystems and replacement by a monoculture of palm oil trees as far as you can see has meant profound impact on endangered species. The burning used to clear land produces hazardous and dense haze that sometimes blankets area cities.

And IOI has been one of the worst environmental offenders. Remember, this is the company that Yeo, Malaysia’s Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Minister, has married into. In fact, a call went out from global NGOs requesting that company’s no longer do business with IOI. Some dropped the company including Nestle and Mars. The EU is considering an outright ban on palm oil owing to its big environmental impact. There is much discussion of environmentally friendly palm oil, but that has serious problems and is easier said than done.

I’ve searched and can’t find forceful admonishments by Yeo of the environmentally destructive palm oil industry. That doesn’t mean they aren’t there—my search wasn’t exhaustive. But, I easily find scores of speeches and quotes from her that lambaste Western-related “polluters”. Lynas certainly has been one of those targets. Oh, and now its plastic trash from evil Western countries.

Seems to me that Yeo Xiao Jie just might be an Opportunistic Environmentalist or “Follow the Money” Environmentalist. Is it possible, just maybe, that this clever Chinese woman, standing knee deep in palm oil, doesn’t have much to say critical about palm oil because of her connections? Fox guarding the hen house? And just maybe all this anti Lynas hype is purely political, a politician's way of riding a wave of evil westerners/neo-colonialist sentiment?

Someone needs to do some in-deep investigative reporting on this environment minister dripping in palm oil.

http://ioipg.cn/eng/aboutproject.aspx

https://ioiproperties.com.sg/development/cityscape-at-farrer-park/

https://www.ran.org/wp-content/uploads/rainforestactionnetwork/pages/15920/attachments/original/1464047398/Coalition_Ltr_DropIOI_0612202016_4.pdf?1464047398