The year 2007 was labeled the “Year of Living Deceptively” for South Korea, because of the country’s numerous scandals involving fake academics and corrupt politicians. A survey of 340 professors selected the Chinese phrase “ja-gi-gi-in” (deceiving yourself and others) to sum up the year.

The world of palm oil should not be surprised to hear of deception like that, being buffeted as it has been for close to 2 decades now by an entire cabal of “green” and “civil society” groups such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth (FOE), the WWF and even zoos like the Melbourne Zoo, the Auckland Zoo and the Philly Zoo who sought to paint palm oil in a deceptive light.

To deceive is to make others believe falsehood as truth and accept wrong as right.

Our family had just arrived at the beach house we had rented for a week of much-anticipated vacation when my wife and kids discovered the unmistakable evidence of spiders and mice in the house. We had expected the cottage to be cleaned and prepared for our stay there. Instead, the counters, cabinets, and beds were littered with the residue of infestation, requiring much cleaning before we settled in.

In much the same way, the evidence of infestation over the palm oil debate has become clear when we consider the recent puerile, frivolous and inane UN award made to 2 girl scouts, Rhiannon Tomtishen and Madison Vorva of the USA for “raising awareness on endangered orangutans and their rapidly diminishing rainforest habitat in Indonesia and Malaysia.” The award went on to scrape the bottom of the barrel by citing the 11 year olds for work that “prompted Girl Scouts USA to commit to improving sustainability of their cookies and boosted efforts to reduce deforestation for palm oil.” The lengths to which “green” and “civil society” groups such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth (FOE), the WWF and even zoos like the Melbourne Zoo, the Auckland Zoo and the Philly Zoo are willing to resort to fact bending and manipulation of facts to advance their agenda against palm oil, makes the cobwebs and evidence of infestation over the palm oil issue more mucky and foul!

For the UN to besmirch its image by making such a frivolous and specious award to 2 innocent girl scouts who are clearly being used by adults to further their baffling agenda without doing the due diligence into the issue does not augur well for an organization whose own credibility has been called into question in recent years.

Sean Whyte, CEO of Nature Alert has been getting away with his blunderbuss attacks against Malaysia and Malaysian palm oil for the past few years.

There is a gum shoeing method to his rococo tirades to get the media attention that he so obviously craves. Each media exposure seemed to trigger a need for more. He has earned the rare distinction of being called various names and epithets ranging from "Prince of Mean" to "Crowned Prince of Hyperbole" on account of his predilection for embellishing the facts and a reckless disregard for the truth. (see:http://deforestationwatch.org/index.php/Key-Papers/-Palm-Oil-and-the-Crowned-Prince-of-Hyperbole.html)