JAKARTA – The following facts should become the basis for verifying whether the palm oil industries have contribution to the efforts of increasing villagers’ access to clean water or not.
Water is a basic necessity for the public for drinking, bathing, and washing. So, like other people the oil palm growers also need the clean water to support their plantation activities. The study of PASPI (2022) shows that the public access to clean water in the palm oil producing villages and non-producing villages is relatively the same. The sources of clean water for the public in the palm producing villages and non-producing villages are the PAM (drinking water companies), wells, bottled water and springs, and other sources (rainwater, rivers, etc).
The study also shows that there are two interesting things in the source of clean water in the palm producing villages:
First, the public access to clean water in the palm producing villages is the same with that in the non-producing villages. Such reality refutes the reports that say people in palm producing villages experienced a crisis of clean water.
Second, there is an improvement of quality sources of clean water used by people in palm producing villages from rivers and rainwater (lower quality) to higher quality sources of clean water from wells and PAM. It shows that the affordability of people in the palm producing villages to clean water has increased to the higher quality sources.
The above data has also shown that the existence of oil palm plantations has not reduced the public access to clean water sources. Conversely, the data shows that people in the palm producing villages get the availability and affordability of clean water sources at much higher quality. (*)
Source: Mitos & Fakta Kelapa Sawit – 4th Edition / gapki.id
