Green Monitor condemns Western activists for ignoring the warning at Copenhagen that any effort to impose environmental regulations that obstruct efforts to reduce poverty will fail.

Instead of listening to the developing world, bickering has begun among various NGOs such as Wetlands International, World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF), and Global Environment Centre.

Headlines over this 'green' he-said-she-said continue to overshadow the reality that palm oil, the commodity at the centre of this funding dispute, is vital for alleviating poverty in the developing world and is an effective tool for managing greenhouse gas emissions.

Green Monitor's research has shown that the palm oil industry employs over five million people in Southeast Asia, and anti-palm oil efforts by the European Union and these NGOs will deny palm oil workers the opportunities to secure wealth and increase living standards.

Amidst this media drama and NGO in-fighting, it's the poor of the developing world who have fallen victim.

Activist NGOs, specifically Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and WWF, have intensified anti-palm oil activity - singling out this important industry for inaccurate claims that palm oil contributes to deforestation and have urged companies to cease palm oil use in products.

These NGOs would be more productive if they end such campaigns and work together to foster greater economic growth in the developing world. It is hypocritical of these western NGOs to be lecturing nations such as Malaysia.

The Green Monitor's report in September last year dramatically demonstrated the consequences of these organisations' past errors.

Previous campaigns in the developing world have led to the deaths and impoverishment of millions.

Governments in both the developed and developing world would be best to ignore the advice of these zealots.

Shane Frith is a director at liberal think tank Progressive Vision. It is running the Green Monitors campaign group, which seeks to bring a more objective and scientific approach to environmentalism