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Help Save the Orangutan

Young Orangutan. Photo Copyright Orangutan Foundation

Ordinary food shoppers are unwittingly causing the extinction of rain forest animals such as the much-loved Orangutan. One in ten of supermarket products contain palm oil; from foods like bread, crisps and chocolate to cosmetics, soaps, shampoos and toothpaste. Most mass-produced palm oil is responsible for the accelerated destruction of precious rain forests in Malaysia and Indonesia, home to the Orangutan, and around 5,000 of these intelligent apes are being driven from their unique habitats in Borneo and Sumatra each year, as loggers make way for palm oil plantations. Orangutans and other animals wander dazed and confused across the tree-flattened areas, while plantation workers butcher the frightened apes with machetes or even burn and bury them alive. Hundreds of orphaned babies are also left alone to die or sold in the illegal pet trade. At the current rate of destruction, it's expected that Orangutans could be extinct in ten years, along with their forest habitat. Friends of the Earth have recently reported on the current state of corruption and political greed existing in Borneo. Researchers say that forest fires, deliberately set by palm oil companies since 1998, have now killed around one third of the orangutan population. Friends of the Earth also say that the Indonesian Government is planning to convert a significant area of Tanjung Puting National Park, the world's most famous protected area for orangutan, into an oil-palm plantation.

Animal Welfare group, Ape Alliance, represent organisations such as the Borneo Survival Foundation and Safe Palm Oil.
They have websites that are appealing to the public to write to supermarket CEO's, asking them to stop palm oil sourced from environmentally destructive plantations being used in the products they sell. Safe Palm Oil also has a sample letter for consumers to download and post or hand in to shops, supermarkets and manufacturers.

Palm oil is used in most savoury snack foods and chocolate, which should give the consumer an idea of how serious the problem is, since millions of packets of crisp type snacks and sweets are eaten daily.
It's now time to think twice before buying foods or cosmetics containing palm oil, which could be destroying entire forests and all the animals living there.
In the end, it's the consumer who carries the responsibility as well as the power to stop such atrocities. If you ignore an ethical issue as important as this, it means that unscrupulous plantation growers will continue to provide manufacturers with ingredients that destroy habitats on a global scale.
So ask questions when you go shopping. When the ingredients on a product include vegetable oil, it may be that that this includes palm oil, so find out where it comes from. A shop manager will probably have no idea, but persist and make sure your question is logged. And if you don't get a satisfactory answer, don't buy the product.
Like the Brazilian rain forest destruction, where areas the size of Portugal are unnecessarily lost each year to soy plantations, it's the consumer who can help stop this devastation by buying soy products from ethically sustainable sources. The rich growers couldn't care less about the environmental damage, and the paradox is that ecologically sustainable farm land is available to produce palm oil and soy beans. It's purely a question of high yield profits, because growers pay much less for felled forest land, or in many cases the forest is illegally logged and claimed for plantation.
Countries like Indonesia and Brazil clearly need to provide strong incentives to steer growers towards non-destructive means. In the meantime, these despicable practices will continue as long as manufacturers and consumers create the demand for unethically sourced ingredients.

To help and act on this crisis please visit these action organisations:

Safe Palm Oil (to send a letter)
http://www.safepalmoil.org/help.html

Save the Orangutan (to send a letter)
http://www.savetheorangutan.co.uk/howtohelpAction.php

Ape Alliance
http://www.4apes.com

Orangutan Foundation UK and USA
http://www.orangutan.org

Sumatran Orangutan Society
http://www.orangutans-sos.org

UK Friends of the Earth archive report worth reading at... http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/one_in_ten_supermarket_pro_22092005.html

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