A step toward sustainable palm oil
Just when we -- and Greenpeace -- were about to go over the edge in our fight against the ubiquitous and evil palm oil, some good news appeared on the horizon: sustainably farmed palm oil!I know I never expected to put those four words together, and Greenpeace isn't buying the story. Still, it could it be a good first step.
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is an organization created by the palm oil industry, so they're suspect to start with. But they did create a certification system that requires participants to follow sustainable farming and fair trade practices.
The first batch of palm oil produced under these guidelines is about to be delivered to Europe, where it will distributed to buyers including Unilever and British grocer J. Sainsbury.
I think the quote from Fiona Wheatley of Sainsbury's sums it up best. To paraphrase, she subtly acknowledges that these guidelines aren't perfect yet, but they're better than the big fat nothing we've done to regulate palm oil production in the past.
So there you have it. Progress. Ugly, lurching and inelegant, but better than what we were doing before. I'll take it!
Photo: Courtesy of Getty Images
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-13-2008 @ 11:26PM
Richard Zimmerman said...
Hi Cat,
Thank you so much for discussing palm oil on your website. While the so-called 'sustainable' palm oil is a good thing, it's just a drop in the bucket-- and we don't have time to wait for the industry to follow suit.
As I'm sure you're well aware, one of the biggest victims of the palm oil industry is the orangutan. The forests of Borneo and Sumatra are the only place where these gentle, intelligent creatures live, and the cultivation of palm oil has directly led to the brutal deaths of thousands of individuals as the industry has expanded. When the forest is cleared, adult orangutans are typically shot on sight. These peaceful, sentient beings are beaten, burned, mutilated, tortured and eaten. Babies are torn off their dying mothers so they can be sold on the black market as illegal pets to wealthy families who see them as status symbols of their own power and prestige.
Some of the luckier orangutans are confiscated and brought to sanctuaries such as the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rehabilitation Center, which is now home to approximately 700 orphaned and displaced orangutans in Central Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo). Many of these orangutans are only weeks old when they arrive, and all of them psychologically traumatized and desperate for their mothers-- who unfortunately are no longer alive. Nyaru Menteng is managed by a remarkable woman named Lone Droscher Nielsen and is featured on Animal Planet's series 'Orangutan Island'.
To learn more about the crisis facing wild orangutans because of palm oil and see how you can help protect them, I invite you and your readers to visit the Orangutan Outreach website: http://redapes.org
Thanks for your time and keep up the great work!
Rich
Richard Zimmerman
Director, Orangutan Outreach
http://redapes.org
Reach out and save the orangutans!
Facebook Cause: http://causes.com/redapes
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