REAL LIFE STORIES

THE ORANG-UTAN RAINFOREST IN YOUR MARG

By Nic Lance

Glance at the labels on comfort foods such as biscuits, cereal bars, crisps and ice creams. Sometimes you will find palm oil listed among the ingredients but, often it is hidden under the general term "vegetable oil". Palm oil is also found in margarine, bread, lipstick, shampoo and soap. Palm oil is now the cheapest and best-selling vegetable oil. It's cheap but not cheerful. Here's why.

Palm oil is pressed from the orange flesh of the tropical palm tree Elaeis guineensis (not the same as coconut palm trees). The oil is mostly imported from palm plantations in S.E. Asia, including Sumatra and Borneo (Indonesia). Swathes of rainforest, the habitat of the orang-utan, are

being logged and removed to

Image © Helen Buckland, courtesy of FoE *

make way for more palm plantations. The result is that, "wildlife rescue centres inIndonesia are over-flowing with displaced and injured wild orang-utans, including orphaned infants" (Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation). In recent years, there has been a further threat from forest fires which have destroyed millions of hectares of rainforest in Indonesia.

Our primate cousin, the orang-utan, is now an endangered species. A programme in the BBC's Apes in Danger series focussed on the work of Lone Droscher-Nielsen, a former Danish air stewardess, who has set up the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation www.SafePalmOil.org to offer a temporary sanctuary for hundreds of homeless orang-utans. Her intention is to release them into the wild, but there are few safe, wild places left.

Surely, the lesson we must learn from this is that humankind needs to co-exist with other creatures on the planet. If we continue to lose habitats and biodiversity at this rate, the whole ecosystem is at risk. Ultimately it will rebound on us. The climate will become even more erratic and drought zones will expand as tree cover is lost. Tropical rainforests produce a cycle of water evaporation and rainfall - they are the Earth's natural air-conditioning and air-cooling. Rainforests also sustain the most biodiverse habitats on the planet - teeming with life and undiscovered species.

Image © Orangutan Foundation, courtesy of FoE *

Corporate responsibility is vital. "Cheap" palm oil is very expensive if you count the loss of rainforest and loss of animals, including the orang-utans. In December 2005, Asda and the Co-op started to discuss the sourcing of sustainable palm oil. It is time the other supermarkets followed suit.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

1. Ask your supermarket to source their palm oil from certifiable non-destructive plantations.

2. Request a new 'orang-utan - friendly label' on margarine and ice cream tubs containing palm oil.

3. If you see palm oil on the list of ingredients on your biscuits etc, write to the food manufacturer to alert them to the plight of the orang-utan. Do they know from where the palm oil originates? Is it a sustainable plantation?

4. Request clearer, more specific labelling. "Vegetable oil" or "vegetable fats" may, or may not, include palm oil.

To find out more about palm oil and the orang-utan visit:

www.palmoil.org.uk

www.orangutan.org.uk

www.yptenc.org.uk and click on 'Animal Facts', then Orang-utan

* Images courtesy of Friends of the Earth (copyright information).

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