Photos courtesy of Juan Carlos Fernandez, orangutan keeper extraordinaire at the San Diego Zoo. Check out the San Diego Zoo’s live ape cam.

Clyde’s birthday box contained a Boomer toy with some nuts and raisins. Fresh grapes were hung all around the exhibit. Clyde had a blast.

Malaysia is desperately trying to market its palm oil as a different entity in the world market with the European Union and other nations looking at south Asian oil with suspicion.

The European nations have been blaming south Asian nations for resorting to deforestation to grow palm plantations causing severe environmental problems.

Concerned over this allegation, Malaysia has decided to brand its palm oil saying that palm plantations in the country are grown on genuine agriculture land.

With the branding, Malaysia hopes to increase its sales. With Malaysia’s commitment towards sustainability, and to continue palm oil industry’s growth, there is urgent need to differentiate the country’s palm oil from that of other producers in the world, said Yusof Basiron, chief executive of Malaysian Palm Oil Council.

Moreover, the European Union plans to put in place strict regulations on using vegetable oils for making biofuels.

According to Yusof, Malaysia is already complying with strict environmental legislation as oil palm is grown on legitimate agricultural land and is not the cause of any wildlife destruction.

The possible brand name for the country’s palm oil could be ‘Malaysiapalm’. This brand will give an assurance that the palm oil produced under this programme comes from plantations grown on legally approved agricultural land in Malaysia.

All plantations producing the branded oil will be licensed, registered and regulated by law through Malaysian Palm Oil Board and will be verifiable by auditors. Even a certificate of assurance could be offered to buyers that the palm oil is derived from legitimate agricultural land.

Under the EU’s proposed directive, which may be finalised by next year, production of biofuels will be encouraged from those vegetable oils that have been grown without causing damage to the environment.

Malaysia’s programme will be voluntary. A logo will differentiate branded palm oil from the non-branded volumes.

Source: http://www.commodityonline.com/news/Brand-wagon-to-help-Malaysia-sell-palm-oil-11377-3-1.html

By DANNY YAP

Award of first RSPO cert to United Plantations changes whole ball game for the industry

KUALA LUMPUR: United Plantations Bhd being awarded the world’s first Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certificate on Tuesday has a significance beyond a company-specific milestone.

It sets the benchmark for other players in the industry to follow suit.

More importantly, it changes the whole ball game for industry players as those with RSPO certification would be deemed the “preferred” palm oil companies by the big international buyers, who are likely to insist on dealing with producers that practise sustainability.

Other large palm oil players in Malaysia and countries like Indonesia have taken note of the bar being raised in the industry, and a number of them are in various stages of preparation for RSPO certification.

However, there are some questions that beg to be answered: What about the small and medium palm oil players which might not have the human resource and capital to undergo such a stringent test of sustainability? Would they be marginalised for the lack of RSPO certification?

These smaller players might be wondering what the future would hold for them in the name of sustainability.

Hopefully, the migration to RSPO certification will not be too detrimental for the smaller players, as assured by some RSPO experts and affiliates at the United Plantations’ RSPO certificate presentation ceremony.

They said that fair consideration and time would be given to these players to move to an “acceptable level” of sustainabiilty.

An RSPO certification expert said the organisation was looking seriously at the issue and how to make adjustments for the smaller players so that they would not be marginalised.

The move by the palm oil industry to have a sustainable business model is likely to set a precedent for a slew of commodities to be produced by sustainable means.

Stringent standards similar to the RSPO for the palm oil industry are likely to be introduced in a host of commodity-based industries.

This will have far-reaching implications in terms of the survival of many big as well as small players in the various industries.

Source: http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/8/28/business/1902087&sec=business

Click on the drawing to see a larger version in a new window.

By Kami Lanting

Our daughter Hannah thoroughly enjoys the Orangutan Island program. It has truly inspired her and she now has a huge place in her heart for the orangutans. She often tells anyone new she meets about the orangutans on the island, what they have gone through and some of the dangers they still face, such as the pit viper.

Hannah adores Lone and her staff and is grateful for all they do. One day she wants to go to Borneo to help them. For now, she spends all her time drawing pictures for Lone! She is even saving her money so that she can make a donation to help protect the orangutans.

When I asked Hannah what she would like to say about the orangutans, she told me:

“I want those people who are cutting down those trees to please stop! The orangutans need them for their homes. Please don’t cut down anymore! I hope they stop so that Daisy, Donald, Cha-Cha and Jasmine have a long life.”

Keep up the great work and thank you for inspiring my daughter!

~~~~~

Thank YOU, Hannah and Kami… for inspiring us to keep working to save the orangutans! ~ Rich

Watch the Video

Source: http://www.peta.org/mc/NewsItem.asp?id=11874

Oscar Winner Stars in Heartfelt Role in PETA Video About Cruelty to Great Apes Used in Film and Television

For Immediate Release: August 27, 2008

Contact: Michael McGraw 757-622-7382

Los Angeles — “Having worked with actors for many years, I find it hard to believe that anyone would have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into show business. But the next time that you see a chimpanzee in a movie, on TV, or in an ad, chances are, that’s exactly what happened.” So says Academy Award-winning actor Anjelica Huston in a hard-hitting new video that she hosted for PETA, in which she exposes a type of abuse that tears at her heart: the use and abuse of young chimpanzees and orangutans by the entertainment industry.

In the video–which PETA is sending on her behalf to Hollywood producers and directors and to advertising agencies along with a plea to end all use of great apes–Huston explains, “It’s a sad story that starts when the animals are babies, when they are torn away from their mothers and forced to depend upon human trainers. Great ape mothers are fiercely protective of their newborns, which means that they must be tricked, sedated, or forcibly restrained when their infants are pulled from their arms. This cruel practice leaves lifelong emotional scars on both the mothers–who go into a deep depression–and the babies.”

Huston goes on to describe how young animals are beaten with fists and kicked in the head during terrifying training sessions. Trainers have also used sawed-off pool cues and electric shocks to make young animals obey and perform meaningless and confusing tricks on the set over and over again for long hours at a time. By age 8, young chimpanzees and orangutans used in the entertainment industry have grown too strong to be handled, and PETA has found them discarded–often at dismal roadside zoos or filthy pseudo-sanctuaries. There, they can languish for decades–chimpanzees can live to age 60–in barren cages or dank, barren concrete cells with nothing to do and no companionship.

Reports of abuse continue to plague Hollywood productions that use great apes. In the filming of this year’s box office bomb Speed Racer, a young chimpanzee was hit on the set. PETA is asking the entertainment industry to use only computer-generated imagery (CGI) or animatronics when scripts call for animals.

For more information and to view Huston’s video, please visit NoMoreMonkeyBusiness.com.

Big thanks to Amanda Enright at OrangAction for bringing this to our attention… ~ Rich
Visit her sight

Woolworths buys raw material for its “Select” brand of paper from the corrupt Indonesian company, Asian Paper and Pulp (APP). Even while other companies shun APP’s environmentally and ethically tainted products, Woolworth’s only motive is profit.

The General Manager - Private Label, Greg Calvert stated that their “mission is to source the best-quality and best-priced products to satisfy our customers needs”. There is no room in Woolworth’s selection criteria regime for good environmental stewardship - “trash and profit” is their catch-cry.

Recently Woolworths has announced that it will drop its contract with APP but the announcement was vague and many are concerned that Woolworths will re-establish its trade connections with APP once the controversy has died down.

Now is the opportune time to persuade Woolworths to stop financially profiting from rainforest destruction, indigenous impoverishment and displacement and wildlife annihilation. Tell Woolworths to cancel their contract with APP forever.

Please write to CEO Michael Luscombe at mluscombe@woolworths.com.au, Greg Calvert at gcalvert@woolworths.com.au, Woolworths Group Sustainability Manager, Armineh Mardirossian at mardirossian@woolworths.com.au and homeshop@woolworths.com.au just to send the message home.

Dear Mr Luscombe,

I wish to complain about your use of paper products sourced from the Indonesian timber company Asian Paper and Pulp (APP) in your ‘Select’ brand of paper.

Woolworths has announced that it is dropping its contract with APP, but concerned groups like “Wake Up Woolworths” have genuine concern that this vague assertion will soon be forgotten if Woolworth’s past conduct is anything to go by.

Asian Paper and Pulp (APP) has one of the worst reputations of any fibre manufacturer in the world, earning the honour of “triple bottom line unsustainable”. As a result, they have been dropped as a supplier by many reputable international companies – eg. Office Depot, Wal-Mart, and Staples.

In 2004-2005 alone, 70 percent of APP’s logging was in natural forests. They are notorious for converting rainforest into plantations which they then harvest unsustainably. In additional they have been caught logging illegally in both China and Indonesia. Their activities have resulted in removing indigenous people from their land and placing endangered species like the orangutan in real peril of extinction.

APP is building a road through the buffer zone of Bukit Tigapuluh National Park in Sumatra. The Perth Zoo recently released a female orangutan, Temara, into this National Park with the goal of rebuilding the orangutan population. Due to its inaccessible nature, this National Park was one of the last safe havens for orangutans on the island of Sumatra. The road will provide easy access for loggers, hunters and poachers who will undermine the zoo’s work and place the entire orangutan population of this significant National Park in great danger.

A year ago, Woolworths designed their own “environmentally friendly’ label for their ‘Select’ brand of paper sourced from APP in an attempt to fool consumers. An investigation by the ACCC resulted in Woolworths removing this false, green washing claim. And today, Woolworths continues to buy its paper products from APP even though the disgusting environmental record of this company has been brought to its full attention.

Even after Woolworths was informed of APP’s shameful involvement in the serious undermining of our own unique Australian orangutan rehabilitation and release initiative, they still have not reviewed and changed their paper sourcing decisions. If the released orangutan, Temara, falls prey to hunters that have been introduced to the Bukit Tigapuluh National Park through the road building activities of APP, Woolworth’s “Select” brand of paper products will bear witness to this sacrifice and her death will come to represent the depravity of corporate greed.

Woolworth’s decision to continue purchasing paper products from APP is an economic decision, pure and simple. The cheapest paper supplier is selling the soul of the rainforest to Woolworth’s and Woolworths is passing this terrible legacy on to all it unknowing customers. And in the process, Woolworths is undermining those Australian companies who are doing the right thing – who are purchasing their paper products locally, for a fair price, from Australian plantation timbers.

By buying from an Indonesian paper company like APP, Woolworths is supporting the unethical and often illegal deforestation practices that are directly contributing to the suffering of local people, the extinction of biodiversity and the fuelling of global warming.

Woolworths must wake up to the environmental and ethical responsibility it has to its customers. The future of rainforest habitat is of the highest critical nature. This precious natural resource is the responsibility of the world to protect, including Woolworths. Buy locally. Stop putting money into the pocket of rainforest destroyers and orangutan killers. Drop Asian Pulp and Paper as a supplier for good.

Yours sincerely,
Amanda Enright

By Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Source: http://old.thejakartapost.com/detailnational.asp?fileid=20080827.D04&irec=3

Palm oil companies operating in Indonesia have opposed any moratorium on forest and peat land conversions, saying it will play havoc with the industry and the national economy.

The Indonesian Palm Oil Producers Association (GAPKI) said halting forest conversion would only slow the country’s economy, causing more job losses and further poverty, beleaguering the country.

“Indonesia does not need to apply a moratorium on its forest. GAPKI strongly rejects the forest conversion moratorium idea,” GAPKI executive Derom Bangun said on the sidelines of a Greenpeace-organized dialogue on palm oil companies in Indonesia on Tuesday.

Some 250 palm oil producers are GAPKI members.

“If we stop expanding our business, many rich nations will be happy because then they don’t need to take action to tackle global warming. We don’t want to be the good boy.”

International environmental group Greenpeace had asked palm oil industry players to temporarily stop converting forest into plantation as part of their large-scale expansion program. Greenpeace’s request accords with that of developed nations which have cautioned the change in forest use will aggravate global warming.

Derom said the producers’ association had asked richer nations to prove their concern about climate change by shifting their farmland to forest to help cap carbon emissions.

Derom said palm oil companies in Indonesia had embraced greener ways set by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) to protect the environment.

The RSPO, supported by World Wildlife Fund, was established to promote the growth and use of sustainable palm oil through cooperation within the supply chain and open dialogue among stakeholders.

The RSPO has called for improving the land use planning process for the development of new oil palm plantations.

Derom claimed GAPKI members had stopped tilling virgin forest or forest with high conservation value since 2005.

Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of palm oil, harvesting 17.2 million tons in 2007. The industry occupies about 6.7 million hectares of land across the country.

Political observer Arief Wijaksono said poor governance of palm oil companies had caused deforestation and worsening greenhouse gas emissions.

“The palm oil industries should not take advantage of the poor governance of our forests,” he said.

Greenpeace has long campaigned for a forest conversion moratorium to meet zero emissions in an effort to tackle global warming.

The group estimated about 1.8 billion tons of carbon has been released into the atmosphere from forest degradation and the burning of peatland in Indonesia, or about 4 percent of global emissions.

It stated Indonesia held the global record for carbon emissions due to deforestation, putting it third behind the United States and China in terms of total man-made emissions.

Greenpeace said, during the last 50 years, more than 74 million hectares of Indonesia’s forest has been destroyed — logged, burned, degraded, pulped — and its products shipped around the planet.

The director general for plantation at the Agriculture Ministry, Mangga Barani, said the government was currently studying whether to use the country’s huge peatland for palm oil expansion.

Please visit the source of this article: Mongabay.com

The number of forest fires burning in Indonesia is increasing, raising concerns for the potential return of choking haze to the region.

NASA satellite imagery released Tuesday reveals hundreds of “hot spots” burning in Sumatra, Kalimantan (on the island of Borneo), and southern Papua (on the island of New Guinea). The fires are set annually by landowners seeking to clear scrub and forest for the establishment of plantation crops, especially oil palm, which is used for making palm oil. In dry years the fires can burn for months, spreading into pristine rainforest areas and releasing large volumes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The fires will be closely monitored by Indonesia, its neighbors, and environmentalists due to the wide-ranging impacts of previous burning seasons. Fires in some years have caused tens of billions in health and economic damages while releasing as much as two billion tons of carbon dioxide. Fires in peat swamps are a particularly large source of emissions.

Under an agreement with Singapore and Malaysia, Indonesia has pledged to reduce the number of hotspots by 50 percent by 2009, 75 percent by 2012, and 95 percent by 2025. 144,000 hotspots were recorded in Sumatra in 2006, although the number feel to 35,000 in 2007 due to wetter conditions.

NASA reports that the environmental group WWF will be using MODIS satellite data to track the Indonesian government’s progress in controlling fires. MODIS data will be provided via the University of Maryland’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), an alert system that tracks hot spots in real time.

What does the RSPO have to say about this???? ~ Rich

KUALA LUMPUR: Kuala Lumpur Kepong Bhd, Malaysia’s third-largest listed planter, plans to grow oil palm at 10,000 hectares every year, mostly in Indonesia, to meet global demand for the vegetable oil, a top official said.

Many Malaysian plantation firms venturing into the Indonesian side of Borneo island, have started planting oil palm in the past two years, which could lead to high crude palm oil stocks in coming months. KL Kepong Chief Executive Lee Oi Hian said land acquisitions and planting of oil palms have to be done carefully to avoid encroaching into environmentally sensitive areas like peatlands and rainforests.

“We are concentrating on planting areas in Indonesia at very rapid pace, somewhere around 10,000 hectares a year,” Lee Oi Hian told Reuters in an interview.

“We are concerned about the quality of plantings and making sure its a quality job. We do not want to hit into sensitive areas.”

The firm, owning some 210,000 hectares of land in Malaysia and Indonesia out of which 170,000 hectares is planted, expects crude palm oil production to rise in tandem once the oil palm estates in Indonesia start to fruit. “We expect crude oil production to range 580,000 to 600,000 tonnes for this financial year ended Sept 30. Naturally it will go up after the new plantings bear fruit,” Lee said.

Malaysian crude palm oil futures fell 4.2 percent on Monday on increasing supply concerns and weaker crude oil prices, dealers said. The benchmark November crude palm oil contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange fell 115 ringgit to finish at 2,600 ringgit ($770) per tonne.

KL Kepong’s palm oil production is channelled into its oleochemical business, one of the largest in the world. But KL Kepong will not be expanding its oleochemical business any further, save for 200 million ringgits ($59.29 million) in a biodiesel softening plant in Malaysia with a capacity of 50,000 tonnes a year, which will be commissioned in the second half of 2009.

“Basically, in the next couple of years, we will concentrate on de-bottlenecking plants and running in plants because we have quite a lot of projects,” Lee said.

Although buoyant palm oil prices have kept the firm’s earnings prospects bright, the weakness in the Malaysian stock market has forced KL Kepong to defer a planned $300 million five-year exchangeable bond.

Source: Reuters - http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/

The PETA documentary “Show Business Is No Business for Great Apes” challenges filmmakers and the American Humane Assn.

By Rachel Abramowitz, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
Source: LA Times

I generally don’t want to be in any club that includes Pamela Anderson, which is part of the reason I’m often skeptical about PETA causes.

That said, I was horrified when I saw the latest documentary from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, about great apes in film and TV. The video was narrated by Anjelica Huston, who recently sent it to all the studios, along with a letter asking them to stop using the animals.

We’re talking primarily chimps, who have appeared in commercials and movies such as “Project X,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Evan Almighty,” “Planet of the Apes” and, of course, Clyde the kiss-blowing orangutan in “Every Which Way but Loose.”

According to “Visions of Caliban: On Chimpanzees and People” by famed primatologist Jane Goodall and Dale Peterson, the original “Clyde” was trained with a can of mace and a pipe wrapped in newspaper. He was viciously beaten the day before filming started to make him more docile. Near the end of filming the sequel “Any Which Way You Can,” the orangutan was caught stealing doughnuts on the set, brought back to the training facility and beaten for 20 minutes with a 3 1/2 -foot ax handle. He died soon after of a cerebral hemorrhage.

You’d think that 30 years would improve the lot of chimps. In some cases it has, as filmmakers like Peter Jackson are opting for animatronic apes or actors in ape suits. At least two high-profile trainers have been pressured out of the chimp business in the last few years by lawsuits or protesters. Yet some persist. This summer ” Speed Racer” became one of the only films in recent history to earn an “unacceptable” rating from the American Humane Assn., the group that monitors the use of animals in films.

Now there are certainly moviegoers who will argue it was they who were mistreated by the Wachowski brothers’ candy-colored box-office bomb, but at least consumers weren’t physically manhandled. According to the AHA website, two chimps were used to portray the character of Chim-Chim (who performed such feats as driving a golf cart in the movie), and a trainer hit a chimp during a training session in front of a representative of the AHA. (Warner Bros declined to comment.)

According to PETA spokesman Lisa Lange, the organization had written to producer Joel Silver asking that the studio refrain from using a real chimp in the film, but had received a letter back from Warner Bros. stating, “We respect your viewpoint, but we also respect the vision of the filmmaker and decided to use live animals.”

Chimps are a lot like child actors, though their fate is often worse than ending up robbing convenience stores. According to the PETA documentary “Show Business Is No Business for Great Apes,” getting a baby chimp away from its mother isn’t easy, and the mom “must be tricked, sedated or forcibly restrained when the infants are pulled from them . . . and this cruel practice leaves lifelong emotional scars.”

TRAINERS need to get the chimps early, because after the age of 8 or so, the animals are too strong to be used safely in showbiz. But chimps can live to be 60 years old. And it costs $10,000 a year to feed and care for a chimp. There’s an overpopulation of captive chimps and a dearth of sanctuaries for the primates. According to PETA, too many former screen stars end up in squalor in subpar retirement spots. They point to Chubbs, who played a cadet trainee in Tim Burton’s 2001 film “Planet of the Apes” and ended up living amid garbage, maggots and feces at a roadside attraction in Amarillo, Texas.

AHA’s guidelines recommend that filmmakers opt for synthetic apes, for the same reasons as PETA. Karen Rosa, the director of the AHA’s Film and Television Unit, argues that “chimps should be with their mothers for the first five years,” and doesn’t believe the animals should be made to perform before the age of 18 months. She adds that some trainers go so far as to breed chimps willing to give up their babies, so a human trainer can jump in as a surrogate parent.

Given their limited resources, the AHA only monitors a handful of films shot overseas and only supervises animals during filming, not when they are training for films. “We’re a nonprofit. We’re not staffed to do that kind of comprehensive oversight,” says Rosa. “If we are witnessing good care, that’s our focus. To make the assumption that when they leave the set, they will treat the animals differently is not something we do. Animals need consistency. If you’re treating [an animal] in training with positive rewards, then you’re not going to come to the set and beat it with a stick and expect the same results.”

Yet, PETA says, the training is often where the great apes get brutalized. AHA is famous for its closing-credit disclaimer, stating “No animals were harmed in the making of this film.”

“With great apes, we’re asking them to add that the AHA is not present for the training of great apes prior to the animals being on the set,” says Lange. “People have a false sense that because the AHA is on set during a movie, that disclaimer means that everything is OK. It’s not.”

In 2002-03, primatologist Sarah Baeckler conducted a 14-month undercover investigation of Amazing Animal Actors, then a prime chimp facility, on behalf of a consortium of chimpanzee advocates including Goodall. “It was really rough,” says Baeckler, now executive director of a chimp sanctuary near Seattle. “I saw a lot of physical violence. A lot of punching and kicking, and the use of the ‘ugly stick,’ a sawed-off broom handle, to beat the chimps. The youngest I met were 18 months old and were pretty similar to an 18-month-old human child. They were being kicked in the face and punched in the head and subject to all kinds of physical abuse to keep them paying attention and in line with the trainer.”

Baeckler does not “think it has gotten better” since her investigation, and says it’s perfectly plausible that a trainer would treat an animal well in public and mistreat it behind the scenes. “It’s very similar to an abusive human relationship. The bottom line is: [Chimps] are super strong and super curious and super smart, and the amount of control that the trainers require to keep them paying attention and not misbehaving — it’s too much to be able to do with love and kisses. The way the trainers are able to control them is behind the scenes; they have this very brutal relationship including discipline when they misbehave, and random violence without any seeming provocation. That keeps their attention on the trainer.”

Baeckler’s consortium later sued Amazing Animal Actors and as part of the settlement, its proprietor, Sid Yost, agreed to retire his chimps. Yost did not respond to a call or e-mail. In fact, I called and e-mailed five trainers who work with chimps or have worked with them in the past, but no one answered my inquiries.

The practice of using apes in Hollywood could be eradicated fairly easily with legislation, or by agreements with the trainers or studios to refrain. PETA followed up Huston’s letter with a request to meet with the studios, but only DreamWorks, MGM and Universal agreed. Lange says PETA has decided to make this species a priority because “the violence begins at birth . . . and [the chimps] live so long.”

Watching footage of baby chimps right before they’re ripped from their mothers is upsetting for any parent. And the chimp can’t just get a prescription for Prozac or an hour of talk therapy. Entertainment seems a paltry excuse for mistreating animals.

All I can say is: Next time I see a chimp on screen, I just hope it’s made of pixels.