Orangutan Outreach Website - Saving the Orangutan

Activists of the Centre for Orangutan Protection dressed as injured orangutans take part in a demonstration in Jakarta to voice awareness to protect them. One of the biggest populations of wild orangutans on Borneo will be extinct in three years without drastic measures to stop the expansion of palm oil plantations, conservationists said. (AP)

JAKARTA, Indonesia: The world’s largest population of wild orangutans on Indonesia’s Borneo island faces extinction within three years due to rapidly expanding oil palm plantations, a conservationist group said Wednesday.

A report by the Center for Orangutan Protection says just 20,000 of the endangered primates remain in the tropical jungle of Central Kalimantan, down from 31,300 in 2004.

If the government does not protect wildlife from commercial exploitation, illegal logging and poachers, orangutans there could be extinct by 2011, said Hardi Baktiantoro, the group’s head.

He said more than 5,000 orangutans in the region have been lost every year since 2004, due largely to loss of habitat.

Adding to the problem is a plan by Indonesian authorities to open up 1.1 million acres (455,000 hectares) — an area larger than the U.S. state of Rhode Island — of protected land for palm oil growers, he said.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono announced a major initiative to save the nation’s orangutans at the Bali Climate Conference last year, but it appears the plan has not received sufficient political support.

Toni Suhartono, the Forestry Ministry’s top official for wildlife protection, said government programs to save the environment are hampered by a lack of funds and lack of knowledge about conservation.

Awareness “about the conservation of endangered species is very low. It is, therefore, not easy for us to propose budgets for conservation,” Suhartono said.

Watch the video at NationalGeographic.com:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/05/080508-orangutan-video-ap.html

A NEW logging road will threaten the back yard of the only Australian zoo-born orangutan released into the Indonesian wilderness, environmentalists warn.

Conservation groups fear the 20m-wide thoroughfare cutting a swath through the landscape south of Bukit Tigapuluh national park in Sumatra signals the beginning of the end for most of the thick forest landscape.

Only a third of the 450,000ha forest block is protected as national park, home to the only Australian zoo-born Sumatran orangutan to be released into the wild.

In 2006 Temara, now 15, of Perth Zoo, became the first zoo-bred Sumatran orangutan ever placed in her natural habitat.

The concerns came as another group said one of Borneo’s biggest wild orangutan populations would be extinct in three years without drastic measures to end palm oil plantation expansion.

Source: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23662337-663,00.html

JAKARTA, May 7 (Reuters) - Indonesia, the world’s biggest palm oil producer, plans to take firm measures aimed at ensuring palm oil firms meet stringent standards before labelling their products as eco-friendly, an industry watchdog said on Wednesday.

The rapidly expanding palm oil industry in Southeast Asia has come under attack by green groups for destroying rainforests and wildlife, as well the emission of greenhouse gases.

An industry-led initiative, the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), has launched a green labelling certification process that includes commitments to preserve rainforests and wildlife and avoiding conflicts with indigenous people.

RSPO groups producers, consumers and green groups and palm oil companies that meet the criteria set by the RSPO will be able to market their certified “green products” in global markets.

Desi Kusumadewi, spokeswoman of Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) for Indonesia, said independent surveyors will be assigned to audit palm oil plantations and certify them as ‘eco-friendly’.

“Hopefully, the criteria will be officially approved by the end of May,” Kusumadewi said. “Basically, Indonesia will use the international standards but it will personalise the criteria based on its own considerations.”

Kusumadewi said three firms — PT Mutuagung Lestari, PT Tuv Nord and state surveyor firm PT Sucofindo — were waiting for approval to be RSPO audit programmers in Indonesia.

Malaysia, the world’s second-largest palm oil producer, has already had four certification bodies approved by RSPO.

Malaysia and Indonesia, home to more than 4 percent of the world’s rainforests, produce nearly 85 percent of total palm oil.

Both nations already have laws to protect tracts of rainforests against illegal logging, but green groups say penalties should be stiffened and that more rainforests should be locked away.

Earlier this month, Unilever (UNc.AS: Quote, Profile, Research)(ULVR.L: Quote, Profile, Research), one of Indonesia’s top palm oil buyers, said it will start buying palm oil from certified sustainable sources this year and aims to have all its palm oil certified by 2015.

Indonesia is estimated to have produced more than 17 million tonnes of crude palm oil in 2007. It exported about 11.9 million tonnes of palm oil products to China, India and European countries.

Greenpeace estimates Indonesia had the fastest pace of deforestation in the world between 2000 and 2005, equivalent to 300 soccer pitches of forest destroyed every hour. (Reporting by Mita Valina Liem, editing by Sugita Katyal and Ben Tan)

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSJAK156803

JAKARTA, Indonesia: The world’s largest population of wild orangutans on Indonesia’s Borneo island faces extinction within three years due to rapidly expanding oil palm plantations, a conservationist group said Wednesday.

A report by the Center for Orangutan Protection says just 20,000 of the endangered primates remain in the tropical jungle of Central Kalimantan, down from 31,300 in 2004.

If the government does not protect wildlife from commercial exploitation, illegal logging and poachers, orangutans there could be extinct by 2011, said Hardi Baktiantoro, the group’s head.

He said more than 5,000 orangutans in the region have been lost every year since 2004, due largely to loss of habitat.

Adding to the problem is a plan by Indonesian authorities to open up 1.1 million acres (455,000 hectares) — an area larger than the U.S. state of Rhode Island — of protected land for palm oil growers, he said.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono announced a major initiative to save the nation’s orangutans at the Bali Climate Conference last year, but it appears the plan has not received sufficient political support.

Toni Suhartono, the Forestry Ministry’s top official for wildlife protection, said government programs to save the environment are hampered by a lack of funds and lack of knowledge about conservation.

Awareness “about the conservation of endangered species is very low. It is, therefore, not easy for us to propose budgets for conservation,” Suhartono said.

Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/05/07/asia/AS-GEN-Indonesia-Saving-Orangutans.php

Fred Stolle is program manager for World Resources Institute’s Forest Landscape Objective, working on forest governance, forest changes, and their impacts on climate change, and biofuels issues in Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia.

WEST KALIMANTAN PROVINCE, INDONESIA - On a recent trip into the rainforests of the Indonesian part of Borneo Island, our team got first-hand accounts of the effects, causes—and the possible solutions—to rampant illegal logging.

Indonesia has nearly 70 million people living in or near forest land, many of them living on less than US$1 per day. Illegal logging operations cause widespread destruction of forests and, although it does earn short-term gains for a few, it destroys the livelihoods of people who depend upon the forests.

Just after we left, Indonesian officials cracked down on smallholder illegal logging in the region. But having smallholders thrown into jail is not necessarily a success. Many of these imprisoned are people living under a US$1 per day. They often live in miserable circumstances and are trying to make a living. They are not the buyers or the people who are driving the illegal deforestation. Undoubtedly, as soon as the police leave, new illegal loggers will replace the old ones and the long-term gain will still be missing.

Law enforcement is needed, but it must be done with smart planning and development—not by simply throwing people out or arresting them.

Why?

1. Indonesia is one of the largest tropical timber producers, with an estimated 80 percent of timber exports being illegal. This poses serious environmental and economic concerns.
2. The Indonesian government fails to capture over US$100 million per year in tax revenue on illegal logging and exports.
3. The cheap and plentiful supply of timber from illegal sources depresses timber prices worldwide by 2 percent to 4 percent and thus also impacts the U.S. timber industry.
4. Deforestation in Indonesia accounts for 4 percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. And thus deforestation in Indonesia is a major contributor to climate change.

The field trip was interesting and the team I traveled with looked beyond short-term fixes and more towards better understanding the forestry issues Indonesia is struggling with in remote places and looking for ways to combine U.S. and Indonesian expertise to work towards solutions.

The delegation was led by Jim Hubbard, deputy chief for state and private forestry of the U.S. agency, and Dr. Togu Manurung, special advisor to the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry.

See pictures and read more at the World Resources Institute website.

Source: Bernama - May 2, 2008
By Tengku Noor Shamsiah Tengku Abdullah, Putrajaya

The Asean region, though covering only three percent of the earth’s surface, serves as the natural habitat of up to 40 percent of the world’s plant and animal species.
The region is the home to one-third of the world’s coral reefs, translating to 284,000 square kilometers of coral reefs that are among the most diverse in the world.

The region is home to seven of the world’s 25 biodiversity hotspots. Out of the 64,800 known species in the region, 1,312 are endangered.

The region includes three ‘mega-diversity’ countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. The other members of the grouping are Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. But sadly today Asean’s biodiversity is facing threat from mankind’s activities and from the wrath of nature itself.

NATURE’S WEALTH UNDER THREAT

According to Rodrigo U. Fuentes, the Executive Director of the Asean Centre for Biodiversity, deforestation rates in the region are at least two times higher than other tropical areas.

Forest conversion is the major cause of biodiversity loss in the region. It is driven by logging activities, shifting cultivation, large-scale mining, and agricultural expansion.

These lead to loss of habitat for many birds, mammals and other animals, reduced pollination activities, decline in species richness and populations, and overall reductions in biodiversity.

If present levels of deforestation continue, Asean will lose nearly three-fourths of its original forest cover and up to 42 percent of its biodiversity by the next century.

“There will be massive species declines and extinctions which will result in catastrophic biodiversity loss. Biodiversity loss could trigger enormous effects on food security, health, shelter, medicine, and aesthetic and other life sustaining resources,” Fuentes warned.

ASEAN LOSING ITS FOREST COVER

In Sumatra, for example, there has been a decline from 80 to 33 percent (1980-2001) in forest cover within 50 km periphery of protected areas. Smaller protected areas are most greatly affected as the conservation capacity of protected areas is greatly reduced.

In 1997-1998, up to five million hectares of forests in Indonesia (Sumatra and Kalimantan) were lost due to forest fires. In 2002 and 2006, forest fires destroyed several million hectares, including peat swamp forests.

He said these resulted in disappearance or population decline and high infant and juvenile mortality in many animals, as well as reduced seedling and sapling population for many tree species.

ASEAN’S WILDLIFE ALSO AFFECTED

Wildlife hunting and trade for food, pet and medicinal purposes also contribute to biodiversity loss in Asean.

In Sarawak, 2.6 million animals are hunted each year for bush meat while in Sabah, 108 million animals suffered the same fate. In 2000, Indonesia contributed about 29 percent of global exports for snake and lizard skins.

In the same year, Singapore imported 7,093 live animals and had a total net export of 301,905 animal skins.

Between 1975 and 1992, Korea imported 6,128 kilograms of tiger bones, 60 percent of which were from Indonesia.

Overall, wildlife was extracted from forests at more than six times the sustainable rate.

The marine environment did not fare any better. Almost 80 percent of coral reefs in the region are at risk due to destructive fishing practices and coral bleaching.

OTHER ASPECTS OF THREAT

Increasing human population and poverty is a primary socio-economic driver of forest biodiversity loss. Climate change can have the largest proportional effect on biodiversity in extreme environments (e.g., arctic, boreal zones). This phenomenon threatens the Asean region, possibly in very cold mountain environments, on small islands or low coastal areas. Lack of financial resources contributes to biodiversity loss in the region as governments put more emphasis on budget allocation for food, health, education, infrastructure and other priorities.

ASEAN’S RESPONSE

In response to this dire situation, Asean has taken efforts to protect and save its rich biodiversity. Asean member countries have ratified a number of international agreements concerning biodiversity, including the Convention on Biological Diversity, Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species, Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, World Heritage Convention, and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. Asean has designated 1,523 protected areas and declared 27 areas as Asean Heritage Parks. To date, Thailand has nominated three additional parks and the Philippines nominated two to be declared as Asean Heritage Parks. Several conservation plans have been prepared especially for endangered species, such as the Tiger, the Elephants, Gaur, Sumatran Rhinoceros, Otter, and Pheasants. The conservation plans include aspects of research, ex-situ conservation, monitoring, and enforcement activities. Further responding to the need for concerted action to protect and conserve the region’s dwindling biodiversity resources ASEAN, with funding support from the European Union (EU), has established the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB).

ACB TO SPEARHED THE ROLE

As an intergovernmental regional centre of excellence, ACB facilitates cooperation and coordination among the members of Asean, and with relevant national governments, regional and international organizations, non-government organizations, private corporations and individuals on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. To contribute to the achievement of socially responsible access, equitable sharing, utilization and conservation of natural ecosystems and the biodiversity they contain, ACB builds strategic networks and partnerships geared to mobilize resources towards optimally augmenting effective programmes on biodiversity conservation. On the occasion of Earth Day, 22 April, ACB is inviting international and regional organizations, governments, private corporations and foundations, communities, and individuals to contribute financially or in kind to its programmes. “Join ACB and the international community in saving Southeast Asia’s rich yet highly endangered biodiversity. Save humanity,” Fuentes appealed. — BERNAMA TNS PR CR

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Environmental group Greenpeace has echoed calls by consumer goods giant Unilever to impose a moratorium on deforestation in Indonesia in support for the company’s pledge to purchase only certified sustainable palm oil.

Greenpeace also urged the country’s palm oil plantations to use sustainable forest management methods and stop expanding into peatland forests.

“Unilever’s calls for a moratorium on forest destruction in Indonesia should become an entry point for the government to stop the deforestation process,” Greenpeace Southeast Asia political advisor Arif Wicaksono told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

“The government has to take action to reverse deforestation by initiating a moratorium on logging and forest conversion.”

Unilever has committed to using only palm oil from certified sustainable sources from the second half of this year.

The company said it would ensure the palm oil it used in Europe was also certified as sustainable by 2012.

“Now we need to take the next step,” Unilever chief executive Patrick Cescau said in a statement in London on Thursday.

“Suppliers need to move to meet the criteria, by getting certified both the palm oil from their own plantations and the palm oil they buy from elsewhere.”

Unilever is the world’s biggest consumer of palm oil, which it uses in leading brands such as Dove, Persil and Flora.

The company’s decision came after a Greenpeace campaign revealed Unilever’s suppliers are actively destroying orangutan habitat and clearing Indonesia’s peatlands and rain forests.

According to Greenpeace, destruction of peatland rain forests contributes 4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Greenhouse gas emissions are considered the main contributor to climate change.

The environmental group also said about 1,600 orangutans were killed on palm oil plantations during 2006.

Arif said companies using palm oil and members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) should join forces with Unilever to stop ongoing forest destruction in Indonesia.

The RSPO is an initiative of an association of palm oil producers to promote the growth and use of sustainable palm oil.

“Even though the RSPO has existed since 2002, there is still no certified palm oil on the market,” Greenpeace said.

Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono ordered governors to stop awarding new permits for the palm oil industry in peatlands last year. The order was issued as Indonesia hosted the climate change conference in Bali, which directed all countries to cut carbon dioxide emissions.

A 2006 report from Wetlands International found damage to Indonesia’s peatlands resulted in 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, making the country the world’s third largest emitter after the United States and China.

“But we have seen no changes since the minister’s order. Many regents still grant permits to dig in peatland forests,” Arif said.

“Greenpeace is not calling for an end to the palm oil industry but it is calling for an end to forest destruction.”

Source: The Jakarta Post

By Nicole Johnston

Once hailed as a healthy alternative to trans-fats, as a green wonder-fuel and as a driver of South-East Asia’s economic prosperity, palm oil’s image has taken quite a beating recently.

Now seen as a biofuel baddie — palm oil biodiesel generates 10 times more carbon dioxide than petrol — it is also blamed for deforestation and for driving species such as the orangutan to the verge of extinction.

But even if you don’t use biofuels you have probably used palm oil several times today without even knowing it. Palm oil is in a vast range of consumer products, from margarine to washing powder, and is probably in your favourite ice-cream, coffee creamer or even your lipstick. You might not be aware of this because many manufacturers simply call it “vegetable oil” on the label, often to try to avoid the stigma that has become attached to palm oil.

Campaigns by groups such as Friends of the Earth in the United Kingdom and Europe saw consumer boycotts of products containing palm oil forcing retail giants to put pressure on producers to prove that their product is sustainable and eco-friendly.

Green labelling

So the palm oil industry, environmental groups and corporate palm oil consumers, such as Unilever, signed up for the round table on sustainable palm oil (RSPO), a green-labelling certification process for palm oil produced in line with environmental best-practice criteria. But instead of taking some of the heat out of the battle, the RSPO seems destined to become another source of conflict.

The various parties to the RSPO seem to agree on very little. A fresh row erupted earlier this year when Britain’s advertising standards authority upheld a complaint by Friends of the Earth and ruled that a Malaysian Palm Oil Council advert was misleading. The ad claims that oil palm plantations are essentially “planted forest”, absorbing carbon dioxide and creating biodiverse habitats for fauna and flora, and that Malaysian palm oil has been sustainably produced since 1917.

The palm oil industry was infuriated and Malaysia’s minister of plantations and commodities, Peter Chin, accused Western NGOs such as Friends of the Earth of “bias against palm oil” and expressed deep concern about “the negative campaigns targeting the palm oil industry”.

Sarala Aikanathan, director of Wetlands International Malaysia, says: “You need to call a spade a spade and a plantation a plantation. A plantation is not a planted forest– it is monoculture and does not contain the biodiversity of a natural forest.” But she points out that there is a need to balance conservation and development. “I’m not a believer in pure conservation — it just doesn’t work if the local people suffer.”

The timelines for implementation of RSPO criteria are unclear: environmental groups want strict deadlines for compliance, while the palm oil industry sees these criteria as a longer-term goal: “We will work towards them but it doesn’t mean we will have to comply with this next year,” Chin said at a conference on sustainable palm oil in April. He pointed out that 40% of Malaysia’s oil palm is planted by smallholders who “need to be educated about RSPO principles”.

Greenwashing?

But environmental groups say the planet simply doesn’t have that much time: “All this talk of sustainability is lies,” says Hardi Baktiantoro of the Centre for Orangutan Protection, an Indonesian NGO. He dismissed expert predictions that the orangutans will become extinct in 10 years. saying “I think it will be in the next year or two. It’s a crime,” he says.

A Greenpeace report, How Unilever Palm Oil Suppliers Are Burning up Borneo, released last week finds that RSPO members are expanding their plantations into forests and peatlands in Kalimantan — the Indonesian part of Borneo — in breach of both the law and RSPO principles. Greenpeace’s Tim Birch dismissed the RSPO as a green-washing exercise: “Five years on and there isn’t one drop of sustainable palm oil on the market. They talk about sustainability, but the destruction continues. There is no sense of urgency. By the time we achieve sustainability there will be nothing to be sustainable about.”

‘Western hypocrisy’

There is a view in the palm oil industry that Europe, having developed its economy and destroyed its own forests in the process, is now being hypocritical in wanting to dictate terms to emerging economies. But environmental activists say that they don’t care what Europe has done; they want to preserve their own ecological heritage. “The wildlife that is affected is ours, not Europe’s,” says Darrel Webber of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Malaysia. “We have the right to develop, but what about local rights to clean water and to fish?” A recent WWF study found that effluent from palm oil mills and chemical and fertiliser run-offs enter rivers on which local communities depend and there is a high concentration of heavy metals, particularly lead, in the fish.

Who benefits?

In Malaysia palm oil companies are credited with building roads, schools and clinics for their employees. But Baktiantoro, who works with communities in Indonesia’s forests, says: “Economic development for who? Companies or local people? It is often difficult for the community to access water — one tree drinks 100 litres of ground water each day. The government might be getting tax from palm oil but the local people get nothing.”

Malaysian palm oil producers say they aren’t destroying virgin forest, as most of the land converted to oil palm plantation used to be agricultural land used for rice or rubber production. Environmental campaigners say most flagship species, such as orangutans, already live in degraded or secondary forest areas and fear that this conversion will destroy even that habitat. They say that while Malaysia might not be destroying any more virgin rainforest, there is a huge expansion of oil palm in Kalimantan and that much of this is driven by Malaysian-owned companies, such as Sime Darby, the world’s largest oil palm plantation company.

While Greenpeace is calling for a moratorium on oil palm expansion into rainforest and peatland areas, Malaysian NGOs are wary of setting themselves up as opponents of palm oil. Webber says that in fairness to the industry “it is the only commodity trying to achieve sustainability standards”. The WWF will continue to work with plantation owners to achieve solutions, particularly through planned biodiversity “corridors of life”. These corridors will link coastal mangrove swamps with upland forest reserves, allowing wildlife to move freely and remove bottlenecks caused by drainage canals and electric fences on plantations (orangutans are notoriously afraid of crossing water). It will also reduce conflicts between animals and humans, caused by the fact that “elephants can’t read maps and orangutans can’t fly”.

Nicole Johnston attended the international palm oil sustainability conference as a guest of the MPOC

Source: http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=338312&area=/insight/monitor/

Damned if You Do: Cause Efforts Become Ammo for the Critics
By Jack Neff

Greenpeace: Ads posted in London parody Dove’s ‘Campaign for Real Beauty.’

BATAVIA, Ohio (AdAge.com) — Greg Allgood, who directs Procter & Gamble Co.’s Children’s Safe Drinking Water program, recently has spent a lot of time demonstrating Pur’s purification packets for developing countries that turn disgusting, brown water crystal clear. On one TV appearance last week, he accidentally took a swig from the dirty “before” water instead of the treated water in a clip that made the rounds to “Countdown” on MSNBC.

It’s symbolic of the downside companies in the forefront of ethical marketing have faced in recent weeks: No good deed goes entirely unpunished; high-profile stances on social causes can have unintended consequences; and the water is getting pretty murky as “ethical marketing” encourages consumers and activists to delve into corporate policies in ever-greater detail.

P&G and Unilever in particular have become lightning rods of late in part because of the public stances they’ve taken on environmental and social issues. “Most activists of whatever persuasion on whatever issue tend to believe that they get most traction (and news coverage) by aiming at the biggest name rather than the biggest challenge,” said a Unilever spokeswoman in an e-mail. “In most instances, it seems that the biggest ‘name’ tends to be the one that has done the most to attack the … problem.”

Irony of the good oil

Case in point: Unilever has scored at the top of global ethical and sustainability indexes in the past year. Its reward was to be labeled by Greenpeace, along with its global Dove agency, Ogilvy & Mather, and some U.K. PR firms, as killers of Indonesian orangutans because it buys palm oil from former rain forests.

The irony is that palm oil was supposed to be the benign alternative. P&G has been substituting it for oil derivatives in laundry detergents and touted a big contract for Indonesian palm oil in 2006. Unilever has also been using palm oil to replace widely reviled trans fats in margarine and other foods. Both companies, and many more, have been using it as a cheaper alternative to grain-based products as the U.S. government drives up grain prices and fuels global food shortages by subsidizing ethanol to replace oil.

But it was Unilever that Greenpeace singled out for special attention, sending people in orangutan suits to scale the company’s London headquarters last month and unleashing sophisticated parodies of Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty” on the London Underground and YouTube.

The guerrilla poster campaign plastered ads with orangutans over Dove’s ads, and the YouTube entry, dubbed “Dove Onslaught[er],” rose to the top of results in searches for Dove at the site, racking up 250,000 views its first week.

It appears to have been very effective. On May 1, Unilever CEO Patrick Cescau backed Greenpeace’s call for a moratorium on deforestation in Indonesia by palm-oil producers and pledged to get the ingredient only from sustainable sources by 2015.

‘Greenwash’

Unilever wasn’t singled out just because of its high-profile environmental and social stances, a Greenpeace spokesman said, claiming the company is the world’s largest user of palm oil. The group had noted Unilever’s high-profile stances on environmental issues, including chairing an industry committee on sustainable palm-oil production that hasn’t done much since 2002. “So there was an element of greenwash there,” he said.

Greenpeace is considering ending its campaign against Unilever, but the spokesman said the group may turn next to P&G or Nestlé.

The company accounts for about 4% of Indonesian palm oil production, in line with its global market share, the Unilever spokeswoman said. It is moving toward sustainable palm oil now because there’s a new third-party certification program in place, she said. The company is building on more than a decade of similar sustainability moves regarding fish and tea.

“These pressure groups realize companies are using [environmental and social stances] for marketing,” said PR maven Howard Rubenstein. “So they’re hitting them where their mouth is.”

One result, he said, is a confluence of marketing and politics that shows no signs of abating, with marketers tracking online buzz and other measures of public opinion as doggedly as politicians track polls.

No turning back

Mr. Rubenstein said high-profile marketers are in the political arena to stay, whether they want to or not. Such decisions as P&G’s to pull ads from MSNBC’s Don Imus show last year after he hurled racial epithets at Rutgers women’s basketball players is one he said had to be made.

Such moves also have helped make P&G a darling of the Parents Television Council, which named it the most family-friendly advertiser in the U.S. last year for sponsoring so many shows the group likes and not sponsoring shows it hates.

Right up until April, that is, when the PTC, as part of the Enough Is Enough coalition, singled out P&G for criticism among several major sponsors of hip-hop shows on MTV and BET laced with profanity, glorification of crime and drug use, portrayals of black men as criminals and black women as sex objects. In the ensuing blog chatter, some called P&G hypocritical for supporting such shows while also using a marketing program — “My Black Is Beautiful” — to bolster women’s self-esteem.

Take any P&G cause-marketing initiative, and you’ll find some slice of consumers it provokes to criticize the company. Pur’s effort has prompted detailed blog analyses of P&G’s alleged negative impact on water quality — from making tampons to bleaching paper. Even Pampers’ program to vaccinate expectant mothers against tetanus in developing markets via UNICEF has raised calls for a boycott from some parents of autistic children who believe the vaccines could cause autism (the science behind that claim is the subject of considerable debate).

“First and foremost, as a company, we are committed to doing what is right, not for goodwill but for the good we can do as an organization,” a P&G spokeswoman said in an e-mail. On the media side, “We recognize consumer expectations for P&G to be a responsible advertiser are very high, and we take our responsibility as an advertiser very seriously,” she said. “We do not proactively seek out opportunities to raise our profile on these matters. Our actions, or the actions taken by others, generate attention in the press, which raises our profile.”

It’s impossible, she said, to know what net impact such controversies have on the business.

Source: http://adage.com/article?article_id=126853

KOTA KINABALU, Malaysia (AFP) — Malaysia is promoting its controversial palm oil industry as a model of eco-friendliness, but activists warn forests are still being destroyed to make way for vast plantations.

As palm oil prices boom, Malaysia has mounted a campaign to counter allegations that the crop is responsible for habitat destruction, air pollution from slash-and-burn farming, and pushing orangutans towards extinction.

It insists palm oil is only grown on legal agricultural land and that criticisms are an attempt by competitors in Europe and the United States to undermine growing demand for the commodity.

But environmentalists say that while virgin rainforests are now off-limits, tracts designated as “secondary forests”, which are also valuable habitats teeming with wildlife, are not being spared.

Junaidi Payne from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said the government’s stance is misleading and that the race to fulfil demand for palm oil risks causing further deforestation, both legal and illegal.

“It is actually a red herring to say that Malaysia does not convert rainforests to oil palm plantations,” Payne said at a recent conference on palm oil sustainability in Sabah state on Borneo island.

Payne said that in the past 25 years, previously virgin forests which have been partially logged were downgraded to secondary forests, which are then deemed to be legal agriculture land.

“What bothers me is the current sustained price of crude palm oil,” he said. “The success of palm oil production will have an impact on forest conservation as more land is set aside to cultivate the crop.”

The charismatic orangutan, the flagship species for the forest conservation drive, is found only in Borneo — which is shared between Indonesia and Malaysia — and Indonesia’s Sumatra island.

An estimated 41,000 orangutans live on Borneo, including Indonesia’s Kalimantan and Malaysia’s Sabah and Sarawak states, while Sumatra is home to 7,500 Sumatran orangutans, a sub-species of the red-haired ape.

The gentle animal is now threatened with extinction due to a loss of natural habitat, say experts who point out that most of Malaysia’s orangutans live in secondary forests.

The Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) has vigorously fended off the allegations, pointing out that 60 percent of Malaysia’s land mass is forested, while agriculture occupies just 19 percent.

“Every country has the right to develop 30 percent of their forest land to agriculture. So what is the issue?” MPOC chief executive officer Yusof Basiron told AFP.

“Records show that the UK has knowingly developed 70 percent of its land for agriculture, leaving less than 12 percent under forest,” he said.

“Nobody asks the UK government to reverse the situation even though over-developed agricultural land can be easily reforested to help reduce global warming.”

As palm oil prices spiral, driven by demand for clean-burning biofuels as well as for an ingredient in food and cosmetics, Malaysia and Indonesia are jockeying for top-dog status as the world’s largest producer.

Malaysia says Indonesia likely seized its mantle as the world’s biggest palm oil producer in 2007, due to dramatically increased planting. The two countries combined supply 85 percent of the world’s palm oil.

Environmental campaigners Friends of the Earth in 2005 called for a boycott of palm oil products, predicting that orangutans would be wiped out within 12 years if forest destruction were to continue at current levels.

The adverse public opinion poses a threat to an industry which last year earned Malaysia 14.1 billion dollars in exports, a whopping 42 percent jump from 2006. That figure is tipped to rise to 15.7 billion dollars this year.

Indonesia and Malaysia have pledged to carry out joint research to counter anti-palm oil “propaganda” that jeopardises the lucrative industry.

“We will present accurate facts to all those who are against palm oil, whether for economic reasons, or due to concerns over global warming or because they are agents to palm oil competitors,” said Malaysian Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Peter Chin.

WWF’s Borneo-based researcher Darrel Webber said the situation is much more serious in Indonesia, where deforestation is rampant.

“In Malaysia there is more awareness and cooperation between planters and conservation groups. The situation is much more acute in Kalimantan and Sumatra,” he said.

Webber said Malaysian palm oil can be sustainable if industry players are willing to conserve animal habitats and work around indigenous communities, instead of fragmenting forested areas.

“It is important to note that palm oil is the only commodity that is going for such a thing as sustainable production. It is a real challenge but it is viable,” he said.

Source: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jFCBmUC9nYbjgoM0H6g4Nc3kbjFQ