Orangutan Outreach Website - Saving the Orangutan

Amsterdam, International — Greenpeace today welcomed Unilever’s call for a moratorium on rainforest destruction in Indonesia, that is wiping out orang-utans and devastating the climate.
Amsterdam - Greenpeace welcomed Unilever’s call for a moratorium on rainforest destruction in Indonesia, that is wiping out orang-utans and devastating the climate.

In a speech delivered in London today, CEO Patrick Cescau supported Greenpeace’s demand for a complete halt to the destruction of Indonesia’s rainforest and peatlands for palm oil. He also promised that all of Unilever’s palm oil would be sustainable by 2015. However, the environmental group warned that without a halt to deforestation, Unilever’s efforts to source sustainable palm oil would be doomed to fail.

This decision follows a new Greenpeace campaign exposing how Unilever’s suppliers are actively destroying orang-utan habitats and clearing Indonesia’s peatlands and rainforests. Destruction of Indonesia’s peatland rainforests contributes 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Greenpeace insisted that other big corporate palm oil users and members of the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (including Procter & Gamble, Kraft, and Nestle) now need to join forces with Unilever and insist that palm oil suppliers immediately agree to stop ongoing forest destruction.

Last week Greenpeace volunteers dressed as orang-utans breached security at Unilever’s headquarters across Europe to highlight the company’s role in rainforest destruction for palm oil.

Reacting to the news, Greenpeace International forest campaigner, Tim Birch said

“Unilever’s commitment to sourcing sustainable palm oil will be meaningless unless its suppliers stop trashing Indonesia’s rainforests - this is why the moratorium is so important. Every day Unilever keeps buying palm oil from these suppliers, orang-utans are being pushed closer to extinction and climate change continues unabated.

Other companies like Nestle and Procter&Gamble now need to join forces with Unilever to exert real pressure on the ground. Greenpeace will not stop its campaign until there is a complete halt to forest destruction in Indonesia.”

Amanda’s story is so inspiring… testament to the power of one individual! ~ Rich
By Amanda E
Source: The Sietch Blog

I was just a normal, everyday mother of three living a good life in Australia, minding my own business, when a public tragedy occurred that changed my perspective. The famous Crocodile Hunter and passionate conservationist, Steve Irwin, died suddenly in a stingray barb accident. Reeling from news of his death, I decided that more ‘little people’ like myself needed to take environmental action in order to fill his big shoes.

I decided to concentrate on orangutans because if we can’t prevent the extinction of the great apes, what hope do we have of saving any creature? I learned that the development of palm oil plantations is the single greatest threat to the survival of the wild orangutan. These plantations not only take over their homes, but orangutans are killed when they wander, displaced and starving, onto the plantations looking for food.

There is already much deforested and idle land in Indonesia where palm oil could be grown but companies choose to continue logging and reaping the immediate profits from the sale of the timber. These companies are usually owned by rich multi-nationals from Malaysia and China.

Incredible animals like the Sumatran tiger, Sumatran rhino, clouded leopard, Asian elephant, sun bear, gibbon and many species of primates live in these forests. They are not taken into care when their forest homes are logged and then burnt to the ground; they are killed and eaten or sold into the pet trade or used in Asian medicines.

I was shocked and outraged and determined not to purchase or consume any more palm oil. I went to my supermarket intent on reading labels and choosing alternative vegetable oils. And then I discovered that palm oil was labeled under the umbrella of “vegetable oil” and that there was no easy way of identifying this ingredient.

Frustrated, I decided to take the professional approach; I made a formal application to the Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) to label palm oil.

In March 2008, eighteen months later, the FSANZ Board met and reviewed my application. Their preliminary opinion, subject to my response, was to reject my application on the grounds that it did not fall within the scope of the FSANZ’s legislative capabilities. Using the domestic market to regulate international environmental affairs was not their job. Also, my application was not relevant to public health issues and this is the main domain of the FSANZ.

In my response to the FSANZ, I have pointed out that in 2000 they saw fit to label genetically modified food (GM food) while taking pains to reassure the public that there were no safety concerns. I have also argued that palm oil is high in saturated fat which is very unhealthy and that the public has a right to try to avoid it. I have argued that the nutritional information panel (NIP), which is mandatory for food in Australia and New Zealand, is inadequate for informing the public about their saturated fat intake because it requires them to add up every gram of fat in their diet. It would be much easier to simply avoid palm oil.

I am also writing letters to the Australian Federal government asking them to expand the FSANZ Act to include ethical and environmental concerns. With the reality of climate change upon us, I believe that every government needs to reform legislation to recognise environmental priorities and accomodate urgent environmental needs. There will be a need to label foods or products that contribute significantly to climate change to enable the public to take responsibility and affect supply through reduced demand.

I am a member of the Palm Oil Action Group (POAG), which is a coalition of non governmental organisations (NGO’s) in Australia who have banded together for a common aim, to find solutions to the palm oil issues. Every NGO in this group has written a letter to FSANZ in support of my application to label palm oil. The POAG’s website is: www.palmoilaction.org.au

I would encourage every concerned individual to write to their government and Food Standards Body and request that environmental laws be strengthened and palm oil be labeled. I would be especially grateful if Australian and New Zealand citizens wrote to FSANZ and governments asking for the labeling of palm oil.

With palm oil labeling, a level of transparency will be introduced to the market which will give consumers the opportunity to use their purchasing power to influence the practices of these multinational companies. It is my hope that the conscious consumer can play an integral part in finding a solution to the tragedy that is unfolding in South East Asia. We need to do everything we can to save the magic of our rainforest biodiversity, combat deforestation-driven climate change and save ourselves from ourselves.

Source: Greenpeace UK web site

Potentially good news for orang-utans - Unilever announced this morning that they’re now supporting our calls for a moratorium to protect Indonesia’s rainforests from destruction at the hands of the expanding palm oil industry.

When we sent in our own ‘orang-utans’ to Unilever HQ last week to tell them that they needed to do more to stop rainforest and peatlands being cleared to make way for palm oil plantations, company executives told us that they wouldn’t be forced into a quick decision on the matter.

But today they have started to change their tune, as chief executive Patrick Cesau made a speech supporting a moratorium, and promising that all Unilever’s palm oil would be sustainable by 2015. His decison followed the release of our latest report: How Unilever Palm Oil Suppliers Are Burning Up Borneo, which details how its suppliers are actively involved in rainforest destruction, pushing species like the endangered orang-utans to the brink of extinction and speeding up climate change. And, of course, all the photographs and emails you all sent to him parodying Dove’s ‘Campaign for real beauty’ marketing campaign. Check out the latest additions at Stop Dove destroying rainforests, and keep sending in contributions - this campaign is not over yet. And if you’ve not already seen it, watch our Dove Onslaugh(ter) video, which has racked up 254,000 YouTube views in just over a week.

As one of the world’s biggest users of palm oil in its Dove soap and Persil products, Unilever has a huge influence on how suppliers operate. It is essential that the company pushes for a moratorium, as Greenpeace UK director John Sauven pointed out this morning, “Unilever’s commitment to sourcing sustainable palm oil will be meaningless unless its suppliers stop trashing Indonesia’s rainforests - this is why the moratorium is so important. Every day that Unilever keeps buying palm oil from these suppliers, orang-utans are pushed closer to extinction.”

If Unilever is serious about halting rainforest destruction in Indonesia, it needs to use its position as Chair of Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) to encourage other member companies to follow suit. Unilever has held this infuential position for the past six years - yet during that period not a single drop of sustainable palm oil has actually been produced. This situation urgently needs to be rectified, and until they start to exert real pressure on the ground, we’ll be keeping up the pressure.

Will use only fully traceable palm oil by 2015

By Agence France-Presse

May 2, 2008 — Consumer goods giant Unilever said May 1 it would back a moratorium on further palm oil deforestation in Indonesia and intended to use only fully traceable palm oil by 2015. The company, the target of environmental protests in Britain and the Netherlands last month, said it would start using palm oil from certifiable sources in the second half of this year as it becomes available and would try to ensure that oil it uses in Europe is certified as sustainable by 2012.

Unilever markets such products as Dove soap, Omo and Surf detergents, Knorr food products and Lipton tea.

“Palm oil is an important raw material for us and the whole consumer goods industry,” said chief executive Patrick Cescau, adding that the company for the past 10 years had been trying to “build an industry consensus on criteria for sustainable palm cultivation.”

“Now we need to take the next step. 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,” Cescau said. “We also intend to support the call for an immediate moratorium on any further deforestation in palm oil in Indonesia.”

Indonesia is this year expected to surpass Malaysia as the world’s number one palm oil producer. The two countries combined supply 85% of the world’s palm oil needs.

Environmental protesters targeted Unilever on April 21, accusing it of contributing to the destruction of the Indonesian rainforest. About 40 members of Greenpeace entered the multinational’s factory in Merseyside, northwest England, where they said they had chained themselves to machinery to halt production. A dozen demonstrated outside Unilever’s headquarters in London, with some scaling its external walls, while another 20 held a protest outside the Rotterdam offices of the company.

Greenpeace says the forests of Indonesia, one of the last remaining natural habitats of the orangutan, are being torn down to produce palm oil, used in foods and soaps and as a biofuel added to diesel for cars. The environmental group’s Executive Director John Sauven said at the time of the protest: “Greenpeace is demanding Unilever publicly call for an end to the expansion of palm oil into forest and peatland areas and stop trading with suppliers that continue to destroy rainforests.”

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2008
Source: http://www.industryweek.com/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=16245

Read the original at Mongabay.com

Unilever, the world’s largest consumer good company, will start using palm oil from certified sustainable sources this year and aims to have all its palm oil certified by 2015, according to a speech delivered today by CEO Patrick Cescau.

Cescau also voiced support for a moratorium on rainforest destruction for oil palm plantations in Indonesia.

“Now we need to take the next step. 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 Chief Executive Patrick Cescau said in a statement. “We also intend to support the call for an immediate moratorium on any further deforestation in Indonesia for palm oil.”

“We are committed to doing this because we believe it is the right thing to do for the people who use our products, for the environment and communities in and around which palm oil is grown and for our business and our brands,” he continued.

Unilever’s announcement comes shortly after a report from Greenpeace showed that the company’s suppliers were destroying orangutan habitat and carbon-rich peatlands in Indonesia for oil palm plantations. In the report, Greenpeace revealed that Unilever could not trace the origin of its palm oil and said the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) — the industry’s response to criticism on its environmental performance — was falling short of its stated goals of reducing the conversion of rainforest lands.

In addition to the call for a ban on forest clearing for oil palm, Unilever’s Cescau said that the company will aim to have all the palm oil it uses in Europe fully traceable by 2012.

Still Greenpeace says that Unilever’s efforts will have little impact unless other buyers join in and force suppliers abandon forest destruction.

“Unilever’s commitment to sourcing sustainable palm oil will be meaningless unless its suppliers stop trashing Indonesia’s rainforests - this is why the moratorium is so important,” Greenpeace International forest campaigner Tim Birch said. “Every day Unilever keeps buying palm oil from these suppliers, orangutans are being pushed closer to extinction and climate change continues unabated.”

Unilever is the world’s largest consumer of palm oil in the world, using 4% of total global production in its food and cosmetic products.

Environmentalists say the production of palm oil on forest lands results in the destruction of critical orangutan habitat and releases large amounts of greenhouse gases.

Indonesia presently ranks third in carbon emissions due to deforestation and degradation of peat swamps, according to Wetlands International.

Source: http://news.mongabay.com/

Last month’s sustainability conference sponsored by the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) revealed a rift between some planters and the industry marketing organization.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, several oil palm plantation executives distanced themselves from a video created by the MPOC as well as closing remarks by the group’s CEO, Tan Sri Datuk Dr. Yusof Basiron. They said the video and comments provided ammunition for NGOs that accuse the MPOC of greenwashing.

“MPOC must get rid of that video,” said a senior executive with a major plantation firm. “A few of the statements are so blatantly untrue that it undermines our credibility It doesn’t matter that some of the video is accurate. Environmental groups are going to focus on the obvious fallacies and use them against us.

The executive was referring to claims that Malaysian palm oil has always been sustainable and has not resulted in conversion of tropical forest in Malaysia. The video also claimed that 60 percent of Malaysia is covered by rainforest — a number disputed by official government figures — and that oil palm plantations sequester nearly as much carbon as the country’s rainforests.

“Dr. Basiron’s comments are a liability,” said a senior researcher with an agrochemicals firm. “Most of what he said was accurate but when he makes ridiculous claims on biodiversity loss and deforestation, it only serves to help the greenies and tarnish the image of the MPOC.”

“We needs to be as straight-forward as possible,” he continued. “Making false claims is when the MPOC gets in trouble with the international NGOs.”

An executive from another plantation company said he was surprised that the MPOC made the same mistakes with the new video as it did with a previous advertisement that was labeled misleading by Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

“You’d think they would have gotten the second video right,” he said.

Controversial statements by the CEO

In closing remarks at the conference, Dr. Basiron made several controversial claims.

“All land can be reforested. There is no reason why you just can’t plant a new forest,” he said, ignoring the difficulty of re-establishing forests on degraded lands.

“With deforestation, all the animals move to the forest,” he said. “They don’t die.”

Dr. Basiron went on to say that the Malaysian palm oil industry has “always” been sustainable and hasn’t resulted in deforestation. He dismissed efforts to increase biodiversity on agricultural lands — a position at odds with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil’s (RSPO) stated goals.

Several plantation executives suggested that it would be more productive to focus on well-established facts to bolster the international perception of Malaysian palm oil. For example, highlighting that most palm oil goes toward food production, not biofuels; that it is the world’s most productive oilseed with a carbon balance favorable to other oil crops including rapeseed and soy; and that palm oil plays an important role in poverty alleviation and rural development.

“Basiron should avoid the provocative but inaccurate statements,” said one executive with a medium-sized plantation firm. “It does nothing for our reputation.”

“Dr. Basiron’s comments threatened to undermine any goodwill that was achieved by the conference,” said a representative from a subsidiary of an American company. “The MPOC video is perfect ammunition for NGOs in that it gives them material for attacking us.”

One environmental group seemed to agree.

“The video is a great tool for us,” said the head of a wildlife conservation group.

The International Palm Oil Sustainability Conference which met in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia from April 13-15, sought to address criticism from environmental groups over the sustainability of the industry.

The MPOC is working to distinguish Malaysian palm oil as a premium brand relative to palm oil produced elsewhere, especially in Indonesia. Environmentalists say large tracts of forest are being converted for new plantations in Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo, New Guinea, and Sumatra, putting rare and endangered biodiversity at risk.

Greenpeace acusa a la empresa ‘Unilever’ de no controlar a sus proveedores

Las organizaciones ecologistas han denunciado la devastación de bosques tropicales, no ya para conseguir madera y convertirla en biodiesel, sino para la industria de la cosmética. Según los activistas ésta podría ser responsable de un grave proceso de deforestación en las selvas húmedas de Indonesia.

En Greenpeace aseguran que se está talando para plantar palma, destinada a la obtención de aceite para cosméticos y alimentos que consumimos todos los días.

Miguel Ángel Soto, uno de los miembros de Campaña de Bosques Greenpeace, afirma que la empresa Unilever se abastece de aceite de palma y la acusa de deforestar algunas zonas para suministrar de esta sustancia al mercado.

Aunque Unilever preside una mesa redonda para el cultivo sostenible de aceite de palma, los ecologistas calculan que de los cerca de 300 proveedores con los que cuenta la compañía Unilever, más de una veintena obtienen la materia prima de plantaciones donde previamente se ha arrasado masa forestal.

La empresa asegura que la demanda de aceite de palma se ha disparado y que no tiene medios para controlar dónde trabajan todos sus proveedores. Tampoco para garantizar que no estén dañando la selva tropical ni a quienes viven en ella.

Demand for biofuels is destroying tribal peoples’ land and lives, according to indigenous representatives at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), meeting currently in New York.

A report presented to the UNPFII refers to ‘increasing human rights violations, displacements and conflicts due to expropriation of ancestral lands and forests for biofuel plantations.’ One of the report’s authors, UNPFII chairperson Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, has said that if biofuels expansion continues as planned, 60 million indigenous people worldwide are threatened with losing their land and livelihoods.

Palm oil is one of the most destructive crops used for biofuels. Millions of indigenous people in Malaysia have already been affected by palm oil plantations, and millions more in Indonesia, where over 6 million hectares of oil palm have been planted, mostly on indigenous territory. In Colombia, thousands of families, many of them indigenous, have been violently evicted from their land because of palm oil plantations and other crops.

Malaysia, Indonesia and Colombia all plan to expand their palm oil plantations. Indonesia has announced plans for plantations in Borneo, projected to displace up to 5 million indigenous people, and 5 million hectares, much of it indigenous land, has been set aside for palm oil in Papua. Colombia is planning 6.3 million hectares of plantations, which could affect more than 100 indigenous communities.

‘If the government take our land, what will we have left?’ an indigenous Papuan leader said in an interview with Survival. ‘If there is a plantation, our land will be destroyed.’

Other crops for biofuels include sugar cane, soy, corn, manioc and jatropha, a plant native to Central America. The Guarani in Brazil have lost much of their land to sugar cane cultivation, while the government in India is targeting 13.5 million hectares of what it calls ‘wasteland’, much of which is actually indigenous land.

Survival’s director, Stephen Corry, said today, ‘The biofuels boom doesn’t just have consequences for the environment, global food prices or orang-utans – it’s having a devastating effect on tribal people too. The companies feverishly promoting this industry have been perfectly willing to push aside tribal people in their hunger for land.’

Source: http://www.survival-international.org/news/3279

Costlier Palm Oil, Europe Oversupply Cast Cloudy Outlook

By TOM WRIGHT
April 30, 2008

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Plans to invest billions of dollars in biodiesel refineries across Southeast Asia have been put on hold as the prices of key raw ingredients — particularly palm oil — have shot up amid surging food demand in China and India.

An oversupply of biodiesel fuel in Europe thanks to a wave of heavily subsidized U.S. imports and growing concern in the West about the adverse environmental impact of oil-palm cultivation have added to the bleak outlook, Asian producers say.

That is an unexpected reversal of fortune for the industry. Just a year ago, Asian companies were rushing to build biodiesel plants to take advantage of subsidies in Europe and the U.S. aimed at promoting the consumption of cleaner-burning fuels.

Projects being built or planned were forecast to pump out five million metric tons of biodiesel a year upon completion, or about half of Europe’s total refining capacity in 2007. The Indonesian government boasted that $12.5 billion in new biofuel investments were in the pipeline for that country alone.

Biodiesel, refined from vegetable oils, is mixed with regular diesel and sold at the pump in Europe and the U.S. In theory, the blended fuel reduces greenhouse-gas emissions by stretching how far a vehicle can travel on gasoline or regular diesel.

The planned outlays on refineries seemed to make sense when crude-oil prices began rocketing last year. But the price of palm oil — produced widely in Southeast Asia — has climbed even more steeply, making biodiesel plants that use the commodity commercially unviable.

At the same time, the European Union — by far the world’s largest consumer of biodiesel — is tightening its subsidy program to specifically exclude biodiesel produced from palm oil grown on recently destroyed natural forest. Razing forests to plant palm oil — a common, if often illegal, practice in places like Indonesia — releases huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, negating any benefit from cleaner-burning fuels, recent studies have found.

Biodiesel makers in Asia are also complaining that U.S. exporters have flooded the European market with biodiesel fuel up to 30% cheaper than they are able to produce. U.S. producers of soybean-derived biodiesel get a $1 per gallon tax credit and then export their product to Europe, benefiting from subsidies there as well. Last week, an association of European biodiesel producers filed an official complaint to the European Commission claiming the U.S. export of subsidized biodiesel constitutes unfair competition.

The result: Some Asian palm-oil producers have scrapped their plans for biodiesel refineries, and only a few new plants have come on line. In Malaysia, for instance, the industry produced just 80,000 metric tons of biodiesel last year, much lower than the country’s annual capacity of one million tons, Malaysian Commodities Minister Peter Chin said last week.

“At current high palm-oil prices, palm biodiesel is not viable,” says Au Kah Soon, a spokesman for Wilmar International Ltd, a Singapore-based palm-oil plantation owner. Last year, Wilmar completed Southeast Asia’s largest biodiesel plant on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. But the plant, which has the capacity to produce around one million tons of biodiesel each year, is running only to meet current contracts. “We foresee a very small percentage of our revenue coming from biodiesel this year,” Mr. Soon says.

Sinar Mas Agro Resources & Technology Ltd., an Indonesian palm-oil company, has also suspended plans to invest $5.5 billion to build a huge biodiesel complex in Indonesia’s remote Papua province with China National Offshore Oil Corp., says a Sinar Mas Agro spokeswoman. The plan to develop one million hectares of virgin rainforest for the plantations has drawn complaints from environmentalists.

Biodiesel producers who don’t own oil-palm plantations have been hardest hit because they must fork out ever higher prices for their raw materials. Crude-palm-oil futures on the Malaysian Derivatives Exchange have climbed 12% so far this year after jumping 50% in 2007.

Mission Biofuels Ltd., which runs a refinery in Malaysia and is listed in Australia, warned investors recently that core earnings for its financial year ending June will be less than half an earlier forecast. Swaminathan Mahalingam, the company’s managing director, says the 100,000-tons-per-year plant is operating at only 40% capacity. “We’re only producing biodiesel if we have an order which makes sense,” he says.

To be sure, biodiesel could still play an important role if fossil-fuel output is unable to keep up with growing world energy demand. Many biodiesel producers in Southeast Asia say they might kick-start production again if crude-oil prices remain above $115 per barrel.

Goldman Sachs estimates that palm-oil-derived biodiesel exports to the EU can break even at current prices if crude remains above $100 a barrel. To be commercially viable, similar biodiesel exports to the U.S. would require crude oil to trade at above $120 a barrel, Goldman estimates.

Some biodiesel producers that buy palm oil from third parties say they can still make their expansion plans work. Finnish company Neste Oil Corp., for example, is moving ahead with an $800 million biodiesel plant in Singapore, which is expected to start operations in 2010.

Simo Honkanen, a vice president at Neste, says sales of the company’s high-performance biodiesel are strong. Neste is confident it will be able to pass higher palm-oil prices to customers. “Those that survive will be companies that have a superb product,” he says.

Meanwhile, some Southeast Asian palm-oil producers are refocusing on more traditional products and markets. Palm oil is still much more widely used to make cooking oil, margarine and cosmetics than it is for biodiesel. With diets improving in China and India, cooking-oil demand has soared, driving up prices. With subsidized U.S. and European soybean oil still flowing into biodiesel, some palm-oil producers, including Wilmar, have switched gears and are trying to exploit the opportunity to supply China and other Asian markets with cooking oil.

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120950216587953897.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

SEREMBAN: Drug traffickers from the Klang Valley and Johor went “harvesting” at an oil palm estate in Negri Sembilan. However, the joint-venture had nothing to do with palm oil or oil palm fruits. Instead, police investigations revealed that the traffickers had set up a drug distribution centre hidden away in the plantation to avoid police detection.

For a while, they operated the centre without any police harrassment. But not for long. They underestimated the power of police-public cooperation.

State narcotics crime investigation department chief Supt R. Ravichandran said police crippled the distribution centre, thanks to public cooperation.
“Members of the drug syndicate had used the oil palm plantation as a distribution centre, thus making it difficult for us to locate them.

“However, with the cooperation and information from the nearby villagers, our operations against the syndicate went satisfactorily,” he told reporters at his office here today.

Ravichandran said on April 25, a 26-year-old drug pusher was detained while trying to distribute drugs in Taman Seremban Jaya.

The suspect was believed to be linked to a drug syndicate in the Klang Valley.

Source: http://www.palmoilhq.com/PalmOilNews/police-drug-raid-on-malaysian-oil-palm-estate/