Take Action
How can we make a difference?
The simplest thing is for us is to demand that any of our favorite products which currently contain palm oil, only contain palm oil from non-destructive sources. In order to do this Orangutan Outreach needs help to find out which products in the USA contain palm oil. This is where your help is so badly needed.
Option 1:
Please help us find products in the supermarket and other shops that contain palm oil and tell us about it. Go to your shop and look at product like ice cream, chocolate, biscuits, crisps, margarine, toothpaste, soap, detergents and cosmetics and see if there is any mention that the product contains palm oil. Download this form and take it with you when you go shopping. Fill it out an email it to us.
Option 2:
If you find products that are labeled as containing vegetable oil and suspect that it may be palm oil, please call the producer and ask them directly. Here is a form to help you. Download it. Fill it out and email it to us.
Solutions
There is an alternative: it is called “non-destructive” palm oil.
The key requirements for sourcing non-destructive palm oil are really quite straightforward.
It should be sourced from plantations that:
- Use already-degraded land for palm oil production.
- Ensure that absolutely no high conservation value forests are cleared for oil-palm cultivation.
- Respect the traditional land rights of local communities.
- Do not use fire to clear areas.
- Ensure that corridors remain to connect existing forests allowing free movement of populations of animal species.
- Do not offer bonuses to kill orangutans.
Lone Dröscher Nielsen, who you might have seen in the show Orangutan Island on Animal Planet, raised this issue together with other NGOs many years ago. But the destruction continues. So help us save the orangutans and the rainforest. Read the letter from Lone about solutions, see below. To find out more go to www.SafePalmOil.org
Other possible actions
- Start a campaign at work or in your school (e.g. to collect money to adopt an orangutan)
- Call your local newspaper or radio station and tell them about the disastrous situation in Borneo
- Draw the attention of friends and relatives to this situation and encourage them to change it
- Link to us from your homepage. The address of this site is: http://redapes.org.
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