The Palm Oil / Orangutan Connection article provided by Sumatran Orangutan Society (SOS)

One in every ten products on supermarket shelves contain palm oil and are directly contributing to the destruction of the world’s rainforests. Products that may include palm oil (often labeled as vegetable oil, sodium palmate, sodium lauryl sulfate, sodium palmitate).

? Cosmetics ? Chocolate ? Biscuits
? Shampoo ? Chips ? Muesli
? Printing inks ? Margarine ? Ice cream
? Candles ? Paint ? Gum
? Soaps, shampoos and detergents
? Livestock feed

It is virtually impossible to avoid buying products containing palm oil. Palm oil production plays an important role in the economies of the countries-producers. However clear rules should be established to ensure that products found in our shops are produced in a way that does not harm communities and the environment.

The newly established Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOS) Palm Oil Committee aims to tackle the current unsustainable growth rate and production practises of oil palm in Indonesia by ensuring that no more forests is cut down for new palm oil plantations. The Sumatran Orangutan Society (SOS) is an active member of the BOS Palm Oil Committee.

Palm Oil facts:

Palm oil is set to overtake soy in less than a decade as the world's most consumed oil.

Oil palm plantations are widespread in Indonesia, where forests are disappearing at a rate of more than 2 million hectares per year.

Oil palm expansion has also been held partly responsible for forest fires in 1997/98 that affected more than 5 million hectares in Kalimantan, Borneo. The palm oil plantations are responsible for the yearly recurring devastating forest fires in Sumatra and Borneo.

Wide spread use of herbicides prevents the re-growth of the forest. This means extensive areas of the forest disappear, with serious impacts on local flora, fauna, soil and water resources. Tigers, orangutans and countless other species are being driven to extinction Studies have shown that 80 - 100% of the species inhabiting tropical rainforests cannot survive in oil palm monocultures.

What can you do?
Find out from your supermarket what products contain palm oil. Write to your local supermarket and to their head quarters to ask where their palm oil is sourced and to remind them that forests are being destroyed to make way for oil palm plantations in Indonesia and other tropical countries. Support the organisations that are working to promote the sustainable production of palm oil.

For more information please visit our web-site www.orangutans-sos.org where you can download the complete ‘Oil for Ape Scandal’ report.

Read more about the work of sos:

www.baliforkids.com/sos_field_trip_april_08.htm