When you eat meat, you kill the animal directly. But some foods that appear “vegetarian “ are responsible for the killing of thousands of animals and you need to avoid these. One case in point is Palm Oil.
Palm oil is a form of edible vegetable oil obtained from the fruit of the oil palm tree. Made by crushing fresh fruit, the reddish-brown oil is used in cookies, toothpaste, ice cream and breads and its demand is rising and is expected to climb further, particularly for use in biodiesel. Biodiesel is being promoted as one of the newer forms of renewable energy that greatly reduces net emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Therefore its use is being touted as a way to decrease the impact of the greenhouse effect despite objections from critics who slam the "green" alternative to crude oil as "deforestation diesel" because of the destruction wreaked on rain forests and wildlife species to make way for palm plantations. This oil, which has surpassed soybean as the most widely produced vegetable oil in the world, is found in one in ten products on supermarket shelves and is the main driving force behind orangutan extinction.
Indonesia and Malaysia produce 83 percent of the world's palm oil, plantations on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, the same lowland forests of orangutans that the oil palm industry is converting to palm plantations. These rainforests are the only remaining habitat of the orangutan and are being destroyed and fragmented into isolated pockets for legal and illegal logging and agriculture. The orangutan's range in Borneo is fragmented into at least 61 pieces, and in Sumatra into 23 pieces. (Since orangutans are arboreal, swinging from tree to tree, this makes it almost impossible for them to go from one fragment to another and when the fruit finishes in one area, they starve).Much of this activity occurs in national parks that are officially off limits to loggers, miners and plantation development. Research by Friends of the Earth shows that the forest fires which ravaged the island of Sumatra in August, and continue to burn today, were mostly set by palm oil companies clearing land to set up their plantations. The Borneo orangutan population is highly endangered, estimated at about 30,000 but the Sumatran species is even worse: critically endangered at 7000-7500 individuals. Most scientists say that all of them will be gone in another 5 years The Orangutan is the most charming of our primate relatives. Known for his intelligence and red hair, the orangutan that was once found all over Indo-China now exists only in the jungles of Borneo and Sumatra. It is the only Great Ape found in Asia.
You know whom I am talking about. The concave-faced, bearded, fruit eating apes that stole Catherine Zeta Jones luggage in the Visa ad and traded it back for bananas. Unfortunately the apes that looked so cute in that advertisement had been stolen from their mothers in the forest, sold in the markets of Borneo, smuggled to America, trained by beating and starvation and then died in enormous suffering. Approximately a 1000 orangutans are caught by poachers and sold into captivity to zoos and private Western owners yearly.
Orangutans spend nearly all of their time in the trees, every night fashioning nests to sleep in from the branches and foliage. Mothers form extremely close relationships with their babies, staying with them until the offspring reach an age of six or seven years and bearing no more than 4 during an entire lifetime with only one child every 7 years. Adults can live more than 60 years. And these great apes are remarkably intelligent, often fashioning tools to feed and clean themselves, just as we do. According to Harvard University psychologist, James Lee, orangutans are the world's most intelligent animal, with high learning and problem solving abilities including making rain hats and leakproof roofs over their sleeping nests. They have a spoken language and a complex culture.
Palm oil can be grown perfectly well on degraded land, already cleared of forest – of which there are millions of hectares available in Southeast Asia. This is not happening. Palm-oil companies are deliberately destroying pristine forest areas for plantation conversion, as this provides them with an immediate and extremely profitable source of income from logging before a single palm tree is planted. In fact some companies get permits to clear rainforest to make way for palm oil plantations but as soon as they have logged the forest, they disappear without planting oil palms. “It is the total clearance of forests, ultimately for the planting of oil palm, that has reaped by far the most havoc.” says Dr Ian Singleton, Director of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program.
With 6.5 million hectares cultivated in Malaysia and Indonesia already and hundreds more each day, what is the fate of the orangutan? Complete extinction within just a few years. Workers do not bother trying to rescue or relocate them but instead chop down the trees where the animals are hiding and proceed to beat, mangle, torture and destroy these animals. Mothers are shot and babies taken away in chicken crates and sold as pets . Male orangutans are burned alive . These practices are barbaric and illegal, yet there is no punishment. Dr. Willie Smits, founder of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation, said, "The rate of loss of orangutan has never been greater than in the last three years, and oil palm plantations are mostly to blame." The Bornean orangutan population declined from 23,000 to 15,400 between 1995 and 1998; The Sumatran orangutan population in 2000 is only 14% of the estimated population of 1900. Orangutan rescue centres in Indonesia are over-flowing with orphaned baby orangutans rescued from forests being cleared to make way for oil palm plantations.
Almost 90 percent of the orangutan’s habitat has been destroyed. You need to stop using palm oil and write to your governments and companies producing it to replace it with soya oil. When the rainforest and the beings in it are turned into biscuits and icecream, it brings us that much closer to extinction ourselves.
Palm oil is a form of edible vegetable oil obtained from the fruit of the oil palm tree. Made by crushing fresh fruit, the reddish-brown oil is used in cookies, toothpaste, ice cream and breads and its demand is rising and is expected to climb further, particularly for use in biodiesel. Biodiesel is being promoted as one of the newer forms of renewable energy that greatly reduces net emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Therefore its use is being touted as a way to decrease the impact of the greenhouse effect despite objections from critics who slam the "green" alternative to crude oil as "deforestation diesel" because of the destruction wreaked on rain forests and wildlife species to make way for palm plantations. This oil, which has surpassed soybean as the most widely produced vegetable oil in the world, is found in one in ten products on supermarket shelves and is the main driving force behind orangutan extinction.
Indonesia and Malaysia produce 83 percent of the world's palm oil, plantations on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, the same lowland forests of orangutans that the oil palm industry is converting to palm plantations. These rainforests are the only remaining habitat of the orangutan and are being destroyed and fragmented into isolated pockets for legal and illegal logging and agriculture. The orangutan's range in Borneo is fragmented into at least 61 pieces, and in Sumatra into 23 pieces. (Since orangutans are arboreal, swinging from tree to tree, this makes it almost impossible for them to go from one fragment to another and when the fruit finishes in one area, they starve).Much of this activity occurs in national parks that are officially off limits to loggers, miners and plantation development. Research by Friends of the Earth shows that the forest fires which ravaged the island of Sumatra in August, and continue to burn today, were mostly set by palm oil companies clearing land to set up their plantations. The Borneo orangutan population is highly endangered, estimated at about 30,000 but the Sumatran species is even worse: critically endangered at 7000-7500 individuals. Most scientists say that all of them will be gone in another 5 years The Orangutan is the most charming of our primate relatives. Known for his intelligence and red hair, the orangutan that was once found all over Indo-China now exists only in the jungles of Borneo and Sumatra. It is the only Great Ape found in Asia.
You know whom I am talking about. The concave-faced, bearded, fruit eating apes that stole Catherine Zeta Jones luggage in the Visa ad and traded it back for bananas. Unfortunately the apes that looked so cute in that advertisement had been stolen from their mothers in the forest, sold in the markets of Borneo, smuggled to America, trained by beating and starvation and then died in enormous suffering. Approximately a 1000 orangutans are caught by poachers and sold into captivity to zoos and private Western owners yearly.
Orangutans spend nearly all of their time in the trees, every night fashioning nests to sleep in from the branches and foliage. Mothers form extremely close relationships with their babies, staying with them until the offspring reach an age of six or seven years and bearing no more than 4 during an entire lifetime with only one child every 7 years. Adults can live more than 60 years. And these great apes are remarkably intelligent, often fashioning tools to feed and clean themselves, just as we do. According to Harvard University psychologist, James Lee, orangutans are the world's most intelligent animal, with high learning and problem solving abilities including making rain hats and leakproof roofs over their sleeping nests. They have a spoken language and a complex culture.
Palm oil can be grown perfectly well on degraded land, already cleared of forest – of which there are millions of hectares available in Southeast Asia. This is not happening. Palm-oil companies are deliberately destroying pristine forest areas for plantation conversion, as this provides them with an immediate and extremely profitable source of income from logging before a single palm tree is planted. In fact some companies get permits to clear rainforest to make way for palm oil plantations but as soon as they have logged the forest, they disappear without planting oil palms. “It is the total clearance of forests, ultimately for the planting of oil palm, that has reaped by far the most havoc.” says Dr Ian Singleton, Director of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program.
With 6.5 million hectares cultivated in Malaysia and Indonesia already and hundreds more each day, what is the fate of the orangutan? Complete extinction within just a few years. Workers do not bother trying to rescue or relocate them but instead chop down the trees where the animals are hiding and proceed to beat, mangle, torture and destroy these animals. Mothers are shot and babies taken away in chicken crates and sold as pets . Male orangutans are burned alive . These practices are barbaric and illegal, yet there is no punishment. Dr. Willie Smits, founder of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation, said, "The rate of loss of orangutan has never been greater than in the last three years, and oil palm plantations are mostly to blame." The Bornean orangutan population declined from 23,000 to 15,400 between 1995 and 1998; The Sumatran orangutan population in 2000 is only 14% of the estimated population of 1900. Orangutan rescue centres in Indonesia are over-flowing with orphaned baby orangutans rescued from forests being cleared to make way for oil palm plantations.
Almost 90 percent of the orangutan’s habitat has been destroyed. You need to stop using palm oil and write to your governments and companies producing it to replace it with soya oil. When the rainforest and the beings in it are turned into biscuits and icecream, it brings us that much closer to extinction ourselves.
Maneka Gandhi
