Published on Tuesday, May 23, 2006 by the Independent / UK
Shoppers' Thirst for Palm Oil Threatens to Wipe out Orangutans
by Martin Hickman

An estimated 5,000 orangutans are killed each year in Malaysia and Indonesia by the burning of vast tracts of virgin forest to supply the world's growing demand for palm oil. Building roads to the plantations has made the situation worse, by opening up the jungle for poachers, who kill orangutan mothers and sell their babies as pets to Asian families.

WWF, formerly the World Wildlife Fund, estimates that 80 per cent of orangutan habitat has been lost in the past 20 years. Experts warn that at current rates of deforestation, the orangutan will be extinct in the wild in just 12 years. Its disappearance would set a dismal precedent for the survival of other endangered animals such as the polar bear and the tiger.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0523-06.htm

Many biofuel boosters promote palm oil plantations to replace petroleum.

Idiots.

I'm not normally one to wine, but I'm feeling cramped here...

If I eat partially hydrogenated stuff it's bad for me; if I eat dairy it's bad for cows and their calves; and now this.

Gah.

that sucks

I went to Malaysian Borneo 4 yrs ago and saw with my own eyes the destruction of palm oil plantations - it's devastating. I spent alot of time visiting an orangutan rehabilitation centre there which cared for orangutans that had been orphaned and/or left with no safe habitat to live in. It was an inspiring centre, but merely a bandaid for the massive problem of the plantations.

Many local villages have displaced orangutans running around their villages, trying to find food. Some of the villagers will shoot the orangutans on sight. I recently heard a really sad story about an orangutan who had been hanging around a village trying to find food for several days. One of the villagers called an orangutan wildlife rescue centre to come and catch him, but by the time they got there it was too late - a bunch of villagers had set fire to him, and burned him alive. :(
Whenever I see palm oil listed as an ingredient on something, I will not buy it -I can't get that poor burned orangutan, and the other victims, out of my head.

:cry:

Newman's Own cookies have (or used to have - I haven't purchased them in a long time) palm oil - and some info on the packaging about how it's a "good" fat. "Good" indeed.:no:

I thought palm oil was one of the few plant oils that's high in saturated fat. I had no idea it was in so many things.