Traci Nolan
There are lots of ways to help
endangered species. Donating money to conservation organizations, researching
habitat loss or catastrophic diseases, recycling, and energy conservation are good
examples. They all help endangered species in general. The biggest problem with
these and other options is that there is often little visible impact for all of
our efforts. There is one thing that we can all do, however, that will directly
and visibly affect the survival of some of the most iconic and critically
endangered species in the world – Sumatran tigers, Sumatran rhinos, Sumatran
and Bornean orangutans and Asian elephants, along with a host of other lesser
known, but also endangered species. Cutting our consumption of palm oil will
have a direct, measurable effect on the status of these animals.
In recent years, palm oil
production has exploded, making it the number one vegetable oil in food,
cleaning products and cosmetics. One reason for this change is that oil palms
produce more vegetable oil per hectare than other sources like soybeans or
sunflowers. The other main reason for palm oil’s increase in popularity is that
palm oil is trans fat free, unlike canola or rapeseed oil.
Palm oil is primarily produced in
Malaysia and Indonesia on plantations that used to be tropical rainforest.
Often the land has been newly cleared, greatly accelerating the pace of
deforestation. In Indonesia alone, palm oil plantations occupy 30,000 square
kilometers of former rainforest. If demand continues to grow at the present
rate, up to 70,000 square kilometers of additional oil palm plantations will be
required in the next decade or so.
The tigers, orangutans, rhinos and
elephants all depend on rainforest habitat for their survival. In addition to
destroying large tracts of rainforest, development of oil palm plantations
fragments the remaining rainforest habitats, further decreasing the odds for
these species. In addition, the animals are killed during forest clearing and
to protect the oil palm trees on the plantations. Some plantations pay bounties
for killing orangutans and elephants that eat the young plants in place of
other food sources that have been destroyed.
So, what can you do? There are
several options. The easiest is to avoid purchasing products that contain palm
oil altogether. It takes a certain amount of vigilance. When I first started
paying attention, I was amazed at the sheer number of products containing palm
oil. It’s even used in some peanut butters, which I found a little strange, as
peanut oil initially seems the more logical choice, but not when palm oil is
cheaper to produce than peanut oil.
If you want to focus your efforts more
sharply, you can try to purchase only products made with sustainable palm oil.
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), started in 2003 by WWF, Unilever
and other companies and organizations, has the goal of making all palm oil
production sustainable. They have a sustainable palm oil trademark with which
participating producers mark their products to alert consumers. RSPO also
maintains a list of member organizations on their website that makes it easy to
check whether a manufacturer is participating in supporting sustainable palm
oil: www.rspo.org
Finally, you can contact any
companies or organizations that produce products you normally use that haven’t
signed on to the sustainable palm oil program and ask them to participate. By
choosing any of these actions you can have an immediate, positive impact on the
fate of these amazing and irreplaceable species. You can make a difference.
Sources:
Sustainable Palm Oil: Rainforest Savior or Fig Leaf; Fred
Pearce; Yale Environment 360; November 29, 2010;
e360.yale.edu/feature/sustainable_palm_oil_rainforest_savior_or_fig_leaf/2345
Cruel Oil: How Palm Oil Harms Health, Rainforest and
Wildlife; Center for Science in the Public Interest, 2005.
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