UK propaganda campaign against palm oil

[Guest guest]

UK propaganda campaign against palm oil

Elizabeth John

 

KUALA LUMPUR, Fri

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Despite various public relations exercises on the good

side of palm oil, a big adverse campaign is being held

in the United Kingdom. " Save orang utans from

extinction when you next shop — put an end to the

cruelty of palm oil. "

This is the message of the campaign, going out to

thousands of consumers, that links their purchase of

products containing palm oil to forest destruction and

threats to orang utan survival in the wild.

 

A report explaining the campaign’s aims tells

consumers that palm oil is found in thousands of

popular products from ice-cream to detergents.

 

It says that their purchases have fuelled the growth

in demand for palm oil. As a result, forests and orang

utan habitats in Indonesia and Malaysia have been

destroyed to accommodate the expansion of plantations,

the campaigners claimed.

 

The campaign was launched by non-governmental

organisations Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation UK

and Nature Alert yesterday. Their report is being

distributed to consumers, businesses, politicians and

the media there.

 

It will likely be in distribution in the Netherlands,

Germany and Indonesia soon, says Sean Whyte, the chief

executive of Nature Alert and a co-author of the

report.

 

Copies should reach the desks of editors and oil palm

companies in Malaysia in the next few days, he said.

 

The report comes with gruesome pictures of burnt,

captured and tortured orang utans that he says were

taken in areas cleared for oil palm plantations in

Kalimantan.

 

Campaigners have called on consumers to demand oil

palm from non-destructive sources — where no forest

burning has occurred, where only degraded land is used

for planting, where no high-conservation-value forest

has been cleared, where local communities are

respected and no orang utan has been killed.

 

They have asked UK residents to write to large

supermarket chains like Tesco.

 

Their aim is to eventually force supermarkets to label

the exact type of vegetable oil in products they sell,

show that it is from a sustainable plantation and be

able to prove this if challenged.

 

" We are not trying to put people out of business. We

are simply asking that they do business without

destroying the environment, " Whyte told the New

Straits Times today.

 

In an immediate response, Malaysian Palm Oil

Association chief executive Azizi Meor Ngah said

Malaysia had done much to ensure that palm oil was

produced without destruction to the environment and

these efforts has sadly gone unrecognised.

 

He said Malaysian oil palm companies would, in the

next two years, adopt two sets of standards that would

prove their willingness to be transparent about the

palm oil production process.

 

These, he said, would enable buyers to trace the

origins of the palm oil in a product from the finished

material to shipping, handling, refineries and to the

estate where it was harvested.

 

" If there is a problem, why aren’t the campaigners

more specific about exactly what it is and where it is

happening. Their agenda is very misleading, " he said.

 

A statement from the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm

Oil, a global multi- stakeholder organisation working

on the standards, said its principals and criteria for

sustainable palm oil production would soon be made

public.

 

The organisation which was formed precisely to address

issues such as those raised by the campaigners will be

discussing the principles at a meeting in Singapore

next month.

 

" We hope our members, especially producers will adopt

the principles. It would make a clear statement

regarding where they stand on the matter, " said its

secretary-general, Andrew Ng.

 

http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Saturday/National/20051015081237/Article/\

indexb_html

 

 

Michelle Desilets

BOS UK

www.savetheorangutan.org.uk

www.savetheorangutan.info

" Primates Helping Primates "

 

Please sign our petition to rescue over 100 smuggled orangutans in Thailand:

http://www.thePetitionSite.com/takeaction/822035733

 

 

 

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