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Ashley Schaeffer - who has written 99 posts on Rainforest Action Network Blog.
Could it be true that palm oil is not only bad for orangutans, but for our health too? According to institutions such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute, the answer is yes. Based on its saturated fat content and effects on blood cholesterol, several such organizations have [...]
Continue reading...By Ashley Schaeffer, February 4 2013
The public controversy around “America’s Doctor” is heating up. You may have noticed, for instance, the feature article in the most recent issue of New Yorker magazine titled “The Operator: is the most trusted doctor in America doing more harm than good?” As we recently reported, Dr. Oz, a TV personality who advocates healthy living [...]
Continue reading...By Ashley Schaeffer, January 24 2013
Thanks to the 14,430 (and counting) of you who signed the petition we created along with Orangutan Outreach, Dr. Oz has begun to tell his viewers the full story about palm oil—on his blog. But he hasn’t done enough. According to news reports, Dr. Oz’s enthusiastic support for red palm oil inspired a buying frenzy. [...]
Continue reading...By Ashley Schaeffer, December 13 2012
In what has become quite a local buzz, RAN just released a shocking video of police arresting a mother orangutan and her baby from a public bench in downtown Wayzata, Minnesota. To be perfectly clear, this mother orangutan, just like the hitch-hiking male orangutan that was arrested outside of Cargill’s HQ last week by private [...]
Continue reading...By Ashley Schaeffer, December 4 2012
The European Commission’s recent decision to accept palm oil as a “sustainable” transport fuel for the European Union is a huge set back for the protection of Indonesia’s remaining forests. As our world’s forests are converted into barren commodity concessions, exacerbating the connection between dwindling rainforests & climate change, political decision makers should be doing [...]
Continue reading...By Ashley Schaeffer, November 20 2012
Last week, Rainforest Action Network (RAN) contacted Cargill employees in over 20 countries to alert them to the company’s ties to rainforest destruction and orangutan extinction. The email urged employees to watch a recent eye-opening prime time NBC news story profiling the imminent extinction of orangutans due to unchecked palm oil expansion in Indonesia and [...]
Continue reading...By Ashley Schaeffer, October 22 2012
Late last week, NBC’s primetime program “Rock Center with Brian Williams” aired an episode about the destruction of the last remaining orangutan habitat, the Tripa forest of Indonesia, for palm oil plantations. Rainforest Action Network helped with the behind the scenes legwork to get this important program on the air. Now we need to maximize [...]
Continue reading...By Ashley Schaeffer, September 20 2012
Two weeks ago, the mainstream media caught fire with a Stanford study questioning the benefits of organic foods. It turns out the anti-organics study may have the fingerprints of agribusiness giants Cargill and Monsanto. That’s right, Big Ag has been bankrolling Stanford’s Food Security and the Environment (FSE) program. In fact, Cargill donated $5 million [...]
Continue reading...By Ashley Schaeffer, September 5 2012
We just got word that a round of closed door negotiations will begin this week for the largest free trade agreement in history. We are talking about NAFTA on steroids—an 11-country free trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Right now, negotiations for the TPP are being conducted in secret. The corporate lobbyists pushing for this [...]
Continue reading...By Ashley Schaeffer, August 30 2012
If you made $5 billion clearing a community’s forest and community food garden, polluted and drained their rivers, but gave them a tree and a bucket of clean water in return, would you feel justified saying you’re building healthy communities, preserving rivers and reducing deforestation? Would you pat yourself on the back? Maybe not, but [...]
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By Ashley Schaeffer, February 20 2013
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