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David Gilbert - who has written 38 posts on Rainforest Action Network Blog.
David Gilbert is currently a Research Fellow at RAN. He has worked in the tropical forests of the Amazon and Indonesia, with a special focus on conservation and indigenous rights issues.
On the first day of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) Pak Jamaluddin was quiet. He said the air conditioning of Kuala Lumpor gave him the flu. He seemed lost among the groups of palm producers, with their Blackberries and dark suits. Exhausted from the canoe rides, bad roads, the concrete maze of Jakarta, [...]
Continue reading...By David Gilbert, November 5 2009
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was founded to create a path towards sustainability in the palm oil industry. A voluntary process, oil palm producers, traders, buyers, and NGO’s have joined up to find an alternative to the massive forest destruction, social conflict, and climate chaos the booming palm oil industry is bringing to [...]
Continue reading...By David Gilbert, November 4 2009
As I have written about on Understory before, Sumatra’s Bukit Tigapuluh is one of the last great forests of the world. It’s breathtaking biodiversity, high conservation importance, and value to three indigenous cultures withstanding, Sinar Mas -Indonesia’s largest producer of palm oil and owner of Asia Pulp and Paper- is actively destroying significant portions of [...]
Continue reading...By David Gilbert, November 3 2009
Contrary to a number of sensationalist media reports leading up to this year’s Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil, the RSPO is not breaking up. At the core of the controversy has been the effort to include a commitment by all members of the RSPO to reduce their Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. After two [...]
Continue reading...By David Gilbert, November 2 2009
The RSPO is the world’s largest annual meeting of oil palm industry, environmentalists, human rights advocates, and, most importantly, community members. Today, I watched as a community member from Borneo stood up in front of oil palm producers, NGOs, and technocrats, identified himself as a victim of oil palm expansion, and tore apart the falsity [...]
Continue reading...By David Gilbert, October 23 2009
A new, hard hitting, RAN case study on Cargill’s oil palm operations in PNG, ‘Commodity Colonialism’, is now available for download HERE. Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a nation that does not easily fit with our society’s dominant ideas of development, property, and conservation. Many Papuans have little interaction with the cash economy; although categorized [...]
Continue reading...By David Gilbert, October 12 2009
RAN believes that indigenous peoples are the best stewards of rainforests. Supporting this belief, a new study by researchers at U of Illinois and U of Michigan has added to the growing body of evidence that indigenous peoples are better protectors of their forests than governments or industry. In a review of 80 forests in [...]
Continue reading...By David Gilbert, October 9 2009
Here at RAN the agribusiness campaign is hard at work pressuring US agribusiness companies, with a focus on the massive privately held company Cargill, to stop their dirty and dangerous practices of developing oil palm plantations in the rich tropical rainforests of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea. Cargill has a total of five oil [...]
Continue reading...By David Gilbert, October 6 2009
Dr Yusof Basiron is the CEO of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC), a lobbying group that supports the oil palm industry in both Malaysia and Indonesia. Dr. Basiron is been working closely with the agricultural ministries of Malaysia and Indonesia, pushing for more tropical forest to be flattened and burned to make way for [...]
Continue reading...By David Gilbert, October 6 2009
David Dellatore has faced much criticism for his willingness to work with palm oil companies. NGO’s on the ground in Indonesia face a very different reality than advocacy groups far from the jungle, who tend to call for boycotts of environmentally damaging palm oil, or demand that palm oil be phased out of all consumer [...]
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Our response to @MittRomney's out of touch response to #BofA protest in #CLT last week: http://t.co/6jGh8huQ
By David Gilbert, November 14 2009
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