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Palm oil touches our lives every time we take a trip to the supermarket. Palm oil and its derivatives are used in a ubiquitous array of packaged foods, including ice cream, cookies, crackers, chocolate products, cereals, breakfast bars, cake mixes, doughnuts, potato chips, instant noodles, frozen sweets and meals, baby formula, margarine, and dry and canned soups.

In the U.S. alone, palm oil imports by companies like Cargill and IOI have jumped 485% in the last decade. The dramatic and growing demand for this crop in recent decades has pushed sprawling palm oil plantations deep into some of the world’s most valuable rainforests. Palm oil production is now one of the leading causes of rainforest destruction around the globe.

Rainforest Destruction by Palm Oil

Nearly 90% percent of palm oil is grown in the tropical countries of Indonesia and Malaysia, where palm oil plantations under active cultivation cover 16 million acres, an area similar in size to West Virginia. The Indonesian government has announced plans to convert approximately 44 million more acres of rainforests, an area the size of Missouri, into palm oil plantations by 2020. The UN’s Environment Program says that “98% of Indonesia’s forest may be destroyed by 2022, the lowland forest much sooner.”

The worst part: This problem is not confined to Indonesia. Rainforest destruction for palm oil expansion is spreading quickly to other valuable rainforest regions, such as Central Africa. That’s one of many reasons why it’s so important that we tackle this problem now. Here are several others:

Download the Case Against Palm Oil factsheet

Endangered species and the loss of biodiversity

Indonesia’s rainforests are one of Earth’s most biologically and culturally rich landscapes. Incredibly, with just 1 percent of the Earth’s land area, Indonesia’s rainforests contain 10% of the world’s known plants, 12% of mammals and 17% of all known bird species. As recently as the 1960s, about 80% of Indonesia was forested. Sadly, Indonesia now has one of the highest deforestation rates in the world, with just under half of the country’s original forest cover remaining. Conservative studies suggest more than 2.4 million acres of Indonesian rainforest is cleared and lost each year

The rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra are the last stand for one of humankind’s closest relatives, the orangutan. Orangutans face an extreme risk of extinction within our lifetime. Between 2004-08, the Sumatran orangutan population fell by 14% to 6,600, largely due to loss of habitat for palm oil expansion. The critically endangered Sumatran tiger and Sumatran rhinoceros, both of which have populations of only hundreds left in the wild, are also urgently threatened by palm oil expansion.

Forest communities and human rights

Corporate land grabbing of Indigenous and community forests for palm oil plantations is responsible for serious human rights abuses and persistent conflicts between companies and rural communities. In Indonesia there are over 500 different language groups and between 60 and 110 million Indigenous peoples, many of whom depend on standing natural forests for their livelihoods.

The Indonesian palm oil monitoring group Sawit Watch has identified 663 ongoing land disputes between palm oil companies and rural communities. In too many cases, private armies and paramilitaries have been deployed and people have been killed. Many industrial palm oil plantations also rely on the use of forced and child labor. In Malaysia and Indonesia, child labor has been documented and allegations of modern-day slavery on plantations across Malaysia are common.

Peatlands and climate change

Peatlands are carbon-rich wet ecosystems that have sequestered billions of tons of carbon through thousands of years of accumulating leaf litter and organic material. Indonesia has the world’s highest concentration of tropical peatlands, but the scale of their destruction is so large that it is having globally significant impacts on the climate, similar in scale to the world’s biggest coal and tar sands projects.

Indonesia is the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases after the U.S. and China, with 85% of its emissions coming from rainforest and peatland destruction. Deforestation in Indonesia is responsible for some 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, which is more than the combined emissions from all the millions of cars, trucks, trains, and buses in the U.S. each year combined.

The Solution: Responsible Palm Oil

Consumers are often misled by “RSPO-certified” or “Green Palm” labels. These labels from the Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) still allow “certified sustainable” palm oil producers to destroy rainforests and carbon-rich peatlands. Companies that produce, trade and use palm oil must go beyond these inadequate RSPO standards to be truly responsible.

Responsible palm oil is produced without contributing to rainforest or peatland destruction, species extinction, high greenhouse gas emissions or human rights violations. Snack food manufacturing companies need transparent and traceable supply chains from the plantation where the palm oil was sourced to the final product on your grocery store shelf.

What Can You Do? 

• Join the Palm Oil Action Team and organize events in your community to help spread the word and call out the companies using palm oil tied to rainforest destruction in their products.
• Share this blog or blog about the problems with palm oil.
• Become more aware of the snack foods that contain palm oil and reduce your consumption of those products.

How To Identify Palm Oil Products

Palm oil is found in roughly 50% of the products in grocery stores! Below is a list of some of the types of snack food products that contain palm oil to look out for when you’re shopping:

Many snack foods are made using an array of ingredients derived from the African oil palm. It won’t always be obvious when palm oil is lurking under the wrapper, so to take out the guess work, we’ve made a list of the most common palm oil ingredients used in snack foods:

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT: THEPROBLEMWITHPALMOIL.ORG

The Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is a global certification scheme formed in 2004 to set the standard for ‘sustainable palm oil’. But the sad truth is, many of the companies that use these labels are in fact still causing rainforest destruction and the clearance and draining of carbon-rich peatlands that release massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.

Shockingly, Indonesia – the world’s largest palm oil producer – is also the world’s third largest greenhouse gas emitter after only China and the US. But unlike China and the US, 50% of Indonesia’s emissions are from cleared and drained peat lands, and 35% from clearing rainforests. Palm oil expansion is one of the top drivers of this destruction but under the RSPO these companies don’t need to publicly report the emissions they are responsible for. How are we going to fix this global problem if companies don’t fess up to their emissions?

Today in Kuala Lampur, the RSPO, which includes some 400 members who are palm growers, oil processors, traders, consumer goods manufacturers, retailers, investors and social and environmental NGOs, voted to adopt a new RSPO standard that still fails to address the climate impacts of palm oil productions. This vote by the RSPO members to support a new RSPO standard that certifies deforestation and excessive greenhouse gas emissions as ‘sustainable palm oil’ is a step in a wrong direction for the credibility of the RSPO.

The new RSPO standard is not a standard that can be trusted to produce Responsible Palm Oil. What’s needed now is for the companies that produce, trade and use palm oil in their products to go beyond the RSPO and commit to producing and sourcing palm oil that is truly RESPONSIBLE.

For this reason, RAN has just sent letters to 20 snack food companies—makers of some of the most popular brand name products in America—alerting them to the rainforest destruction in their supply chains. RAN has launched a campaign to convince America’s favorite snack food companies to go beyond the RSPO and to source RESPONSIBLE palm oil.

In order for us to succeed we need your help.

Stand with us by signing this petition and demand the snack food industry does what the RSPO has failed to do: remove rainforest and peatland destruction from its products.

An orangutan looks out from a cage in Aceh, Indonesia. The region’s Sumatran orangutans face extinction due to palm oil development. Photo: David Gilbert

I wish I didn’t have to write this blog post on Earth Day. The rainforest where I saw my first wild orangutan is under threat. I can’t believe it!

There are many reasons to protect the Leuser Protected Ecosystem, a forest area on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. Thousands of Indigenous people rely on the forest for their lives and livelihoods, and it is the last place on Earth where endangered species like the Sumatran orangutan and the Sumatran tiger coexist with elephants, rhinos, and Sunbears.

But the government of Aceh, the province in which the Leuser Protected Ecosystem lies, is considering a plan that would remove large regions of forest from the protected area, opening them up to palm oil and pulp plantations, logging, mining, and all of the roads and other infrastructure that come with them. The Indonesian government is now considering the plan, and has the power to reject it.

We need to be making sure that what’s left of the world’s rainforests are protected, not opening them to destructive industries seeking to profit from rainforest destruction. Send Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Secretary General of the Ministry of Forestry Hadi Daryanto an email now calling on them to reject this misguided plan and keep the Leuser Protected Ecosystem protected.

Of course, it’s not just local communities and wildlife that need to be protected from bulldozers and forest fires. Indonesia’s rainforests are a valuable carbon sink—destroying them would make our climate problem that much worse, imperiling the future of everyone on this planet just to enrich a few well-connected businessmen.

Urge the President of Indonesia and the Secretary General of the Ministry of Forestry to protect local communities, endangered species, and the climate now.

Uttuh’s treetop protest is just the latest appearance in a month long ‘invasion’ of forlorn orangutans in Cargill’s hometown outside Minneapolis. Multiple homeless orangutans have already been arrested protesting Cargill’s refusal to implement adequate environmental and social safeguards for the palm oil they trade across the globe.

To make matters worse for the Sumatran Orangutan, Cargill has also recently announced its plan to expand their Indonesian palm oil plantations — meaning that many more Critically Endangered forest species on some of Southeast Asia’s last natural rainforests will fall to Uttuh’s same fate. Target sites include Sulawesi, Central Kalimantan and South Sumatra, homes to thousands of unique species and Indigenous Peoples who rely on the lowland jungles of the rainforest for their survival.

While Cargill claims that it’s simply trying to feed the world and bring economic benefits to local communities in Southeast Asia, as the largest privately held multinational corporation in the US, it can’t hide from its most genuine motivation. Profit. Anthony Yeow, President Director of PT Hindoli, a Cargill oil palm plantation in South Sumatra is quoted as saying, “We are aggressively looking for new areas in Sulawesi, Central Kalimantan and South Sumatra that are environmentally safe to expand our oil-palm footprint.” Aggressively looking to expand our oil palm footprint? Environmentally-safe? Are these not oxymorons?

The truth of the matter is that the demand for palm oil is at an all time high. It’s found in over half the products sold in American grocery stores and has quickly emerged as ‘the’ cheap source of vegetable oil on the market. Its high profitability drives suppliers like Cargill to buy and sell more and more irresponsibly produced palm oil which is contributing to the unchecked expansion of palm oil production in Southeast Asia.

The facts are clear. Indonesia’s forests continue to be destroyed for new palm oil plantations. Endangered species like the Sumatran orangutan continue to be pushed closer to extinction. And, companies like Cargill continue to trade irresponsibly produced palm oil while unaccountable certification systems, including the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), attempt to legitimize the practices of the same companies who are continuing this deforestation!

Cargill needs to play its part in transforming the way palm oil is produced in Indonesia. They need to immediately establish environmental and social safeguards for their supply chain to ensure that the palm oil it produces and trades does not result in the destruction of rainforests, or lead to adversely impacts on Critically Endangered species, like Uttuh, and forest communities.

Let’s make Cargill accountable for their profit-driven assaults on Sumatran Orangutans, like Uttuh, by pushing them to change their palm oil safeguards right now. Sign up to be part of our National Palm Oil Action Team today!

Click here to stand with RAN in calling on the US snack food industry to cut rainforest destruction from its products.

In Cargill’s Hands from Rainforest Action Network on Vimeo

A stranded orangutan watches as her home is bulldozed.

This is the first blog post I’ve written for RAN. I’m the new senior agribusiness campaigner and I was hired because RAN believes that it is more urgent than ever that we take our palm oil work to the next level.

I’m writing this post to lay out the next phase of our campaign to stop the destruction of Indonesia’s rainforests for palm oil. I want to bring each and every one of you reading this on board right from the beginning.

We have reached the last stand for Sumatran orangutans, but it’s not too late to save them. Many Americans are being made into unwitting accomplices in the destruction of Indonesia’s rainforests—which provide crucial habitat for a number of endangered species like the Sumatran orangutan—because palm oil is in half of all the products on their neighborhood grocery store’s shelves. In the months ahead, we’re going to tackle this problem at its source.

We’ve just sent letters to 20 snack food companies—makers of some of the most popular brand name products in America—alerting them to the rainforest destruction and orangutan extinction in their supply chains.

Stand with us: Sign our petition and demand the snack food industry remove rainforest destruction from its products.

We’re waiting for the companies’ responses to our letters, and we’re giving them this one chance to avoid being publicly named and shamed. Some of them might not even realize the impact of the palm oil they use in their products. In the meantime, we’re gearing up to launch a bold new campaign that will shift the companies who are the most unwilling to change.

But none of these companies will adopt new safeguards to keep rainforest destruction out of their supply chains if they think you aren’t paying attention. That’s why it’s so important that you sign the petition and stand with us.

We can’t thank you enough for all the work you’ve done to stand up to the corporations that are destroying Indonesia’s precious rainforests and putting orangutans out of a home for palm oil. Every change we’ve made in the world is thanks to you, your hard work and dedication. But our work is far from done.

Please sign our petition now, and then stay tuned. We’ll be in touch soon with more ways you can spread the word about the true price we pay for palm oil and take action on behalf of Indonesia’s rainforests and all of its inhabitants.

Based on its saturated fat content and effects on blood cholesterol, several such organizations have recommended reducing consumption of palm oil. Problem is, it’s so ubiquitous in grocery stores these days that unless you strictly avoid packaged, processed and refined foods altogether, you’re consuming palm oil in at least one if not more meals per day. From soy milk to breakfast cereal, peanut butter to frozen dinners, granola bars to cookies, even in your seemingly healthier foods like whole wheat pizza crust or vegan butter spreads—palm oil has become a staple in the American diet.

So, if palm oil is already a regular ingredient in our largely unhealthy American diets, why would Dr. Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon who supposedly has our best interest at heart, be recommending we incorporate even more palm oil into our diet through the use of red palm oil?

Do you think it’s ironic that, as a doctor who specializes in treating heart and lung disease, he’d be advocating increased consumption of palm oil when the National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute is saying the opposite?

What do you think—is palm oil as detrimental to our health as it is to the survival of fragile species like orangutans? And if so, why is Dr. Oz encouraging millions of his viewers around the world to give palm oil a try?

It’s not too late to help reverse the buying frenzy Dr. Oz has already inspired. Sign our petition to Dr. Oz demanding that he retract his irresponsible statements on air.

References:

1. World Health Organization. “Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases.” WHO Tech. Rep. Series 916. Geneva. 2003. P. 88.

2. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). “Choose foods low in saturated fat.” http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/chd/Tipsheets/satfat.htm, Accessed 8/25/10.

RAN has been campaigning since 2009 to persuade Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) to reform its destructive business practices. To that end, we have worked with dozens of major companies to develop policies that eliminate paper associated with rainforest destruction from their supply chains, including, most recently, Disney and HarperCollins.

With APP’s newly announced Forest Conservation Policy, paper purchasers and investors who have avoided doing business with APP in the past may wonder if the time has come to reconsider. RAN’s position is described below.

To Whom It May Concern,

On February 5 Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), the largest paper company in Indonesia and the third largest in the world, announced a new “Forest Conservation Policy” to undertake environmental and social reforms to its business practices. APP has become notorious in international markets for the exceptionally negative environmental, climate and human rights footprints of its operations.

The APP announcement is a testament to the positive collective impact that the actions of almost 100 international corporate customers, including Disney, Staples and Mattel, have had by refusing to purchase papers linked to tropical deforestation, land and social conflicts with local communities and human rights violations.

RAN welcomes APP’s new rainforest commitments as an important milestone. It includes commitments related to peatlands, engagement with local communities, and protection of high conservation value areas and high carbon stock forests.

APP’s commitments[1], which went into effect February 1, apply to both lands controlled directly by the company and lands controlled by their suppliers – about half of APP’s paper fiber comes from ‘independent’ suppliers, including fiber from the clearing of rainforests and drainage of peatlands.

The company says it will defer clearing and conversion of natural forests and carbon-rich peatlands while conservation and carbon values are assessed. It is still uncertain when the deferred logging will resume and whether the company will stop the use of natural tropical rainforest fiber in all of their mills. In addition, the commitment acknowledges the company’s problems associated with land conflict, and recognizes that indigenous and local communities may have customary rights to land that APP would like to use for its pulp plantations. The company must now work with stakeholders to develop, announce and meet detailed implementation plans including performance targets, benchmarks and timetables related to their environmental and social promises. It must also put in place transparent systems for independent monitoring, reporting and verification of its implementation plans.

APP’s new commitment is just the starting point, not the finish line.  The hidden story here is the controversial paper giant’s long and deep history of broken promises, land conflicts and human rights violations across its operations. The lesson learned again and again is the essential importance of clear measurable implementation measures and mechanisms, implemented in close cooperation with key stakeholders, including NGOs, and confirmed by credible, independent verification. It is still too early to say if APP’s latest commitments will bear fruit, as we all hope they will, or withers on the vine as has happened too consistently in the past.

For potential buyers of APP products and investors in the company, the key take away is that APP should not be seen as a responsible company in the marketplace and companies should not consider doing business with APP or its affiliates until independent verification confirms that APP’s new commitments have been implemented and that it is constructively resolving the devastating rainforest and human rights crises it has caused in Indonesia.

More information on the APP announcement and specific social and environmental challenges the company is facing can be found in this statement on our website.

Sincerely,

Lafcadio Cortesi, Asia Director and Robin Averbeck, Forest Campaigner, Rainforest Action Network

 

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[1] http://www.rainforestrealities.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/130205-APP-Forest-Conservation-Policy-ENGLISH.pdf

After years of relentless pressure and almost 100 major customer cancellations achieved by Rainforest Action Network and our allies, APP has finally seen the writing on the wall and says it is immediately implementing major environmental and social reforms throughout its operations. APP’s new forest commitment extends beyond lands controlled directly by the company to cover its entire supply base—about half of APP’s paper fiber comes from “independent” suppliers. The company says it will also defer clearing and conversion of natural forests and carbon-rich peatlands while conservation and carbon values are assessed. In addition, the commitment acknowledges the company’s problems associated with land conflict, and recognizes Indigenous and local community rights to land.

Given APP’s legacy of broken promises, we maintain a healthy dose of skepticism. Serious concerns remain about ongoing human rights violations and APP’s plans for a new mega pulp mill in Sumatra. APP has already deforested an area of rainforest the size of Massachusetts to feed its existing Sumatran pulp mills.

Though we welcome APP’s new rainforest commitments as a milestone, the hidden story here is the controversial paper giant’s long history of broken promises, land conflicts and human rights violations across its operations. APP will not be seen as a responsible company in the marketplace until its new commitments are implemented and it resolves the devastating rainforest and human rights crises it has caused in Indonesia. Read our official press statement here.

But if the company follows through on these new commitments it is hard to overestimate how huge the impact could be for Indonesia’s rainforests and communities. APP, Indonesia’s largest pulp and paper producer, and Asia Pacific Resources International (APRIL), APP’s biggest competitor, together produce some 80% of the pulp and paper that comes out of Indonesia.

With the momentum created by today’s historic announcement by APP, now is the time to push APRIL to meet or beat APP’s new rainforest commitments. Can you write to APRIL CEO Sukanto Tanoto and tell him to stop pulping Indonesia’s rainforests for paper?

APP has made a significant move and showed that it is possible for a pulp and paper company to commit to preserving, rather than destroying, Indonesia’s precious rainforests, which are some of the most biologically diverse landscapes on Earth, home to critically endangered Sumatran tigers, orangutans, and elephants.

APRIL, on the other hand, continues to destroy Indonesia’s precious forests and peatlands, wreaking havoc on local communities’ rights—and currently has no plans to stop.

 Unless we stop them.

APP’s announcement shows what we can achieve together. Help us make the most of this moment and let’s finally change business as usual for the paper industry as a whole. It’s time for APRIL to meet or beat APP’s commitments to protect forests and human rights.

‘Health Expert’ Bryce Wylde Introducing Dr. Oz to Miracles of Palm Oil

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 on his top-rated, Oprah-hyped TV show “The Dr. Oz Show,” kicked off 2013 by encouraging his millions of viewers to give palm oil a try for its “incomparable” nutritional virtues.

Problem is, he failed to mention that palm oil is a leading cause of rainforest destruction and orangutan extinction. This is unfortunate, as his ill-informed recommendation has inspired a palm oil buying frenzy.

What could have compelled Dr. Oz to blindly pronounce palm oil America’s miracle vegetable oil of 2013 without telling his viewers the whole story or offering any real science to back up his claims?

Consider this: The multi-billion dollar palm oil industry—best known for its role in rainforest destruction, species extinction and human rights abuses—has mounted an increasingly aggressive PR offensive to clean up its image, pesky facts be damned.

The cover story in the current issue of The New Yorker asks if Dr. Oz is “doing more harm than good.”

Over the past couple years the well-heeled palm oil industry has deployed it’s mafia-esque coterie of promoters, led by the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) and corporate-profits-at-all-costs cheer-leader-in-chief Alan Oxley to wage a sophisticated lobbying campaign aimed at altering the negative perceptions of palm oil by re-branding the controversial commodity as sustainable, healthy, even dubbing it “nature’s gift to mankind.” Sounding familiar?

While we can’t say that Dr. Oz did what he did because he’s taking money directly from the Malaysian Palm Oil Council, here are a few puzzle pieces that paint a troubling picture:

1. Bryce Wylde, the “health expert” who brought palm oil to the attention of Dr. Oz, posted a case for palm oil on his own Facebook wall—just before Dr. Oz pushed it to his audience—which was literally copied and pasted from MPOC’s PR campaign language.
2. In May 2012 MPOC hired lobbying giant Holland & Knight to challenge the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’S) science-based findings that palm-based biofuels don’t meet federal greenhouse gas standards under the renewable fuels mandate.
3. In 2011 MPOC created a TV advertisement that shamelessly promoted false statements about the virtues of palm oil to such a degree that the British Advertising Standards Authority banned it throughout the entire country.
4. Prior to MPOC’s 2011 UK ad embarrassment, in 2009, a separate magazine ad, also produced by MPOC and entitled “Palm Oil: The Green Answer,” was banned by the UK’s Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) for making “allegations—hidden under a thin veneer of environmental concern—based neither on scientific evidence, nor, for that matter, on fact.”
5. Finally, consider this—Alan Oxley, MPOC’s biggest advocate, was accused by world-renowned scientists of propagating “significant distortions, misrepresentations, or misinterpretations of fact… designed to defend the credibility of corporations… directly or indirectly supporting them financially.”

Is it purely coincidence that Dr. Oz and his wingman Bryce Wylde are promoting palm oil to the American public just as MPOC’s aggressive PR campaign and financially backed lobby muscle try to influence the American public and EPA’s big decision on palm oil?

Or could it be that another embarrassing media censure is on the way like when a UK TV company was forced to suspend its relationship with the Malaysian government after broadcasting false information to millions of people around the world through programs made by a company that had received millions of pounds in payments from the government of Malaysia?

Time will tell. Meanwhile, if you haven’t done so yet, please send Dr. Oz a letter now and ask him to correct his irresponsible statements on air.

Responding to RAN’s campaign, Murdoch’s HarperCollins has just announced they will no longer buy paper connected to rainforest destruction, which means they will not be buying from the likes of APP.

This would be major news on its own, but on the heels of Disney’s historic policy announcement to stop using rainforest-destroying paper last October, HarperCollins’ new public commitment signifies a seismic, sector-wide shift in an industry that was recently rife with controversial paper.

Just over two years ago, independent fiber tests commissioned by RAN revealed paper linked to Indonesian rainforest destruction in books sold by nearly all top American publishers. Today, all top ten US publishers in the country recognize that customers will not accept books with paper that is connected to deforestation and human rights abuses.

This sends an unmistakable message to forest-destroying, community-displacing paper companies like APP and APRIL that consumers are demanding they clean up their acts. Please use your voice to amplify this message by contacting APP right now to tell the company to quit logging precious rainforests to make paper.

Rainforest Action Network first alerted the US publishing industry to problems in its paper supply chains in May of 2010 with a report titled “Turning the Page on Rainforest Destruction: Children’s books and the future of Indonesia’s rainforests”. Over the following year, eight of the top ten publishers in the country, including Hachette Book Group, Pearson, and Simon & Schuster, agreed to adopt commitments to stop buying paper connected to the loss of Indonesian rainforests.

Indonesia is home to some of the most biologically diverse forests in the world, but it also has one of the world’s highest rates of deforestation. APP and its main competitor, APRIL, produce over 80 percent of Indonesia’s pulp and paper and are the main source of controversial pulp found globally. Both companies have caused widespread deforestation and displacement of forest communities from their land. The habitat destruction they cause is a leading threat to the survival of the Sumatran tiger, of which only a few hundred remain

So, congratulations! We could not have achieved this milestone without you. And please, help us pile on the pressure by sending an email directly to APP today.

But he hasn’t done enough. According to news reports, Dr. Oz’s enthusiastic support for red palm oil inspired a buying frenzy. We have to keep up the pressure and push Dr. Oz to correct the enormity of his error by issuing a retraction on The Dr. Oz Show.

The Dr. Oz Show currently ranks as one of the highest-rated daytime programs in recent history, so getting any response from Dr. Oz is a big success. But it’s imperative that he fill his viewers in on the disastrous environmental impact of palm oil production, which is devastating the rainforests of Indonesia and driving endangered species like the orangutan to extinction.

Can you send a message to Dr. Oz telling him to issue a correction about palm oil ON THE AIR? Even if you’ve signed this petition already, you can sign again. We’ve tweaked the language to include our demand that Dr. Oz issue a retraction on his show, not just on his little-read blog.

If you want to do even more, click on this image and share it on Facebook:

Click image to post on Facebook.

This International Business Times headline says it all: “Red Palm Oil Touted By Dr. Oz As A Diet Miracle Could Lead To ‘War On Orangutans’.”

Please sign (or re-sign) the petition to Dr. Oz now.

Members of an Indigenous farmers group from Siabu, Riau Province meet to make plans for reclaiming their traditional lands currently being used by a pulp plantation supplying APP.

While Asia Pulp and Paper’s (APP) questionable financial dealings and destructive impact on rainforests and the climate have been widely reported, the human rights violations and social conflict associated with the company’s expropriation of community lands are less well known. Last week, RAN proudly joined with several Indonesian and international human rights and environmental organizations to send a letter to APP outlining the steps the company must take to address its human rights record and prevent further land grabs and rights violations.

Along with CAPPA, HuMa, WBH, Scale Up and Forest Peoples Programme, we sent the letter to outline the shortcomings in APP’s operations and to emphasize that the company must take responsibility for the social and environmental footprint associated with all the wood coming into its mills to make pulp and paper. While the company has recently taken some tentative steps in the right direction, they must make urgent and far-reaching changes to the way they do business in order to remedy previous and prevent further disastrous environmental and human rights impacts. To quote the letter:

At a general level, we urge that APP inform its direct (“owned”) and indirect (“independent”) suppliers that it will stop purchasing from any suppliers that:

• Do not respect the rights of affected communities to the ownership and control of their titled and customary lands and to give or withhold their Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) to proposed developments on their lands as expressed through their own freely chosen representatives;

• Have failed to resolve social conflict and human rights violations with affected communities to the mutual satisfaction of affected parties;

• Evict communities with land claims in concessions and consider CSR activities as adequate and final resolution of conflicts
• Do not place a moratorium on logging and natural forest clearance until High Conservation Values have been identified and maintained, and;

• Continue to clear and drain areas of peat soil or convert High Carbon Stock Forest

RAN has been working with leading businesses, civil society and local communities to get APP—which is one of the two biggest pulp and paper companies operating in Indonesia, along with Asia Pacific Resources International (APRIL)—to own up to and change how it does business, and it must do so before going forward with its expansion plans. APP could use its position in the industry to effect real and positive change, which is exactly what we’re urging the company to do:

We ask that APP inform its suppliers that it will only be able to purchase wood from them if they follow the same human rights and environmental commitments that we suggest APP take on itself.

You can download the letter as as PDF, or read it here:

In late December, Becky was working on a letter to you that she planned to send in the New Year. We’ve decided to share the full letter below.

We will warn you that reading this letter will be hard. It was written by an inspirational visionary and friend who was robbed from us too soon. But we felt it was important to share the full letter because it presents a vision for 2013 that we all share, and it’s about you.

We are asking that you leave a comment below or reply via email to media@ran.org with your thoughts on this vision, and on how we can join forces in 2013 in new and more fearless ways. Because, as Becky put it so perfectly, “protecting forests, our climate and human rights really doesn’t happen without you.”

Dear friends,

RAN has a vision for 2013, but it only works if you see it as your vision too. It’s big, it’s bold and it will take all of us.

I will tell you up front that all I am asking of you in this letter is for you to let me know you’re with us.

We on the RAN staff and Board believe that our core purpose is to protect endangered forests, move the country off of fossil fuels and defend human rights. And that the best possible way to do that is with effective, innovative and hard-hitting environmental corporate campaigning powered by people like you and me. If that resonates for you then you should keep reading.

You’ve tasked us to think through the strategies most effective for protecting forests, the climate and human rights. You’ve tasked us with doing the research, the writing, the negotiating with some of the world’s largest corporations and worst polluters.

But I need to also task you with something too. I need you to redouble your commitment to be part of this network that is needed to protect forests and the climate. You are the muscle behind our strategies. I don’t say this to make you feel good. I say it because it’s the truth. And if you believe me, it means doing more work than you ever thought you would do for our environment.

In 2013, you and I, the network powerful enough to inspire long-term change from corporate giants like Burger King, Home Depot, Citibank and Disney, have a big role to play. I believe that the most important places for us to put our collective energy in 2013 are:

• Defend ground zero for rainforest protection: Indonesia

Why the forests of Indonesia? Because that is where deforestation is happening at the most alarming rate. If Indonesia’s rainforests go, we will have to find a way to explain to our grandchildren why orangutans and Sumatran tigers no longer exist. And if we lose these forests, our climate emissions will increase exponentially.

This year, you will be asked to get even more involved in stopping the two main culprits of this deforestation: paper companies, like Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), and palm oil suppliers, like Cargill. In the first few months of the year, I hope you will join us so that we can go after APP like never before and launch a new campaign that gets unsustainable palm oil off our grocery store shelves.

• Double down on climate activism: Cut funding for fossil fuels

The clean energy revolution that you and I want to see cannot happen while the biggest banks in the country are funding fossil fuels. Together, we will follow the money. If you’re game, this can be the year we use every tool in our toolbox to push Bank of America, the leading funder of the coal industry, to dump fossil fuels for clean energy. And the year we take big action to push climate onto the forefront of the President’s agenda.

• Build our collective power

Last year, we spent a lot of time talking about you. Thinking about how to bring you ever closer, how to expand our numbers, and how we leverage our collective strength. But our next step is to listen. We plan to do a lot of listening to you in 2013, to hear what your visions are for our network, and to dream and scheme ways to build our power together. We need your help to get louder, to be bolder and to have the most powerful impact. Will you join us to expose APP for the first time ever in North America with your social media networks, to build awareness about the problems with palm oil community by community, to leverage your dollars to push Bank of America out of the coal industry? Will you ask your friends to join? What more could you do, would you do in your community, online, in the streets as part of RAN?

I know that there are a lot of other pressing issues out there. But I believe in focus and in high leverage fights that can catalyze big changes.

So, it’s going to be a big year. And it needs to be.

We are in the midst of what history will undoubtedly call the next industrial revolution. And the evidence that it’s happening is all around us, if we care to look. In 2012, people like you helped shutter 125 coal plants and inspired Disney to transform everything about the way it uses paper.

So, not to sound cheesy, but our big vision for 2013 is you. This is a community that can see windmills replacing coal fields. That believes a tree is worth more standing than cut down for paper. That knows people power can trump corporate power. Protecting forests, our climate and human rights really doesn’t happen without you…nothing happens without you.

Together, I know we can take on the biggest, most well-funded polluters and exploiters in the world—and win. I know because I’ve seen it, from our Burger King victory in 1987 to our Disney win last year.

I cannot thank you enough for the emails you’ve sent, the calls you’ve made, the funds you’ve given, the rallies and protests you’ve attended. It’s hard to grasp the enormity of our huge accomplishments as a network. I hope you’re as ready as I am for the possibilities of 2013.

For the future, for our forests,

Becky Tarbotton

The following is a brief synopsis of why that description fits.

A History of Bad Practices and Broken Promises

Over 2 million hectares of rainforest have already been destroyed in Indonesia to feed the pulp and paper sector and its Sumatra-based mega mills. APP is the largest pulp and paper company in Indonesia and China and is the leading beneficiary of the ongoing, wholesale pulping of Indonesia’s rainforests. The devastating effects of all this plundering includes widespread human rights violations, massive carbon emissions and the destruction of habitat essential for the survival of critically endangered Sumatran tigers and orangutans.

Stopping Rainforest Destruction?

APP repeatedly promises investors, customers, environmentalists and the public that it will end its dependence on rainforest wood for its paper—but not just yet. APP has consistently failed to meet its deadlines to eliminate rainforest wood from its pulp mills, first set for 2004, then moved to 2007, then revised to 2009, and most recently suggested for 2015.

Honoring Financial Agreements?

In 2004, APP promised to protect High Conservation Value Forests (HCVFs) and reach “full sustainability” as part of a legally binding US$6 billion debt “Master Restructuring Agreement” with Western financial institutions and Export Credit Agencies. As of March 2012, APP still remains in gross violation of this agreement.

Addressing Community Conflict?

With land concessions totaling an area eight times larger than all of Rio de Janeiro, APP’s pulp plantation expansion plans are fueling widespread conflict with local communities in Indonesia. In one of the most shocking cases, in late 2010 dozens of persons from one Sumatran community blocked barges with equipment used in pulp operations on their claimed lands in protest of their rights to community forest lands being given over to APP for pulp plantations. This conflict resulted in police violence and one fatality.

Avoiding Illegal Logging?

Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment has recently revealed plans to sue APP for illegal logging. The lawsuit is seeking $225 billion for social and environmental damages. As much as half of all harvested wood in Indonesia is estimated to be illegal. A recent 2012 investigation found illegal ramin wood fiber being used in APP’s products.

Protecting the Climate?

By ignoring major emissions from deforestation and peat and disingenuously counting its plantations as carbon sinks, APP claims to have a positive impact on the climate. A comprehensive accounting, however, shows APP in Indonesia to be responsible for total carbon emissions at levels higher than most countries, including Denmark. Far from being positive for the climate, APP-produced paper has a climate impact that is 55-70 times higher per ton than recycled paper available in North America.

Supporting Tiger Conservation?

There are only 400 Sumatran tigers left in the wild. Their survival depends on conserving what remains of their critical rainforest habitat. Nonetheless, even as APP promises to protect tigers, clearance of tiger habitat to feed APP’s pulp and paper mills is well documented.

Asia Pulp & Paper’s egregious forest practices have alienated major consumer brand companies around the world, including Danone, Office Depot, Levi’s and many others who will not buy from APP.

Luckily, there are many examples within the publishing industry to look to for guidance. Scholastic, Hachette, and Disney all have robust, comprehensive paper policies. Write to HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray now and urge him to get it right.

In a letter to HarperCollins’ CEO earlier this week, we urged the company to adopt a meaningful, comprehensive, company-wide paper policy with numeric, time-bound goals to a) eliminate controversial sources, b) maximize post-consumer recycled content, and c) give preference to fibers and products certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) if virgin fiber or materials are used. HarperCollins’ UK division’s policy, last updated in 2008, incorporates many of these elements, yet they are not present in HarperCollins’ U.S. policy. RAN is looking to HarperCollins to adopt a globally consistent, comprehensive policy.

HarperCollins Paper Policy Friday 12/14/12

HarperCollins Paper Policy Tuesday 12/11/12

In our letter we also urged HarperCollins to eliminate its use of controversial Indonesian fiber and publicly sever all financial ties with Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), Asia Pacific Resources International (APRIL) and their affiliates until key reforms are adopted. While the company stated that it “currently does not do business with APP or APRIL” in a Mother Jones article that came out today, it has not yet answered key questions, such as: Does this commitment includes APP subsidiaries and affiliates, such as Gold East? Given that APRIL is primarily a pulp company supplying paper mills in China and elsewhere, has HarperCollins learned from printers and paper suppliers whether the mills they are purchasing from use pulp from APRIL? Has the decision to stop working with APP and APRIL been communicated to printers and paper suppliers and has this requirement been inserted into all HarperCollins’ contracts and purchase orders?

HarperCollins looks to be heading in a positive direction—now it has the opportunity to cross the finish line with a robust paper policy, and clarification and strong implementation of its commitments to avoid controversial suppliers APP and APRIL.

Hopefully HarperCollins won’t be ruining any more Christmases with rainforest destruction in its books.

The invasion of orangutans that has taken Cargill’s hometown by storm to ask that Cargill stop decimating their rainforest homes has become quite controversial. The Wayzata police are still holding these orangutans, their whereabouts are still unknown, and it’s unclear whether or not police have pressed any charges.

None of the orangutans were involved in any illegal activity. They were seen carrying signs that read “Evicted by Cargill. Will work for habitat,” and “Home destroyed for palm oil. Anything helps.”

We need your help to demand justice for these political prisoners. With nowhere else to go after their homes are destroyed, endangered orangutans have resorted to taking action by protesting the destruction, ending up in jail thanks to Cargill security forces and Long Lake police.

Check out this video in which bystanders captured video footage of a stern Long Lake Police officer loading the refugee animals into the back of a squad car.

Independent forensic fiber tests commissioned by Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and released today reveal significant quantities of Mixed Tropical Hardwood (MTH) and acacia fiber in the paper of one of HarperCollins’ best-selling children’s books, Fancy Nancy’s Splendiferous Christmas. MTH pulp is produced using timber logged from the rainforests of Indonesia, home to critically endangered species such as the Sumatran tiger.

RAN is calling on its members to contact HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray to tell him they don’t want books linked to rainforest destruction. HarperCollins is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp.

Here’s an image you can share on Facebook to alert your friends and family:

Click image to share on Facebook

“No child or parent should become an unwitting participant in rainforest destruction this holiday season,” said Robin Averbeck, a Forest Campaigner with Rainforest Action Network. “It is past time for HarperCollins to sever ties with Indonesian rainforest destroyers APP and APRIL and join its peers like Scholastic, Hachette, and Disney by adopting a comprehensive global paper policy to keep deforestation, tiger extinction and human rights abuses out of its books.”

High risk acacia fiber was found in HarperCollins titles including Splat the Cat: The Perfect Present for Mom and Dad and Talking Pictures: Images and Messages Rescued from the Past. Experts estimate that 90% of global acacia pulp comes from Indonesia. This acacia fiber is often linked to social conflict related to the conversion of natural rainforests and peatlands into mono-culture plantations.

RAN first alerted the US publishing industry to problems in its paper supply chains in May of 2010 with a report titled Turning the Page on Rainforest Destruction: Children’s books and the future of Indonesia’s rainforests. Over the following year, eight of the top ten publishers adopted commitments to stop buying paper connected to egregious practices leading to loss of Indonesian rainforest, but Disney and HarperCollins did not follow suit. After extensive negotiations with RAN, this past October Disney announced a robust and comprehensive global policy covering the company’s vast array of businesses and licensees.

Indonesia is home to some of the most biologically diverse forests in the world—but it also has one of the world’s highest rates of deforestation. The Indonesian government estimates that more than a million hectares of rainforests are being cleared every year. Logging for pulp, along with the expansion of palm oil plantations, is a leading driver of this destruction. Indonesia is now listed as the third-largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, after the US and China. An estimated eighty per cent of its emissions come from the conversion of peatlands and other natural forests.

This startling orangutan invasion escalated significantly yesterday when a mother and her baby were arrested by police in downtown Wayzata. Bystanders captured video footage of a stern Long Lake Police officer loading the refugee animals into the back of a squad car (we’ll post it soon). Their whereabouts remain unknown and it is unclear at this time what, if any, charges the red apes face. Here’s a photo of the orangutan mother and her baby just before their arrest:

Here’s another photo of the orangutan mother protesting outside of Cargill HQ earlier in the day:

Prior interactions with the authorities have occurred intermittently since this small population of desperate primates relocated to the shores of Lake Minnetonka after their rainforest homes were destroyed by the expansion of palm oil plantations.

The orangutans have been seen carrying signs that read “Evicted by Cargill. Will work for habitat.” and “Home destroyed for palm oil. Anything helps.” Prior interactions with the authorities have involved allegations of loitering, hitchhiking and panhandling, but besides an altercation with private Cargill security at the company’s executive offices weeks ago, today’s arrests were the first.

Cargill is the largest importer of palm oil into the US and one of the largest traders of palm oil in the world. Critically Endangered orangutans live only on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. While it is uncertain exactly how these tropical animals ended up in the frigid Midwest, their appearance follows a high profile string of public advertisements by Rainforest Action Network, including billboards, full page print ads and an online campaign calling attention to the urgent crisis of extinction orangutans face due to the wholesale destruction of Indonesia’s rainforests for palm oil plantations.

Please be on alert—while orangutans pose no threat to humans, these animals are clearly desperate for their survival and unless Cargill acts quickly to make sure it stops buying palm oil that destroys their precious habitat, there is no telling what they might do next.

Harvesting Oil Palm on a Plantation in Sumatra. Photo: David Gilbert

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 everything in their power to keep forests standing. Instead, European leaders just endorsed a palm oil certification scheme, the RSPO, that accepts clearing of important secondary forests and peatlands, major sources of the very GHG emissions that the EC claims to be reducing.

Although the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive in theory already prohibits the destruction of forests to grow palm oil, in practice it’s a different story. Mongabay reports:

“Under the [European Commission]-approved RSPO RED scheme, a palm oil company that has both plantations that meet the EU standard as well as plantations that do not meet these standards (e.g. plantations on peat) can sell its palm oil from the eligible plantations as ‘sustainable’ biofuel to the EU and continue with business as usual on the other plantations,” said Wetlands International in a statement. “They could even expand their plantations on peatlands. This sustainability certification is therefore not helping in any way to reduce emissions, but allowing and could even encourage a pick-and-choose strategy that will enhance indirect land use change (ILUC), resulting in the continued destruction of tropical forests and peatlands.”

According to Reuters, the Commission’s own research proves that palm oil has the highest emissions of any biofuel when  ILUC factors—the indirect land use change caused by using it for fuel—are considered.

The oil palm industry causes massive emissions of greenhouse gases by driving the deforestation of tropical forests and peatlands, contributing to global climate change and biodiversity loss. Halting expansion into peatlands of any depth, which store vast amounts of carbon if left untouched but become significant greenhouse gas emitters when cleared and burned, is a climate imperative. In 2011 the Indonesian government issued a two-year moratorium on clearing forests of peat deeper than three meters deep, but this oversight fails to protect a huge percentage of peatlands in Indonesia that are less than three meters deep. Banning further expansion on all peat, regardless of depth, offers the best opportunity to drastically reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation associated with palm oil expansion.

Clearing peatlands and secondary forests is not only problematic for our global climate—it’s also driving unique species like endangered orangutans towards extinction.

The timing of this unfortunate decision is critical for many reasons. It comes just as the major global initiative that oversees the RSPO struggles to scale up its sustainability criteria. A dozen of the world’s most prestigious scientists just released a letter pleading with the RSPO to improve its Principles & Criteria, the sustainability guidelines that all RSPO members are supposed to follow.

We call on the RSPO to add two critical additional components to its Principles and Criteria during this review period:

1. A complete ban on future developments on peat.

As noted above, palm production on peatlands result in a large amount of greenhouse gas emissions (both carbon dioxide and methane). Climate change has great potential to wreak havoc on natural and human made systems alike. Therefore, it is impossible for any activity that contributes large amount of greenhouse gas emissions to be considered sustainable. Banning further expansion on peat offers the best opportunity to drastically reduce emissions from palm oil expansion.

2. A ban on future plantings on high carbon stock forests.

We applaud the current RSPO Principles and Criteria for banning the clearing of primary forests and requiring a High Conservation Value (HCV) assessment that aims to protect HCV forests. The RSPO must go further to ensure that lightly and moderately disturbed secondary forests are also protected. These forests are still very valuable both for carbon storage and for biodiversity. A carbon threshold should be established to ensure that land use change remains carbon neutral, or in cases of grassland conversion, might result in net carbon storage.

It is vital that the RSPO add these requirements the Principles and Criteria immediately to ensure that all palm oil being sold with the label “sustainable” is not driving climate change and forest destruction. Without these critical requirements, RSPO standards are not enough for businesses to rely on to meet zero deforestation and low-carbon supply chain commitments and the standards cannot be considered truly “sustainable.”

As the world’s eyes remain on the EPA, waiting to see if it will rule in favor of science and the climate or be swayed by the lobbying muscle of Indonesian and Malaysian government and industry reps, the European Commission’s decision sets a problematic precedent for countries that are trying to decrease emissions.

July ‘06 Blockade of the English River Road

On December 2, 2002 the Indigenous youth of the Grassy Narrows First Nation lay down in the path of industrial logging machines—blocking access to their tribal homeland in Northern Ontario, Canada. The action, led by women and youth, sparked the longest standing Indigenous logging blockade in North America.

Since 2004, RAN has worked closely with the Grassy Narrows community as well as activists across North America determined to stand up for Indigenous rights and defend their traditional territory from predatory logging. Together, we were able to pressure AbitibiBowater (now Resolute), the largest newsprint manufacturer in the world, to stop clear-cutting on more than 2 million acres of Grassy Narrows’ traditional territory. In 2011, a landmark judgement by the Ontario Superior Court ruled that the Government of Ontario must respect the Treaty rights of Grassy Narrows and cannot authorize an industrial activity without their consent.

And now, as a decade has passed since the historic blockade began, which RAN continues to support through small grants, the Grassy Narrows community remains ever-vigilant in the face of imminent new threats to their territory. While an appeal of the court decision will be heard early next year, the Ontario government has already released a 10-year plan calling for more logging within the heart of Grassy Narrows.

Meanwhile, Grassy Narrows is calling on supporters to show solidarity by helping to commemorate the 10 year anniversary of the blockade and the international support it catalyzed around the world. Please join them in celebrating resistance, sovereignty, and action in defense of their traditional territory and the earth. Visit FreeGrassy.org for more information.

Also, take a look at this great photo retrospective by Jon Schledewitz: