According to the US Department of Labor the Cultivation of Palm Oil in Some Countries Relies on Slave Labor

Whether you’re one of the 3,200 companies that do business in California with at least $100 million in worldwide gross receipts, or a consumer that buys products from anywhere other than your local mom and pop shops, you better check this out. Effective this month, a new law called the Transparency in Supply Chains Act requires retailers and manufacturers to publicly disclose their efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from their supply chains.

This new law comes at a critical time when one of the largest importers of palm oil into the U.S. and trader of 25% of the world’s palm oil — Cargill, Inc. — still refuses to adopt supply chain safeguards. Without proper safeguards in place, Cargill continues to purchase, trade and profit from palm oil grown on lands stolen from local communities and other palm plantation areas with active, ongoing social conflict and human rights violations, including slave labor.  Indeed, the U.S. Department of Labor has placed Indonesian and Malaysian palm oil on its “Red List” of products produced by child and forced labor. Cargill has repeatedly been made aware of these problems, but has yet to acknowledge the abuses or take action to resolve them.

Here’s the joint press statement we released with As You Sow’s Responsible Sourcing Network and Green America:

Advocacy groups say slave labor connected to palm oil, chocolate and cotton production will provide initial test cases for compliance with the new Transparency in Supply Chains Act

San Francisco, CA – Leading environmental and corporate social responsibility organizations say that chronic human rights abuses associated with popular products like chocolate and cotton tee shirts will join controversial food additive palm oil to provide initial test cases for companies striving to comply with California’s Supply Chain Transparency Act (SB 657). The new law that went into effect Jan 1^st, 2012, requires retailers and manufacturers to publicly disclose their efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from their supply chains. The law applies to all corporations doing business in California with more than $100 million in worldwide gross receipts – an estimated 3,200 companies.

A roundtable focused on the new California law was held at the Bay Area Council in San Francisco on January 6^th and was attended by advocacy organizations, attorneys, state representatives and executives from several Bay Area corporations, including Hewlett-Packard, McKesson, PG&E, Levi Strauss, Gap Inc. and Safeway. Following the roundtable, representatives of Rainforest Action Network, Responsible Sourcing Network and Green America issued the following statements.

Rainforest Action Network’s (RAN’s) Forest Program Director Lindsey Allen commented:

“California’s new law is designed to give consumers the information they need to make more informed choices about what products they buy. In addition to the widespread destruction of rainforests that result from palm oil production, it has been clear for many years that slave labor, debt bondage and human rights abuses on plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia are part of what has made palm oil into the cheap and ubiquitous food additive it is today. In 2010, the US Dept. of Labor confirmed this by placing palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia on its List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor.

It is past time that companies like agribusiness giant Cargill Inc. acknowledge the true costs of palm oil and this law’s transparency requirements are a first step. The law’s mandate that companies report what they are or are not doing to address slave labor in their supply chains will help to publicly distinguish corporate leaders from laggards when it comes to aligning products with the values consumers care most about.”

Green America’s Fair Trade Campaigns Director, Elizabeth O’Connell said:

“For more than ten years, consumers have called on chocolate companies to take more responsibility for their supply chains and ensure that forced, trafficked, and child labor were not used to harvest their cocoa beans.  While some companies have taken voluntary steps to prevent labor abuses, such as third party certification, other major companies, including Hershey, continue to drag their feet.  The passage of California’s SB657 will require that all companies disclose what they are doing to prevent labor abuse in their supply chains, and therefore, pressure laggards like Hershey to finally address these issues.

Responsible Sourcing Network (RSN) Director Patricia Jurewicz said,

“Investors are looking for more than just the transparency this statute requires. Even more important to investors will be seeing the new steps companies are taking to minimize reputational risks and be proactive in eliminating slavery from the products they sell. For example,  we are  tracking for the investment community if companies have signed our pledge and are participating in our initiative to stop forced child labor in the cotton fields of Uzbekistan.”

For more information:

The US Dept. of Labor 2011 List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor

http://www.dol.gov/ilab/programs/ocft/PDF/2011TVPRA.pdf

Effective Supply Chain Accountability: Investor Guidance on Implementation of The California Transparency in Supply Chains Act and Beyond

http://www.iccr.org/issues/subpages/pdf/11.17.11SupplyChainGuide.pdf

Compliance is Not Enough: Best Practices in Responding to The California Transparency in Supply Chains Act

http://www.verite.org/sites/default/files/VTE_WhitePaper_California_Bill657FINAL5.pdf

###

Rainforest Action Network runs hard-hitting campaigns to break North America’s fossil fuels addiction, protect endangered forests and Indigenous rights, and stop destructive investments around the world through education, grassroots organizing, and non-violent direct action. For more information, please visit: www.ran.org.

Green America is the nation’s leading green economy organization. Founded in 1982, Green America (formerly Co-op America) provides the economic strategies, organizing power and practical tools for businesses and individuals to solve today’s social and environmental problems. For more information, go to: http://www.GreenAmerica.org.

Responsible Sourcing Network is a project of the non-profit organization As You Sow. RSN addresses human rights violations and environmental destruction in the supply chains of consumer products at the raw commodity level. For more information, please visit www.sourcingnetwork.org.

Cargill, Guilty as Charged

Last week, over 40 Minnesota residents made a citizens’ arrest of Cargill, Inc. in front of the company’s downtown Minneapolis office at the Grain Exchange. I walked away from the event struck with inspiration and hope. Why? In addition to being amazed that so many enthusiastic people braved below-freezing weather to hold Cargill accountable for its crimes against nature, I thought that this event was particularly significant in that it demonstrated the growing unity of voices in opposition to Cargill’s destructive power.

Our Cargill campaign is bridging movements and building strong allies beyond simply environmental and human rights organizations. RAN has been running a campaign to pressure Cargill to clean up its palm oil supply chain for several years, but we’re up against the world’s largest privately held corporation. We need a larger justice army than just RAN alone. RAN is small but mighty — but Cargill’s annual revenue of $119 billion is larger than the GDP of 70% of the world’s countries. It’s one of the most secretive, sketchy operations in the world (see for yourself). We can’t expect the richest family in America — the Cargill MacMillan family — or top decision makers within the company to do right by people and the planet. We have to force them to. And when I say we, I mean a swarm of us.

And that’s exactly what we’re witnessing.

This past weekend I noticed the seeds of a national movement against Cargill begin germinating, an unstoppable swarm pursuing Cargill from all angles. This includes rural communities and farmers who are tired of Cargill’s exploitation, the Occupy movement’s growing hunger to Occupy our Food Supply and reclaim our food system from corporate control, human rights organizations demanding an end to slave labor in Cargill’s supply chain, and environmental organizations holding Cargill accountable for driving climate change and orangutans towards extinction.

There is growing national opposition to Cargill's destructive practices

We are excited to forge new alliances with groups like Family Farm Defenders, the National Family Farm Coalition, and the Land Stewardship Project. Paul Sobocinski, a Land Stewardship Project organizer and family farm livestock producer from Wabasso, MN, could not attend our citizens’ arrest of Cargill due to distance but proudly stood in solidarity with our action by offering a quote, which we read aloud to the crowd:

Cargill wants to control the livestock industry, they’d like to turn family farmers into modern day serfs who do their bidding while Cargill walks away with the lion’s share of the profits. Cargill is fully integrated and one of the largest meatpackers and factory farm hog producers in the country. It’s time to hold them accountable. It’s time to take back our food and farming system from corporate agribusiness.

Amen.

Another farmer, Dena Hoff from Montana, is Vice President of NFFC. She expressed a similar sentiment:

It is outrageous that our leaders continue to promote their disastrous trade liberalization policies. The WTO and free trade have led to below-cost dumping by agribusinesses, destroying family farmers and threatening our food security. Countries have surrendered their food sovereignty to the likes of Cargill and Wall Street, who profit from the volatility that hurts farmers and consumers worldwide.

The first step to reclaiming our food system is taking control of our own food chain and eliminating as many of the corporate strings as possible. That means spending more time at your local farmers market and doing away with the packaged, processed, and refined foods that likely contain the nasty and unethical food additive called palm oil.

Palm oil is in every way a symptom of our broken food system. If you want to start tackling your own foodprint, start with palm oil. Trace its steps backwards in the food supply, and there you will find Cargill, the shady, secretive back door dealer.

It’s time to Occupy Cargill as the first step to Occupying our Food Supply!

See RAN’s shocking new Cargill fact sheet here.

Citing multiple corporate crimes ranging from slave labor, driving climate change and monopolizing the food chain to putting profits before food safety, the 99% took moral law into their own hands to perform a “Citizens’ Arrest” of Cargill, Inc. An Occupy Cargill protestor at the rally explained it this way: “Corporations aren’t people, but if they have the same rights as a person, shouldn’t they have the same responsibilities? So, can’t we arrest them for their criminal behavior?”

Cargill, Inc. is the largest privately held corporation in the world. The corporation’s annual revenue of $119 billion is higher than 70% of the world’s countries GDPs and the family that controls it is the richest in America. Cargill, Inc. is plagued with worldwide controversy around many of its commodities, including palm oil, salt, cotton, chocolate and grain as well as Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), and carbon trading.  Agricultural free trade policies that benefit Cargill come at a high price for family farmers, food sovereignty, human rights, and the climate.

Departing from the former Occupy Minneapolis encampment site known as People’s Plaza, citizens marched in a “search party” to find this fugitive suspect, Cargill, Inc., to bring this corporate “person” to justice. Multiple speakers at the rally railed against Cargill’s corporate personhood and its extensive lobbying of governments for free trade policies that benefit its profits at the expense of people and planet.

Unable to find this corporate “person,” activists posted the arrest warrant at the last-seen location of Cargill, Inc.: The Minneapolis Grain Exchange. If I were this criminal, I would turn myself in to the 99% and beg for mercy.

Click for larger image

There are some who say that corporations are people. So can you arrest one?

Well, we’re going to find out.

Right now, corporations technically have the same First Amendment rights as real live people (as ruled by the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC two years ago). So shouldn’t we (real live people) hold corporations to the same level of accountability that we do other people when it comes to trashing the planet and shamefully disregarding human rights?

As global citizens, it is time to intervene.

In Minneapolis on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012, join our coalition of citizens who are invoking the true purpose of a citizens’ arrest: to halt a dangerous and harmful criminal in their tracks. We will form search parties and take to the streets to see if anyone has seen this corporate “person,” known as Cargill, Inc. so the 99% can bring “him” to justice.

This “citizens’ arrest” will spotlight Cargill’s abuse of corporate personhood and corporate manipulation of the global food system by highlighting the company’s many crimes against human dignity. Cargill’s pursuit of the “commercialization of photosynthesis”, as touted by CEO Greg Page, has led our world toward a dangerous consolidation of power over our food supply in the hands of the 1%. Are companies with a bottom line of profit to be trusted with the well-being of people and planet? With a corporation that has a particularly bad track-record like Cargill’s, the answer is obviously no.

"Wanted: Cargill, Inc" posters have mysteriously appeared all over the Minneapolis calling for a citizens' arrest of the corporation for 'profiteering off people and planet.'

It is time to Occupy Cargill, to stop these corporate crimes against human dignity, and reclaim control over our food and health in the name of justice and sustainability. What we can create must and will be better. It starts this weekend in Minneapolis.

End Corporate Personhood. Occupy Our Food Supply!

We hope you will be able to join us if you are in the Twin Cities area. RSVP on Facebook today!

Whether or not you can make it to Minneapolis to help us apprehend Cargill, you can follow our live updates via Twitter: @theprobwithpalmoil

And now here we are, at the dawn of another new year. Who knows what we can do?

Now is the time for change, but the question becomes: How can we keep this momentum going? As we head into 2012, I invite you to think about what you can do to shake things up, make your voice heard, and make 2012 another banner year for people power. Here are five of my favorites, in no particular order:

1. Shrink oversized banks

   At RAN, we’ve been campaigning against banks with outsized influence since 2001, and have never felt such a window for deep, lasting change as we do right now. What can you do to make sure that the biggest banks know that the days of reaping enormous sums from bankrupting our economy, foreclosing on our homes, and polluting our air are over? Take action in your area to begin dismantling the systems that allow the wealthiest citizens to control the rules of the game. Send a message that we will not accept one more dollar invested in dirty energy. Take the pledge to boycott Bank of America — the nation’s leading funder of coal projects — unless the bank cleans up its act, then join the over 50,000 customers who have already closed their Bank of America accounts and invest in your local economy by moving your money to a local bank or credit union.

2. Occupy Our Food Supply

   No less than our financial system, our food system is in dangerous shape, controlled by corporate interests at the expense of small producers, our health, and the future of the planet. Occupy Our Food Supply to help bring an end to corporate exploitations of our food system. Join the fight for a just Farm Bill in 2012. Boycott Cargill, the US agribusiness giant that is bulldozing rainforests and razing entire communities in Indonesia and Malaysia in pursuit of profits.

3. End Corporate Personhood

   This is the year I hope to see an end to the choke hold that corporate power has on our democratic system. On January 21st, the second anniversary of the devastating Citizens United ruling, I invite you to join the swelling movement to demand an end corporate personhood — the egregious legal principle that gives corporations the same rights as individuals, with few of the same limits. Join with RAN and our allies to Occupy the Courts in a city near you on January 20th and Occupy the Corporations on January 21st. Then, gear up for an exciting Spring packed full of actions as we work to force corporate and political leaders to recognize corporate accountability as a key issue this election cycle, and finally let those companies who are buying our democracy know that democracy is by the people and for the people.

4. Keep the Keystone XL Pipeline Off the Map

   We all cheered last fall when the decision on the Keystone XL pipeline was delayed, but with political maneuvers forcing Obama to make a choice by mid-February, the fight is far from over. Now more than ever, it is crucial to stay committed to the fight to keep the Canadian Tar Sands in the ground. Keep up on the ongoing Tar Sands Actions and continue to speak out until President Obama understands that we will not accept this toxic pipeline full of crude oil for export to snake through America’s heartland.

5. Learn, Organize, Lead!

   Rainforest Action Network would be nothing without the committed organizers and activists who participate in our campaigns and form one part of the broader movement challenging corporate power around the globe. It’s a great time to rise to the growing demands of our world and take your activism to the next level. Take steps to educate yourself about issues that matter to you. Get involved in events in your area. Give what you can to help keep RAN’s campaigns running, and subscribe to our newsletters to keep up to date with the work of RAN’s campaigns and hear about opportunities to take action online or plan an event in your area.

This post originally appeared on Huffington Post.

Big Food and Big Banks are two peas in a proverbial pod. Cloaked in corporate personhood, they form a 1%-reciprocal relationship to profiteer from deregulation while endangering our health, poisoning our land, and blocking sustainable long-term solutions in the name of short-term profit.

Thank goodness everyday people are reclaiming our food supply from the insanely unsustainable hands of the corporate few. We are putting our own hands into the soil and raising our fists to resist the corporate food regime.

There is much fertile ground in the ‘convergence in diversity’ between the Occupy/Decolonize movement and the Food movement. The systems-level analysis provoked by the Occupy Wall Street movement is getting down to the roots of today’s rampant problems and injustices, and the food movement has some sensible solutions that grow from the roots up.

Millions of people recognize that Big Ag is bad for human health and the health of the planet. It is a dinosaur economy. Local agriculture creates healthy communities and provides meaningful, fair work without the toxins and exploitation enforced by Big Ag’s bottom line.

For example, agirculture giant Cargill’s manipulation of food prices and markets has done a lot to create a food system that the company would love to call “too big to fail.” The problem is that it IS failing, badly, and lives are on the line.

Recently, Cargill CEO Greg Page pulled a PR stunt attempting to launch a “too big to fail” analysis of Cargill’s role in fighting world hunger. But multiple UN and multi-institutional academic studies show that organic agriculture and agroecology have a better chance of creating food security and solving the problems of hunger than corporations that are exploiting ecosystems for monoculture crops, jumping from crisis to crisis, and speculating and profiteering all along the way. Barry Estabrook lists dozens of similarly concluded studies in The Atlantic, including a U.N.-supported study with over 400 expert contributors that calls on governments to support sustainable and small-scale agricultural practices to increase food security.

Shouldn’t that put the onus on the corporate food regime to show they actually can do it better? Big Ag’s dismissal of organic farming’s potential stands comparatively unsubstantiated. But maybe that’s exactly how companies like Cargill want it, because the reality is that Big Ag is a bad way to organize our food system.

This is just one example, and Cargill employs the same free trade business model (profit over everything) for hundreds of commodities!

For example, let’s look at the global mess Cargill has contributed to with palm oil. Increasing demand for a cheap vegetable oil with a decent shelf life has put palm oil and its derivatives on over half of the ingredients labels of packaged foods in grocery stores. But where does palm oil come from? The majority of the time it comes from deforestation of precious rainforest in Indonesia and Malaysia. The rate of deforestation in Indonesia is at 3.6 million acres per year, which equals just over 5 football fields of deforestation per minute. Forests are replaced with monoculture oil palm plantations as far as the eye can see.

This is causing many social and environmental problems such as land grabs displacing Indigenous and forest-dependent communities, as well as poor working conditions that include slave-labor conditions on monoculture palm oil plantations. It is also contributing to the looming extinction of species like the Orangutan and decimating high-carbon value peatlands, which has helped catapult Indonesia to the #3 spot on the list of the world’s highest greenhouse gas emitters. The plantation workers and their families often live on palm plantations with little food security as plantations displace community gardens. Already there are cases of bankrupt plantations leaving workers and their families struggling with hunger. This is corporate colonialism, eliminating Indonesia’s vital national heritage for the benefit of the First World 1%. It’s time to Occupy Cargill.

Occupy Minneapolis protest across from the Grain Exchange building where Cargill gambles on world food prices, Oct. 2011

A palm oil policy with commitments around human rights, greenhouse gas emissions, and rainforest protection would be the very minimum to justify Cargill even being allowed to call their business model ethical. But at the end of the day, we know it is a bigger system-change that is needed, a change that goes beyond corporate sustainability lip service. We need to create alternatives that are allowed to out-compete Big Ag’s business as usual.

It’s time to Occupy Our Food Supply and reclaim food sovereignty from the corporate food regime.

RAN sent a delegation of four staff to lobby for human rights and rainforest protections at the 9th Annual RSPO Meeting in Malaysia.

As the 9^thAnnual Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) meeting wrapped up on the island of Borneo, the crisis stemming from the uncontrolled expansion of palm oil plantations into rainforests and communities reached a fever pitch.

Consider this: In the few days that RAN’s four staff-member delegation attended the RSPO meeting in SE Asia, the Forest People’s Programme (FPP) released a comprehensive and scathing report that documents Cargill supplier and palm oil giant Wilmar’s complicity in the bulldozing of homes and the use of live ammunition to forcibly evict Indigenous community members on the island of Sumatra.

In a press conference on the human rights impacts of palm oil held during the RSPO meeting, Rukaiyah Rofiq, who goes by Uki and works with the human rights advocacy group Yayasan Setara Jambi, warned that companies producing palm oil under the RSPO umbrella are failing to resolve the social conflict caused by plantation expansion. In a November 24 article in the print version of the Borneo Post titled “RSPO Emboldens Violators of Indigenous Rights – NGO,” Uki said:

Ideally, we had hoped that with the RSPO, these conflicts would be stopped or at least reduced, and the rights of the communities be restored. But we’re not seeing any impact with the RSPO. This is evident in the ninth meeting we’ve had with the RSPO. There has not been any change; the conflicts have not decreased. The presence of RSPO has not reduced or resolved the conflicts.

Uki is referring to the more than 600 cases of social conflict related to palm oil in Indonesia documented by Sawit Watch. In the same press conference, Jefri Gideon of Sawit Watch said: “There is a big hope among everyone that the RSPO can help resolve these conflicts.” He urged RSPO members to go beyond talking about the RSPO principles and criteria and code of conduct and actually implement them.

During the same week, the Jakarta Globe published two articles, “Indonesian Palm Oil Dispute at ‘Crisis Point’” and “Paradise Lost at Hands of Palm Oil Companies“, about a separate conflict surrounding the village of Muara Tae on the island of Borneo.

Muara Tae is in a stand-off with a palm oil firm whose forest clearing threatens the villagers’ entire way of life. Community member Petrus Asuy issued an impassioned plea, saying, “Because of the palm oil plantations, our water has become polluted and many of our springs have dried up. We took our case to the local government, but they ignored us. We are completely against these companies because they have compromised our way of life. What hope is there now for our grandchildren? We are pleading for help for our situation and for this activity to stop.”

It has become abundantly clear that wherever massive international commodity corporations are granted huge forest concessions and allowed free reign to manage them, community conflict and environmental devastation quickly follow.

It is more imperative than ever that companies like Cargill and Wilmar immediately address the serious problems of human rights abuses and rainforest destruction in their supply chains and become a part of the solution to this crisis instead of indiscriminately trafficking palm oil into North American and European markets. Please take a moment to ask Cargill CEO Greg Page to adopt safeguards to keep controversial palm oil out of American food products.

The 9th Annual RSPO Meeting is in Sabah (Malaysian Borneo)

In an interview, Dr. Marc Ancrenanz of HUTAN notes that oil palm plantations cover a staggering 14,000 square kilometers of Sabah, one of the two states in Malaysian Borneo and the number one producer of Malaysian palm oil. This is equal to 20 Singapores planted solely with palm!

In the same interview, Dr. Marc Ancrenanz mentions that genetic studies in Sabah show that the orangutan population has declined by 50% to 90% over the past few decades. This severe decline is due to several causes, such as hunting and the illegal pet trade, but the foremost reason is forest loss as it is cut down and converted to agriculture.

This final frontier — home of our globe’s oldest rainforests and last stands of orangutans — is the setting for this year’s RSPO conference, where strange bedfellows come together and debate the “sustainable” palm oil industry. Activists, industry heavy weights, and the Malaysian Palm Oil Association spend three days playing their respective hands in the struggle over the fate of  tropical forests. Major plantation companies like Sime Darby and Wilmar attend the conference to try and stop the RSPO from making it any more difficult for them to convert rainforest to palm oil plantations, while RAN brings a different set of values to the meeting.

Next week, when families across North America are celebrating Thanksgiving with their families, our team will be attending the 9^th annual Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) conference in Borneo.

Comprised of mostly Indonesia and Malaysia, Borneo is the third-largest island in the world and is known for being one of the most biologically and culturally rich landscapes in the world. Unfortunately, these incredible rainforests are in grave danger from Indonesia and Malaysia’s unchecked agricultural expansion.

Our goal is to advocate for human rights, demonstrate the need for companies to establish safeguards on their palm oil supply chains, and stop the RSPO from certifying forest conversion in the face of this industrial agriculture onslaught. We will gather stories from community members affected by Cargill suppliers, many of whom attend the conference as delegates of Sawit Watch and travel from several different regions impacted by the palm oil operations of Sime Darby, Tribakti Sari Mas, Cresna Duta Agrindo, & Asiatic Persada/Wilmar. The controversy-laden palm oil peddled by these companies is exported around the world by Cargill and ends up in half of the products in your grocery store — think Kellogg’s, Smucker’s, and Girl Scout cookies.

The RSPO has come a long way, but not far enough

Throughout the conference RAN will be advocating for several demands to ensure that human rights and the environment are respected by the palm oil industry: The RSPO must start protecting rainforests and the communities and species that depend on them, and must stop certifying palm oil as “sustainable” if it was grown using the horribly destructive practice of draining carbon rich peatlands and exacerbating climate change. The RSPO must also stop dragging its feet and adopt a greenhouse gas emissions standard if it wants its palm oil certification standard to have any level of credibility.

Lastly, the RSPO must implement an effective grievance process that actually addresses pending social conflict complaints and includes a dispute settlement facility that truly respects human rights.

ADM: Investing in Human Rights Abuses

Unlike 2008′s showdown, nobody from RAN attended this year’s Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) shareholder meeting to hold CEO Patricia Woertz’ ass to the fire. Nonetheless, ADM did not get away without responding to tough questions about the company’s irresponsible palm oil supply chain.

ADM, one of the world’s largest agricultural processors with operations in more than 75 countries, held its annual shareholder meeting on Thursday in it’s hometown of Decatur, Illinois. ADM CEO Patricia Woertz proudly announced that the company increased its quarterly cash dividend from 16 cents per share to 17.5 cents per share. Happy news for shareholders, right?

Well, probably not if they knew the dirty truth: they are invested in a company complicit in gross human rights violations in Indonesia.

The most significant part of this year’s meeting was that shareholders presented a powerful resolution on palm oil, resolving that the board of directors adopt and implement a comprehensive sustainable palm oil policy. Not surprisingly, and by way of shedding light on the true nature of this company, the Board of Directors recommended a vote AGAINST this stockholder proposal.

The resolution included:

• A target date for sourcing 100% certified sustainable palm oil and for segregating and tracing certified palm oil throughout the supply chain;

• Plans to verify suppliers’ compliance with the policy; and

• Supporting a moratorium on palm oil expansion in rainforests and peatlands.

It’s too bad ADM didn’t welcome this resolution — it could have been a positive step in the right direction for a laggard of a company. A concerned shareholder attended the meeting and raised a few of her concerns about palm oil, which I’ve summarized below:

- Indonesia is the 3rd largest producer of greenhouse gases behind china and the US thanks to deforestation linked to palm oil plantation expansion, exacerbating climate change.

- ADM sources palm oil from one of the most biodiverse areas in the world, the last remaining habitat for the critically endangered orangutan, meaning they will likely become extinct.

- Indigenous people are also losing their homes and livelihoods to plantations; when they resist, they are arrested, and their homes bulldozed. This violates the standards of the RSPO, of which ADM is a member.

These comments led to an important question. The shareholder asked Woertz what ADM was doing to address the fact that Wilmar, a massive palm oil plantation company with operations in Indonesia and Malaysia of which ADM is a major shareholder, violated the RSPO code of conduct by bulldozing an Indigenous community when it got in the way of the company’s operations. Ms. Woertz responded by saying that most of the charges by the community were found to be “without merit” but that there were some issues found to have validity regarding the land, and that those investigations are still ongoing.

The CEO also said that, “as far as committing to 100% sustainable palm oil, we believe this can be done most effectively through a group effort, not by acting alone.” I beg to disagree. As the three top importers of palm oil into the US, I believe ADM, Cargill and IOI all have a responsibility to commit to 100% RSPO certified palm oil as the bare minimum standard for their US customers.

Hopefully shareholders continue to challenge ADM on its misleading claims. Any claims by ADM that it is taking the environment into consideration are completely toothless without a palm oil policy in place to make even the most basic level of assurances to its customers by adopting supply chain safeguards. With these safeguards in place, palm oil produced by companies that think bulldozing a community is a viable dispute resolution mechanism will never end up in our homes.

Katie Burgess, Executive Director of Minneapolis-based Trans Youth Support Network, calls out Cargill's absuvie labor and environmental history. Photo Credit: Taylor Foster

Katie Burgess, executive director of the Trans Youth Support Network, was asked to address the 18th Annual Coming Out Day Luncheon last week. But when she learned that Cargill was a corporate sponsor of the event, she decided to address an issue that was far more important than keeping everyone comfortable.

Instead of kissing up to the corporate sponsor, Katie eloquently revealed to an astonished but well-heeled audience of 300 the ugly truth about Cargill: No charitable sponsorship will ever be able to hide the devastation that it has caused to forests and communities around the world as Cargill abuses people and planet in a rush for unethical profit.

Read Katie’s strong, eloquent speech exposing Cargill’s despicable record on everything from palm oil to child labor to weakened food safety standards.

I had a chance to speak with Katie last week in a coffee shop on Lake Street in Minneapolis and was so inspired by her wise, compassionate description of movement intersectionality: where LGBTQ communities and organizations struggling for rights, recognition, and support meet the stark realities of international solidarity. Katie recognizes that even an event promoting LGBTQ equality in the workplace can be dwarfed if the corporate sponsor’s work is actively oppressing and endangering LGBTQ and other communities. There are literally billions of people around the world that are suffering under the free trade and corporatized agricultural systems advocated for and ruled by Cargill, and it is this larger, deeper, and serious concern to which Katie drew the attention of the luncheon attendees at the Minneapolis Hilton last week.

We support Katie’s bold choice to go against the grain in solidarity with people around the world who suffer and even die because of Cargill’s profit motive. Her words to Cargill say it all:

You have left a sea of bodies in your hurried wake. Bodies who are continuously policed by this system for existing outside of gender norms, for not being white, for being disabled, for being born in foreign countries, or for desiring and expressing their own femininity.

Let me share with you some examples:

In 2005, the International Labor Rights Fund filed suit against Cargill, Nestlé and Archer Daniels Midland in federal court on behalf of children who were trafficked from Mali into the Ivory Coast and forced to work 12 to 14 hours a day with no pay, little food and sleep, and frequent physical abuse on cocoa bean plantations.

Cargill is the leading importer of palm oil into the United States. Palm oil expansion is a leading cause of forest loss in Indonesia and has a devastating impact on biodiversity, forest-dependent peoples, and the climate.

In 1970, Cargill sold 63,000 tons of seed grain to Basra, Iraq treated with methylmercury, a practice banned in most Western countries. Though intended for agricultural use, and not for human or animal consumption, some recipients used it as food, as the only printed warnings about the poison were written in English and Spanish, intended as warnings for American dock workers. This led to the deaths of 93 people.

How many of them were LGBTQ? Were their deaths and mistreatment factored into Cargill’s 100% rating in HRC’s 2010 Corporate Equality Index? Our struggles are bound together. When they came for your children in Mali, I did not speak up because I am from the United States. When they came for my workplace equality, there was no one left to speak up. Our community spans more than these strung together letters of LGBTQ. Our liberation is bound with all whom struggle against these machine works of oppression.

Members and allies of the Trans Youth Support Network at a rally to end violence against Trans Women of Color in Minneapolis, July 2010.

Following Katie’s speech, Cargill employees came up to her to ask for sources, saying they had never heard about these issues and want to talk about it at work. Go employees, talk! Complain! Demand change. Cargill executives can’t hide the truth from us all.

More and more people are seeing and hearing the truth. More and more people are rejecting the status quo. It’s up to all of us. It is my hope that Katie’s choice to address Cargill’s pinkwashing will create a much-needed dialogue in the GLTB organizational community (and within any advocacy or issue-based community) about who we choose to partner with to advocate for a better world. Organizations must be scrupulous in making sure sponsors walk their ethical talk.

Katie Burgess, thank you for boldly speaking truth to power.

As the largest privately-owned corporation in the United States, Cargill is a classic example of too much power in the hands of too few, and a disturbing indicator of how corporate greed literally makes us sick.

“[The Occupy movement] is about the corporate takeover of democracy of our lives in every way. The food movement is inherently anti-corporate and it is inherently about rebuilding a real economy… Occupy Wall Street is not just about banking legislation…  It’s all connected.” – Author and activist Naomi Klein

Cargill Inc., a multi-national corporation worth $120+ billion dollars, is privately held almost exclusively by about 100 family members. Seven of these Cargill family members are billionaires. Cargill has done business in a way that has monopolized our food supply and held global citizens and governments alike hostage as they manipulate prices for commodities upon which our very lives depend.

Four Reasons Why Cargill is on Occupy Wall Street protesters’ shit list:

1.    “Cargill is the Goldman Sachs of commodities trading,” according to Mark Connelly, an analyst at Credit Agricole Securities USA in New York. “They have real-time insight into dozens of markets and use it to add value in all their businesses.”

The company reported $4.2 billion in record profits in the same fiscal year that world hunger rates, rainforest destruction rates in palm-oil producing countries, and world economic downturns all hit crisis. With a CEO like Greg Page cheerleading deregulation and weakening enforcement of international and domestic oversight agencies, this is the pillage-and-plunder free market he always wanted.

2.    “They’re not part of the food chain; they are the chain,” says Dan Basse, president of Chicago-based research firm AgResource Co.

Monopolization of food production, processing and distribution has allowed agribusiness giants to push developing governments around, using hoarding and speculation to manipulate prices and punish regulation attempts. Cargill was implicated in the “Tortilla Wars” in Mexico in 2007 for driving up the cost of corn on purpose. So much for “nourishing the world.”

3.    Cargill sidestepped at least $9 billion in taxes in 2010. Reuters’ Lisa Lee reported in January 2011 that the “Cargill Valuation Validates the Wall St. Rules of Thumb” in regards to their spin-off of Mosaic fertilizer company. When the a charitable trust for the late Margaret Cargill (great-granddaughter of the founder) needed cash for her namesake foundation, the company’s financial contortionists manipulated the maneuver to reach $9 billion in “tax savings.”

OccupyMN is doing fantastic organizing, right in Cargill's backyard, to expose and stop corporate greed, along with hundreds of other occupations happening around the world.

4.    Cargill manipulates your concern about world hunger to undermine real solutions.
CEO Greg Page encourages executives to intensely lobby government officials for zero regulation on food industry in favor of “free markets” in order to promote “food security.” All the while, Cargill is weakening oversight of food supply chains that incentivizes slave labor, destroys environments, and obliterates localized food systems, endangering public health. Cargill wants to “nourish the world” by bankrupting farmers and selling the world crappy, toxic, spoiled food. The turkey recall was truly just the tip of the iceberg.

So here’s my question to you:

Given that:
a) Cargill’s corporate greed and monopolization of food markets has contributed to/exacerbated our most dire problems (hunger, environmental destruction, climate chaos, worker exploitation, etc.);
b) Cargill has facilities in nearly all 50 states in addition to 62 other countries;
c) And the Occupy/Decolonize movement is rising up to challenge corporate power and end greedy exploitation…

Is it time to Occupy Cargill?

Daisy Troop #42, Seacliff, NY. Photo: Diana Lenkler

After four years of savvy campaigning by Girl Scout activists Madison Vorva and Rhiannon Tomtishen, Girl Scouts USA (GSUSA) has finally acknowledged its role in rainforest destruction by releasing a commitment regarding its use of palm oil in its iconic cookies.

Unfortunately, the statement on palm oil just released is a small step in the right direction at a time when we need leaps forward to prevent the imminent extinction of orangutans and the wholesale destruction of some of the world’s most biologically diverse and carbon rich forests.

The bottom line remains: Girl Scouts USA cannot guarantee that the box of Thin Mints you buy doesn’t contain palm oil from rainforest destruction.

Rainforest Action Network, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Madi and Rhiannon remain concerned and have issued a joint press statement explaining why the announcement by GSUSA, while a good start, is insufficient to sever the unacceptable connection between beloved Girl Scout cookies and tropical deforestation.

Rainforest Action Network asks Girl Scouts USA to instruct their suppliers, especially agribusiness giant Cargill, to adopt basic safeguards around greenhouse gas emissions, human rights and biodiversity loss, and not outsource their values by relying on the inadequate standards of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.

Troop #9045 in Central Texas. Photo: Troop Leader Jennifer McNichols

We believe Girl Scouts USA must do more than simply “work with its bakers.” In its statement, GSUSA acknowledges that while the quantity of palm oil they use is relatively small, “their voice is big.” We believe the organization has a responsibility to use that voice to help convince Cargill and other suppliers to offer guarantees to American consumers that abuses such as slave labor will no longer end up in Girl Scout cookies, or any other product. Cargill is buying its oil from the likes of Wilmar, KLK and IOI, companies connected to some of the very worst examples of corporate environmental destruction and human rights abuses. And this means Girl Scout cookies are implicated too.

Girl Scouts USA’s palm oil announcement states:

Beginning with the 2012-13 cookie season, each cookie box will include a GreenPalm logo as a symbol of Girl Scouts’ commitment to address concerns about the deforestation of sensitive lands currently caused by the production of palm oil.

Green Palm Certificates are sold to companies by the plantation that grew the palm oil. The company then goes and buys palm oil from anyone at the cheapest price. For this reason, Green Palm Certificates are a step in the right direction because they reward growers for following basic safeguards, but they do not ensure that the palm oil used in products is not linked to controversy or is driving up demand for palm oil connected to rainforest destruction and human rights violations.

As great as it is that Girl Scouts USA will be addressing the issue of palm oil in the coming cookie season, we strongly urge GSUSA to refrain from simply using its purchase of Green Palm Certificates to greenwash its image, and instead to consider implementing a plan of action to ensure its cookies are truly free of ingredients sourced from rainforest destruction. It would be very misleading for young girls across the country selling Girl Scout cookies to make claims of “sustainable palm oil” in Thin Mints when in actuality the cookies are continuing to drive deforestation and orangutan extinction.

Indigenous community protest during President SBY's visit Photo: Rivani Noor/Cappa

Do you remember in 2009 when the World Bank’s lending arm, the International Finance Corp. (IFC), came under fire from human rights and environmental organizations lobbying to halt its funding of destructive palm oil development in Indonesia and Malaysia? The 18-month global moratorium on lending for new palm oil investments that followed was a direct result of the IFC violating its own standards on palm oil financing by providing loans to Wilmar International, the world’s largest palm oil producer.

Wilmar quickly became the poster child for irresponsible palm oil operations in Indonesia – failing to comply with national laws in Indonesia, illegally using fire to clear land, seizing land from Indigenous peoples without due process, lacking publicly available social and environment impact assessments, etc.

Unfortunately, this pattern is eerily similar to the problems of another global giant in the palm oil industry – Cargill, Inc.

Cargill and one of Wilmar’s majority stakeholders, ADM, are both US agribusiness giants responsible for a large portion of the controversial palm oil imported into North America. Another wholly owned Wilmar subsidiary, PGEO Edible Oils, has been a frequent supplier of palm oil to Cargill. Both Cargill and ADM continue to operate without basic supply chain safeguards, and neither take precautions against selling palm oil connected to major human rights violations like slave labor to their US customers.

Photo: Rivani Noor, Cappa

The recent outbreak of community violence in Indonesia is exactly the sort of problem Cargill and ADM could avoid by adopting social and environmental safeguards on their suppliers.

Below is a letter of concern we sent to ADM this week in solidarity with the Indigenous community in the Dusun Sungai Beruang area on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, where Wilmar was complicit in bulldozing the homes of community members earlier this month. Through multiple protests and visits to Jakarta, the community is demanding justice.

Patricia Woertz, CEO
Archer Daniels Midland Company
4666 Faries Parkway
Decatur, IL 62526

September 22, 2011

Dear Ms. Woertz,

I am writing to bring an issue of grave concern to your attention and ask that ADM take immediate action to address the problem. We have received information from partners and community representatives that PT Asiatik Persada, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Wilmar Group, is involved in a long standing conflict that recently escalated into violence and human rights violations in Jambi Province, Sumatra, Indonesia. As one of two majority shareholders in Wilmar, the world’s largest palm oil producer, we are calling on ADM to use its influence to convince Wilmar to remedy this problem and address the company’s ongoing pattern of social conflict, rights violations and harmful environmental impacts.

Due to Wilmar’s irresponsible palm oil operations in the past, the World Bank body froze all funding for palm oil expansion globally in 2009 and 2010. This latest case is yet another example of Wilmar’s poor track record.

Though some details of the incident remain unconfirmed, we believe it is unacceptable to destroy homes and forcibly evict community members to resolve outstanding conflicts. We were alarmed to learn about the recent escalation of the conflict and the violence with the Indigenous community in the Dusun Sungai Beruang area that included the forced eviction of families and destruction of their settlement. Bulldozing a community is not a viable dispute resolution process; it is a violation of human rights that requires urgent remedy.

Throughout the month of September, community members and NGOs have joined together to call for transparency and justice. There is an urgent need for action to address the current crisis as well as a long term need to promote reforms in Wilmar so that this situation does not arise again. As a major shareholder, ADM has a responsibility and is in a position of influence to call for reforms. 

RAN joins these stakeholders in asking ADM to secure the following immediate actions to help remedy the grave situation in Jambi:

• Conduct a thorough investigation of the case by a mutually agreed independent third party
• Recognize the customary land rights and tenure of the Indigenous community (Suku Anak Dalam Batin Sembilan)
• Participate in and support a mutually agreed upon dispute resolution process to address the long standing conflicts with Wilmar
• If requested, provide humanitarian support for the affected victims in the community who have been impacted by this conflict

As part owner of the world’s single largest palm oil producer, ADM carries a large responsibility. We call on you to ensure that Wilmar adopt supply chain safeguards and addresses the systemic problems in its company operations that have resulted in ongoing social conflict as well as clearing of natural forests and exacerbation of climate change. We look forward to learning what you’ve done to address these grave concerns in the near future.

Sincerely,

Lindsey Allen
Forest Program Director, Rainforest Action Network
Lindsey@ran.org
(415) 659-0532

Rainforest destroying palm oil is an ingredient in roughly 50% of all packaged goods sold on grocery store shelves. It is used to make a wide variety of food products from cookies to breakfast cereals as well as cosmetics, soaps and detergents, and is largely responsible for the decimation of Indonesia’s precious endangered forests. In fact, the expansion of palm oil plantations is one of the biggest causes of rainforest destruction and carbon pollution in the world today.

We need these forests far more than we need palm oil. That’s a fact.

The infographic below shows exactly how pristine rainforests get turned into palm oil plantations, how they make their way onto our grocery store shelves and into our homes, and what we can do about it.

Click to view full-size infographic

Until recently very few people had even heard of palm oil — much less understood its connection to deforestation, species extinction and climate change. As public awareness about the problem with palm oil gains momentum, agribusiness giants like Cargill are starting to feel the pressure to transform how business is done in the palm oil industry. But the truth is, most people still have no idea that a huge percentage of the products they bring into their homes contain palm oil connected to the destruction of rainforests.

Knowledge is power. Please share this infographic with your friends and family so we can build the necessary consumer demand for change. Email it, blog it, tweet it, Facebook it. Thank you.

Click to view full-size infographic

Did you see the palm oil infographic we released today? I hope so! If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out.

Were you shocked to find out that palm oil is in half of the products in your pantry? Yep, that’s right, palm oil is in roughly 50% of all packaged goods, from cookies, peanut butter, and breakfast cereal to cleaning products, laundry detergent, lipstick, and body lotion.

Are you wondering how that’s possible, because you don’t see the words “palm oil” on many of the ingredient labels in your pantry?

Here’s the scoop: Palm oil is often disguised, hidden behind many different ingredient names you probably don’t recognize when you go to your pantry or bathroom to check. To make things even more confusing for you as a consumer, sometimes companies will only disclose ingredients like “vegetable oil,” and though that vegetable oil blend likely contains palm oil, it’s not always a labeling requirement.

To help you navigate these confusing waters and avoid unwittingly voting for rainforest destruction with your dollars, here is a partial list of other names for palm oil-derived ingredients:*

• PKO – Palm Kernel Oil
• PKO fractionations: Palm Kernel Stearin (PKs); Palm Kernel Olein (PKOo)
• PHPKO – Partially hydrogenated Palm Oil
• FP(K)O – Fractionated Palm Oil
• OPKO – Organic Palm Kernel Oil
• Palmitate – Vitamin A or Asorbyl Palmitate (NOTE: Vitamin A Palmitate is a very common ingredient in breakfast cereals and we have confirmed 100% of the samples we’ve investigated to be derived from palm oil)
• Palmate
• Sodium Laureth Sulphate (Can also be from coconut)
• Sodium Lauryl Sulphates (can also be from ricinus oil)
• Sodium dodecyl Sulphate (SDS or NaDS)
• Elaeis Guineensis
• Glyceryl Stearate
• Stearic Acid
• Chemicals which contain palm oil
• Steareth -2
• Steareth -20
• Sodium Lauryl Sulphate
• Sodium lauryl sulfoacetate (coconut and/or palm)
• Hydrated palm glycerides
• Sodium isostearoyl lactylaye (derived from vegetable stearic acid)
• Cetyl palmitate and octyl palmitate (names with palmitate at the end are usually derived from palm oil, but as in the case of Vitamin A Palmitate, very rarely a company will use a different vegetable oil)

*Disclaimer: Through research we’ve found that Vitamin A Palmitate can be derived from any combination of vegetable oil such as olive, coconut, canola and/or palm oil. Though in all the cases we’ve documented, companies use palm oil to make derivatives like Vitamin A Palmitate, it can be tricky to know for sure.

Justice Begins with Seeds

Bringing together an inspiring array of speakers including Vandana Shiva, Ignacio Chapela, Andrew Kimbrell, and Miguel Altieri, the Justice Begins with Seeds conference in San Francisco provided an important platform to reignite the struggle against the ongoing genetic modification of our food and food systems.

The California Biosafety Alliance, an organization that works to create “coalitions to address GMOs: the symbol of the corporate food regime”, organized the conference to address the many implications of genetically engineered food and build strategic alliances and deeper collaborations amongst diverse stakeholders for more widespread action throughout the state of California to shift away from the industrial food regime.

The Rainforest Action Network and Food & Water Watch ran a joint training at the conference entitled “Building a Powerful Political Campaign Against the Corporate Control of Seeds: Learning from Other Contexts”.

I was inspired by the words of Marcia Ishii-Eiteman of the Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA), who said, “It’s time to reclaim our food system by challenging corporate control and building a food democracy.” RAN agrees that the growing the movement to challenge corporate agriculture is needed now more than ever as the consolidation of our food chain becomes more of a threat to food sovereignty and ecological integrity every day.

As Ignacio Chapela mentioned in his keynote, ADM recently went on public radio and asked us to “imagine if we had just one big farm to feed the whole world”. No, ADM, I can’t imagine what our food system would look like if we lost all semblance of genetic diversity, community supported agriculture, food democracy and food sovereignty….

On the brighter side, we’re seeing heightened government action: at least 40 countries now have anti-GMO laws (about a dozen of them in Africa), restrictions, prohibitions and/or labeling requirements. Moving beyond the political landscape of GMOs, we’re seeing other types of government leadership in the realm of corporate agriculture.

Take, for example, Australia. Despite intense lobbying by Malaysian palm oil industry leaders, Australian senators are pushing for the Aussie Parliament to pass a bill compelling the national food industry to increase the transparency in food labeling. Currently, palm oil in Australia hides under the label “vegetable oil,” and the controversial bill on the table would ensure that products containing rainforest-destroying palm oil were labeled as such.

Inspired by a growing resistance to the industrial food complex in all its ugly forms, from palm oil to genetically engineered foods, I am re-invigorated to up the anty on Cargill — one of the single most powerful symbols of all that is wrong with our food system. With your help, we can pressure Cargill to adopt supply chain safeguards so that America’s food supply may one day be fed by family and local community farms rather than industrial-scale plantations that destroy tropical rainforests, exacerbate climate change, push orangutans to extinction and displace Indigenous communities from their ancestral lands.

Activists chat with Wayzata, MN residents on September 10-11 at the annunal J. J. Hill parade.

If a place exists where Cargill has spent the time and resources to look as proper as the front row of a church on Sunday, it’s in the wealthy Minnesota suburbs where the quiet giant is headquartered.

Unfortunately for everyone else, Minnesota is also the only place (besides the Internet) where Cargill bothers to try and resemble a good neighbor. For the rest of us — from your average American carnivore to San Francisco Bay conservationists to palm oil plantation workers — Cargill is a name as rotten as a recalled turkey sausage. As CEO Greg Page will tell you, Cargill’s in it for the money above all else.

Cargill released some updated palm oil commitments in July 2011. The problem is that these commitments are too little, too late. They still don’t comprise a solid policy with safeguards regarding climate impacts and labor conditions, both HUGE problems with palm oil.

Now, it seems like Cargill is even losing ground in its hometown. Local Minnesota activists attended Wayzata’s annual James H. Hill Parade last weekend to distribute a flier setting the facts straight about Cargill and palm oil. Maybe you wouldn’t expect palm oil activists in Cargill’s hometown to be very well received, but they were!

When activists handed out the fliers, they had to actually explain that they weren’t with Cargill, but actually taking action to change the company. Only after the activists explained that they weren’t with Cargill were people willing to talk with them. And once they learned about the campaign, Wayzata parade-goers (and even Cargill employees) were supportive of the activists’ efforts. Multiple people told them to keep up the good work.

Well, we will certainly keep up the good work. Thanks Wayzata!

Dozens of orangutan skulls were amongst 400 illegal materials of endangered animals confiscated in a raid in Austrailia in August 2011. Photo: Jakarta Post

An article in yesterday’s Jakarta Post identifies the role of palm oil plantations in the illegal souvenir trade of the skulls of endangered orangutans. Indonesia-based Center for Orangutan Protection (COP) has reported four orangutan skulls found on a palm oil plantation in Central Kalimantan and another orangutan corpse buried on a palm oil plantation in East Kalimantan.

As Indonesia’s biodiverse rainforests are destroyed and fragmented, leading to the rapid decimation of critical habitat to make way for corporate agribusiness operations, orangutan populations become more vulnerable to poachers. And the fact that many palm oil plantations pay their workers wages so low that they’re on the U.S. Department of Labor’s Red List for Slave Labor is only exacerbating the problem of illegal poaching of nearby apes for the lucrative souvenir trade of orangutan skull (even as these plantations nose up to the last bits of orangutan habitat, no less).

As the Jakarta Post article states, effective government enforcement of existing anti-poaching and animal trade laws is needed urgently. It is also the responsibility of the palm oil plantations creating this nightmarish situation to not house or promote these illegal operations. Similarly, major U.S.  importers of this bloodied palm oil, like Cargill Inc., should have policies for their palm oil imports that specific creates safeguards against both the human exploitation and animal cruelty from entering this commodity’s supply chain.

This is a situation where fast action is needed. Fortunately, there are activists, researchers, scientists, and communities taking a stand. Together, we can accumulate knowledge and solutions. You can read a first-hand account of Sean Whyte, an inspiring orangutan activist, and his network of Ape Crusaders (the title of his newest book).

A man imprisoned for protesting palm oil expansion on his native customary land. Photo by Hendrikus Adam of Walhi Kalbar (Friends of the Earth West Kalimantan).

Much like the story with palm oil suppliers IOI and KLK, Cargill is again implicated in serious human rights abuses through it’s palm oil supplier Wilmar.

News of yet another case of heated social conflict on an oil palm plantation is breaking in Indonesia, and meanwhile Cargill continues to traffic this controversial palm oil into the US and sell it to most major brand companies throughout North America.

Today RAN released a press statement exposing these damning links and expressing our concern that the palm oil Cargill supplies and trades to the world is tied to intensifying community violence in Indonesia.

Cargill Supplier Linked to Violence and Home Demolition in Indonesia

San Francisco, CA – Newly uncovered customs data unearthed by Rainforest Action Network links agriculture trading giant Cargill to recent acts of violence, intimidation and home demolition against Indigenous villagers on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

The security forces of Cargill palm oil supplier Wilmar have been documented using armed violence and heavy machinery to destroy homes in the village of Sungai Beruang. This attack is an escalation of a long simmering tension over land rights between the native community and Wilmar affiliate “Asiatic Persada.” Another wholly owned Wilmar subsidiary, PGEO Edible Oils, has been a frequent supplier of palm oil to Cargill.

The most recent conflicts began August 8, after Wilmar’s security forces apprehended a villager because he attempted to sell palm oil fruits that the company claimed it owned. This resulted in an altercation between community members and police forces. On August 10, Wilmar security forces, together with the Indonesian special police brigade Brimob, entered the village and began demolishing homes with bulldozers. Brimob fired live ammunition and reports from the scene say that over 100 men, women and children were evicted from their homes. A coalition of organizations has submitted a letter of complaint to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) but no response has been received at this time.

Cargill's supply chain is leaving a trail of community destruction. Photo: Rainforest Rescue

Rainforest Action Network Forest Program Director Lindsey Allen issued the following statement in response to this latest controversy:

“This outrageous act of violence against community members is yet another in a series of examples that starkly illustrate why Cargill must adopt crucial safeguards on its supply chains. This is the only way Cargill will be able to guarantee these kinds of gross human rights violations do not continue to be imported into the American food supply.

“Rainforest Action Network has been warning Cargill for years that the company’s supply chain is vulnerable to serious human rights abuses, including slave labor and violence against Indigenous villagers. Rainforest Action Network deeply regrets that homes and livelihoods have been destroyed in this latest conflict and we hope this is a wake up call for Cargill to change the way it does business.

“Rainforest Action Network demands that Cargill implement meaningful safeguards to prevent anything of this sort from happening again. Cargill should also pressure the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) to set in motion a process to resolve the situation amicably and address the underlying land dispute, in line with RSPO Principles 2 and 6.”

Rivani Noor, a human rights and environmental advocate with the Indonesian NGO Cappa, said “This is a crime against humanity. Wilmar has blood on its hands. The assertion that this company produces sustainable palm oil is a lie.”

Photos of the destroyed village can be found at: www.robinwood.de/palmoel

For more photos and information on longstanding conflict resolution efforts with Wilmar, contact Rivani Noor with the contact information listed above.

For background on the campaign to convince Cargill to institute supply chain safeguards, and the company’s history of ties to environmental and human rights scandals, please contact Laurel Sutherlin at RAN with the contact information listed above.

Palm Oil operations are destroying orangutan habitat

This post is by Girl Scouts Madison Vorva (age 16) and Rhiannon Tomtishen (age 15), who have been campaigning to get palm oil out of Girl Scout Cookies for the past few years.

Five years ago, while doing research for our Girl Scout Bronze Award, we learned that the cultivation of palm oil and palm kernel oil results in deforestation in Indonesia as well as orangutan extinction and human rights abuses. We were shocked to find that palm oil was, and continues to be, an ingredient in Girl Scout Cookies. We were both eleven years old at the time, and had enjoyed selling cookies for years as a fundraiser for Girl Scouts USA (GSUSA).

In 2007, we began our own grassroots campaign to convince GSUSA to remove palm oil from Girl Scout Cookies. We wrote letters, designed a petition (which has since been signed by Dr. Jane Goodall), created a website and organized with other scouts for years. But the organization that had played such a huge role in teaching us leadership and environmental stewardship gave us very little response. After working with environmental organizations like Rainforest Action Network, top decision makers at GSUSA finally agreed to meet with us.

As a result of the meeting, GSUSA has committed to working with us to find a solution to the palm oil in Girl Scout cookies that does not harm people, animals, or the environment. Unfortunately, the organization has not yet made any concrete decisions regarding this pressing problem. That’s why we need your support more than ever right now!

We’re encouraging all Girl Scouts to earn one of our limited edition “Rainforest Hero Badges” to help us show Girl Scouts USA that Girl Scouts all across the country will not settle for cookies that contribute to human rights abuses, deforestation and orangutan extinction.

Girl Scouts of all ages across the country have completed the community outreach actions to earn their badge and have had a great time doing it. There are still 200 limited-edition Rainforest Hero Badges to give scouts who download the Rainforest Hero Badge Toolkit and follow the instructions inside.

Scout Tianna Couch from Port Jefferson, NY was nervous to take on the Rainforest Hero Badge project because she feared her fellow troop members wouldn’t be interested in learning about rainforest destruction caused by palm oil. However, she was thrilled at the outcome — all of the girls in her troop cared deeply cared about the issue and were extremely supportive. They were eager to learn as much as they could about the issue.

When hundreds of Girl Scouts from all over the country earn this badge, it will demonstrate to GSUSA how important this issue is to the girls who make up the organization and that we want to show our concern in a positive way.

Girl Scouts USA is an incredible organization that builds girls of “courage, confidence and character, who make the world a better place.” As Girl Scouts, we’re doing our best to live by that example. We’re asking GSUSA to live by its own mission statement, and ensure that its cookies are environmentally and socially responsible.

We want to thank everyone for all the support you’ve given this campaign and everything you’ve done to save the lives of orangutans and their rainforest home.

-Madi and Rhiannon