RAN: Big In Japan

This October marks the sixth anniversary of the opening of Rainforest Action Network’s Japan office, spearheaded by our Tokyo-based, activist-ambassador Toyo Kawakami. Toyo began working for RAN in 2005, campaigning to convince large Japanese paper companies and retailers to stop buying wood chips linked to the destruction of Tasmania’s old growth forests sold by Australian [...]

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Peat Fires Greet Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force Assembly

Thick smoke from burning peatlands hangs over the capital of Central Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo every morning. The smell from the smoke is pervasive, a constant reminder of how Indonesia has become the third largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world. Driven by relentless and ill advised palm oil expansion, Kalimantan’s carbon rich but relatively [...]

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Girl Scouts USA Announces Palm Oil Plan for Thin Mints: Greenwash or Game-Changer?

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 [...]

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Earthdance And Critical Beats Release Album To Support Frontline Communities

Some of the world’s hottest DJs, including Govinda, Bluetech, and DJ Spooky, teamed up with Indigenous musicians from the Amazon to create some truly inspirational music. Now it’s your turn to inspire and be inspired by their beats. Earthdance International, Critical Beats for the Climate, and Rainforest Action Network are teaming up to promote the [...]

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Cargill Losing Minnesota Community Support Over Rainforest Destruction

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 [...]

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Cargill’s Record Profits Come at the Expense of Record Deforestation

Cargill just reported record profits of $4.2 billion dollars for its 2010 fiscal year, a 63% increase over the previous year. As the world’s biggest agricultural trader — and the largest importer of rainforest-destroying palm oil into the US — it’s easy to see how the company achieved such huge numbers. From Girl Scout cookies [...]

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PHOTOS: RAN on the Frontlines of Indonesia’s Endangered Rainforests

RAN Forest Campaigner Lafcadio Cortesi and I traveled to Sumatra, Indonesia last month to meet with and interview an extensive network of allies involved in the movement to resist the rampant deforestation and human rights abuses occurring there. We witnessed firsthand the ecological devastation, tense social conflicts and choking haze of carbon emissions resulting from [...]

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Can Protected Areas Combat the Sixth Mass Extinction?

Our planet is currently facing one of the most destructive extinction events in the history of the earth, with an estimated loss of 30,000 species per year, known as the Sixth Mass Extinction. The cause?  Humans. The pulp and paper and palm oil industries are causing species extinction left, right, and center in one of [...]

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Malaysia’s “Sustainable” Palm Oil Just Pure Greenwash

Malaysia Sustainable Palm Oil. Photo: astromediashop As I reported on Monday, the Malaysian government—hand in hand with the country’s largest palm oil companies—is attempting to undermine the RSPO’s “sustainable palm oil” certification standard by creating its own certification. Problem is—the Malaysian palm oil industry’s version of “sustainable palm oil” is pure greenwash which is extremely [...]

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Get A Free Ride With Malaysia’s New Sustainable Palm Oil Certification Scheme

If a massive palm oil company decides that getting its plantations certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is, well, just too hard, what do you think happens? The Malaysian government comes to the rescue, of course, and comes up with a solution that will allow IOI — the largest palm oil plantation [...]

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