The Last Stand of the Sumatran Orangutan

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 [...]

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An Open Letter From RAN: What Do APP’s New Commitments on Forests, Peatlands and Community Rights Mean for Buyers and Investors?

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 [...]

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10 out of 10! RAN Brings Seismic Shift to US Publishing Industry; Next Stop: APP

Wow. You know your brand is in the gutter when even Rupert Murdoch won’t buy from you because of your company’s bad reputation. But few companies have done as much to earn their bad name as Asia Pulp and Paper (APP). Responding to RAN’s campaign, Murdoch’s HarperCollins has just announced they will no longer buy [...]

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Dr. Oz Responds to the Pressure, But Doesn’t Go Far Enough To Correct His Mistake

Thanks to the 14,430 (and counting) of you who signed the petition we created along with Orangutan Outreach, Dr. Oz has begun to tell his viewers the full story about palm oil—on his blog. But he hasn’t done enough. According to news reports, Dr. Oz’s enthusiastic support for red palm oil inspired a buying frenzy. [...]

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The Last Message Becky Wrote To You

For the last two weeks, we’ve been grieving the loss of RAN’s beloved executive director, Rebecca Tarbotton, who died tragically on December 26. 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 [...]

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Attention Holiday Shoppers: HarperCollins is Grinding up Rainforests to Make its Kids Books

Charismatic children’s character Fancy Nancy may be well known for saying that ‘every day is Earth Day,’ but her books have now been linked to one of the world’s most severe deforestation crises. Independent forensic fiber tests commissioned by Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and released today reveal significant quantities of Mixed Tropical Hardwood (MTH) and [...]

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EU Commission Gives Increasingly Controversial Palm Oil Green Stamp

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 [...]

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Warning to Banks: Don’t Finance Rainforest Destruction

Last week, RAN joined sixty environmental and social organizations, including a dozen Indonesian groups, in signing an open letter to banks and other financial institutions across the globe warning them to avoid investments in pulp and paper industry projects associated with deforestation and human right abuses in Indonesia. The letter highlights concern with companies associated [...]

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Victory for Forests: Disney Changes Sourcing On All Its Paper Products, Takes a Stand for Endangered Forests and Animals

Today, Disney adds its significant voice to the growing chorus of companies demonstrating that there’s no need to sacrifice endangered forests in Indonesia or elsewhere for the paper we use every day. This entertainment giant, which is the world’s biggest publisher of children’s books and magazines, has adopted what may be one of the most [...]

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RAN Executive Director on the Connections Between Forests and Climate Change

It has been an extreme summer. Droughts. Wildfires. Crop failures. Heat waves. Melting ice caps. We’ve seen these words so much this summer you may not feel any shock at the sight of them now. It is clear that we are no longer talking about climate change as a fearful phenomenon in the future; we [...]

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