Why you should stop buying palm oil

 

The baby pygmy elephant above was orphaned. In the picture, it is tying to wake its dead mother.

The forests of Borneo in Indonesia are becoming palm oil plantations at an alarming rate. Besides the dangers of deforestation, these plantations draw in the very rare Borneo pygmy elephant, once thought to be extinct. These gentle eight-foot tall animals like to snack on the palms, but that means the farmers are losing some of their profit - so they kill the elephants. This recent article explains the rising death toll of the endangered animal, of which fewer than 1,500 exist, and the suspicion that these animals were poisoned. The palm plantations bring other threats as well, including a bigger population in the area, which comes with more human/elephant conflict, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Some people even set traps to catch small game, and poachers still operate under the radar. Then there's logging, which is a booming business. Their habitat is shrinking rapidly, leaving them less food and terrain.

Maybe it's because the phrase "an elephant never forgets" describes me perfectly. My husband always says I'm an elephant. I've considered getting tattoos of an elephant or a tiger. Maybe it's because all I can do is share this article with passersby, and that I feel hopeless that I will ever dramatically change the environment or the lives of animals for the better. Regardless of my reasons, I cannot imagine anything more saddening. I would not be able to control myself if I met the person responsible for the deaths of these animals. But what makes me feel worse than looking at the picture above is knowing there is an incredibly small amount of people willing to help in some way.

But, on the off chance you do care, the smallest way you can help is to stop buying products with palm oil (palm anything) without knowing where it came from and how ethical its production was. This consumer list tells us one in every ten grocery store products contains palm oil, but it also tells us how we can determine what products contain palm oil, and what companies they come from.

One Indonesian producer of palm oil, Smart, which Nestle is currently purchasing from, has been accused of rainforest destruction, while a sister company called Asia Pulp & Paper is known to be an extremely irresponsible environmental campaign. Even Unilever, with its Round table on Responsible Palm Oil, is a Greenpeace target. (Click here to find out more about Greenpeace's thoughts on the RSPO and a list of palm oil free brands.) Companies like this are only taking baby steps in the right direction, and by baby steps I mean "putting in the least amount of effort possible." When it comes down to it, I would suggest avoiding palm oil products altogether. Or aim for USDA organic.

A quick google search for "Indonesian deforestation" will provide you with many images of a landscape that does not look habitable for animals, as well as high profile articles on the subject by the BBC. OneGreenPlanet.org also has a very good article about the destruction connected to palm oil.