Nature Alert: Costing the Earth

Sunday 21 June 2009

Costing the Earth

A letter sent by me to the New Zealand Herald newspaper, but to date it has not been published

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Dear Sir/Madam,

I imagine it will come as a shock to most people in New Zealand to learn (see Costing the Earth Helen Harvey 15th June) they are contributing to the mass deforestation and slaughter of animals such as orangutans, tigers and elephants - to name a few.

It seems extraordinary a country so rich in natural countryside resorts to importing palm kernel all the way from Malaysia and Indonesia, to feed cattle in New Zealand. Does anyone in New Zealand want to eat meat tainted with such death and destruction?

Public awareness, worldwide, of the environmental cost of palm kernel/oil is growing rapidly. Consumers are refusing to buy everyday products like biscuits and sweets which come from a non-sustainable, fully approved source. How long will it be before the world knows what goes into beef bought from New Zealand and refuse to buy it? The real cost of palm kernel to New Zealand will then be felt as it is in Indonesia and Malaysia.

No one is asking for a boycott of palm oil or kernel.

What the world needs is fully sustainable palm kernel and oil. It's available now to New Zealand farmers - if they choose to buy it. If they choose not to, anyone who eats beef sourced from New Zealand will have to worry 'Do I want to buy beef which could be tainted with the blood of slaughtered orangutans, tigers etc.?' Who is to know which cow may have eaten palm kernel? Surely, New Zealand, a country with such an enviable reputation for protecting its own environment, does not want to be linked with countries who make a habit of destroying their own, in part, to feed cows.

Sean Whyte

Chief Executive

Nature Alert

Hall of Shame for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the Palm Oil Industry.

Nothing can prepare one for the sight of the systematic extermination of orangutans by the government of Indonesia.

Look at the photos and news articles on these pages in the context of a statement the President made to the media on 10th December 2007.

“In the last 35 years about 50,000 orangutans are estimated to have been lost as their habitats shrank. If this continues, this majestic creature will likely face extinction by 2050,” President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said at the launch of an orangutan conservation plan at the climate talks in Bali.

“The fate of the orangutan is a subject that goes to the heart of sustainable forests … To save the orangutan we have to save the forest.”

Statements like these are most welcome, but unless backed up by action, such words fall on deaf ears within the Ministry of Forestry....who are busy granting licences to cut down the very forests the President says they should protect!

When you think you are to busy to help, please could you reflect for a moment on .........

The following extract refers to environmental problems in general. I just hope you find it as thought provoking and relevant to orangutans as I have.

"This is such a shocking and unpalatable fact that most people deny it, or they just don't want to think about it. They believe as individuals, they can do little about it, so push it to the back of their minds. But I can't do that.

When something has to be done, we need to do it. It doesn't matter how big the challenge is or how hard the solution; if I know something is wrong, and I am in a position to help, I will do my best to make it right." Duncan Bannatyne, successful British businessman.