Nature Alert: PALM OIL & AUSTRALIA

Wednesday 24 March 2010

PALM OIL & AUSTRALIA

Letter received by a supporter in Australia.
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Thank-you for your letter expressing concern for the use of palm oil in products found in Coles Supermarkets. We share your concern, and respect your rights as a consumer to be able to determine ethical and sustainable choices.

At present we are not in a position to confirm that the palm oil used across our entire range of products come from sustainable sources. Our product quality standards state that where palm oil is used we aim to conform to the Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil Principles & Criteria for Sustainable Palm Oil Production, which we consider to be industry best practice.

The Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil is a conglomerate of social and environmental NGO's, palm oil growers, processors & traders, consumer goods manufacturers, and retailers. Their aim is to promote the growth and use of sustainable palm oil through cooperation and open dialogue amongst industry stakeholders.

You would appreciate that Coles does not set industry guidelines nor regulate regarding palm oil production. However, we work closely with our suppliers to strive to source environmentally sustainable, and ethical ingredients.

We recognise there are a number of private label products which contain palm oil. Our intention is to indicate through more transparent labelling which products contain palm oil as an ingredient. This would be indicated in the ingredient list.

In some cases we are able to verify the country of origin of the palm oil, and we are currently in the process of implementing a database that will allow us to verify the source of ingredients in all of our 'private label'
products.

Once again, thank-you for your letter, and we are determined to make ethical and environmentally sustainable choices easier for our customers.

Yours Sincerely,
Kate Lyons
Customer Care Consultant

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.