To tell you to buy these palm-oil containing products

[Imchlibob]

Not a TAAT but something that I think deserves a thread of its own.

This is the snippet that I started responding to before realising that it needs a new thread.
Does have palm oil in it sadly but I think all spreads do.

The below is based on what I recall from a brief presentation at a zoo so I may have some details wrong but the broad thrust is accurate.
Not all palm oil is bad. See here.

There is sustainable palm oil - currently about 10% of the palm oil market - and the environment-destroying kind is the other 90%. But that 10% is struggling to grow because so many of us are avoiding all palm oil. Obviously a lot of people don't have time, energy or funds to let palm-oil issues dictate their shopping list. Those of us who do can have a better impact on the environment by supporting sustainable palm oil than by boycotting all palm oil.

For the same surface area of land a palm-oil plantation can produce 4 or 5 times as much oil as other oil crops like olives, sunflowers, rapeseed etc - no wonder food producers favour it. If it weren't for the devastating effect of monoculture plantations on biodiversity and habitat destruction it would be a miracle crop, dramatically reducing the quantities of land needed for farming. A sustainable palm-oil plantation works to maintain biodiversity and habitats by interspersing natural local plant life with the palm trees. Whilst this reduces the productivity to more like 3-4 times the volume produced by other crops that's still enough to be actually beneficial to the environment overall.

those of us who have thus far been boycotting all palm oil should instead make an active effort to buy and use products with sustainable palm oil - and if you have the time then write to the manufacturers of competitor brands that use unsustainable palm oil saying that you would be able to buy their products if they switched to sustainable palm oil.

It's generally unlikely that any large-scale food manufacture would re-write their recipe to exclude palm oil. However re-writing their buying policy to buy only sustainable palm oil is much more realistic.

Growing the proportion of the palm-oil market that uses sustainable product will have a much greater impact than boycotting the substance altogether.

A coalition of conservation charities are working together to publish this message - please do not boycott all palm oil - but please insist on sustainable palm-oil only

pdf document (2MB) of brands that use sustainable palm oil

Good to know about the nutella...I can believe the Italian brands like Ferrero really are sustainable.
It's a big thing in Italy with consumers at the moment food sustainability. I'm always impressed when I go to the supermarket in Italy how many things are labelled no palm oil/sustainable palm oil.

(They also seem to do a lot more gf options)

I've been to places where palm oil is grown or rubber. The native forest is chopped to grow the other crops. There is NO difference to growing enormous crops of wheat, rice, etc. Iceland grow their crops in green houses that are heated by thermal, volcanic heat. The world's population needs to eat. The wildlife will always be secondary. I just don't like the argument that industrialised countries are supposedly better than developing countries, when we chopped down our native lands a few years ago and did exactly what other countries are doing now. I just want people to be aware.

I was researching this recently with my DD has she is learning about it in school. The orangutans from Sumatra are highly talented and worth saving. See what these Sumatran orangutans in Jersey zoo can do:
www.durrell.org/wildlife/news/orangutan-sos/

Another example in service station toilets (of all places) I've seen adverts saying text money to receive a packet of seeds to grow flowers to attract bees. I understand that bees have lost habitat and are declining due to pesticides. The orangutans are near the top of the food chain. What about all the animals, insects and flowers lower down. The bee adverts, I have only seen in modern countries so far

Orangutan decline in 'sustainable palm oil plantations are the same as illegal palm oil plantations

The sad fact is that there is no such thing as sustainable palm oil.

Many companies which say they sign up to the RSPO values, refuse to publish any details of where their palm oil products come from or even if their products contain palm oil.

I'm taking slow steps to becoming palm oil free.

Interesting that Cadbury’s is listed under biscuits and cakes but not chocolate.

Freddo contains palm and shea oil....

A couple of links to the Eden Project info:
www.edenproject.com/visit/whats-here/rainforest-biome/oil-palm-exhibit

www.edenproject.com/media/2017/01/common-houseplant-could-hold-key-to-restoring-life-oil-palm-plantations

I agree it's a very complex subject to which there is no simple solution and communication is challenging.
I don't choose to berate anyone for using palm oil as most people aren't immersed in environmental concerns every day, TBH I think a lot of the stuff that worries/angers me doesn't even feature for the majority of people.

The solution is to stop buying items with palm oil in them. There are so many other alternatives. Seeing those poor orangutans breaks my heart.

Palm oil compounds

We chopped our forests down, what right do we have to stop other countries doing the same ? Yes these countries have amazing animals and plants. If they don't plant palm oil, they will probably plant another cash crop. Ive seen the palm oil plantations. But I've also seen the fields of wheat in developed countries.

I think if we in the Western World want to stop palm oil production in places such as Indonesia we will have to provide incentives to maintain the forests and the wildlife, not just stop buying certain products. If we stop buying palm oil, won't production just switch to a new crop instead?

Just like the EU provides subsidies to farmers to look after wildlife and hedgerows etc, our governments will need to pay places like Indonesia to protect habitats which are valuable to the whole world.

Just got my copy of Ethical Consumer magazine in the post today and coincidentally the main topic is Palm Oil!
It covers the current situation with RSPO and features very detailed ‘Best Buy’ tables for spreads (dairy and non-dairy) and biscuits.
I will post the headline stuff when I get a mo (have a 4 week old baby so it may be a few days until I get the chance!) or you can see the results on their website if you subscribe.

For those who don’t know, Ethical Consumer is a consumer guide, a bit like Which but for ethical issues. They cover different topics each time and are very wide ranging (e.g bank accounts to toothpaste). www.ethicalconsumer.org

They really go into depth in their research, scoring companies on a range of ethical issues and take into account the often hidden partnerships and parent companies behind the brands.

Though this often makes uncomfortable reading as I have discovered many of my staple favourite companies (Ecover, Method) are nowhere near as ethical as I had assumed :(

We chopped our forests down, what right do we have to stop other countries doing the same ?

Well- we used to stone people to death for adultery, and burn people for being "witches"- should we not speak out about countries still doing that in the 21st century? Or should we remain silent, because those countries aren't as developed as ours yet, MexicanCelebration?

I believe the person who established the Orangutan sanctuary that I have visited was British. If the world wants to keep forests and it's inhabitants, it needs to start with the local people. I'm not saying that chopping forests is right. Wildlife parks are being established. I'm saying that the reality is that the forests are being chopped for human reasons food or cash crops, or wood production.