Campaign Alerts
Support campaigns on critical issues which threaten the orangutans' last remaining habitat. Each action below will only take a few minutes, and adding your voice to these calls for change will make a big difference.
Stop Biofuelling Deforestation: How your fuel bills are subsidising deforestation - and what you can do about it!
The UK government is considering offering subsidies to power stations to burn biofuels - including palm oil - for heat and power.
These subsidies, called Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs) are the government's way of supporting renewable energy technologies, as part of plans to reduce the country's greenhouse gas emissions. Nobody would deny that we need more investment in renewables, but, as well as supporting clean technologies such as wind farms, ROCs also finance electricity generation from the burning of bioliquids such as palm oil. On top of the threat that this increase in demand for fuel crops poses to tropical forests and biodiversity, some biofuels have been shown to actually lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
And what's more, this is being funded through our fuel bills!
Please support our campaign which calls on the Government to abandon subsidies for environmentally destructive biofuels. Write to the Department for Energy and Climate Change today.
Clear Labels, Not Forests
The expansion of oil palm plantations in Indonesia
and Malaysia is a significant driver of deforestation. Palm oil is a
hidden ingredient found in up to half of packaged foods across Europe, including chocolate, biscuits, margarine and crisps; it is
usually simply listed as 'vegetable oil'.
Following a review in Europe about how food is labelled, we launched the Clear Labels, Not Forests campaign to call for clear labelling of specific vegetable oils on food ingerdients lists. Clearer labelling of ingredients such as palm oil
will allow EU citizens to make choices about the products they buy. It
will also support vital changes in the palm oil industry as food
companies will be encouraged to use sustainable palm oil in their
products.
** UPDATE: NOVEMBER 2011 **
Exciting news from the Clear Labels, Not Forests campaign: the European Parliament voted YES for the compulsory labelling of palm oil in food products in Europe in July. This regulation was formally adopted in September. This will help to drive demand for certified sustainable palm oil, which is good news for forests and wildlife. Thank you for helping us achieve this fantastic result!
Click here to read the press release about this campaign victory.
The Issues:
Palm Oil/Biofuels
The expansion of oil palm plantations into high conservation value forests is now the most critical threat to wild orangutans in Sumatra and Borneo. The Indonesian palm oil industry has announced that it intends to expand plantations rapidly in order to meet growing worldwide demand for palm oil as a biofuel.
Click here to find out more
Illegal Trade
The illegal trade in orangutans in Indonesia continues to be an activity that is decimating remaining wild populations. Whilst frequently a by-product of logging and clear cutting for plantations, the illicit trade requires the killing of the mother orangutan to obtain the infant ape. It is estimated that for every orangutan orphan that is sold at the marketplace on Java, Bali or a foreign land, six to eight orangutans die in the process of capture and transport. This trade must stop if we are to ensure the survival of wild orangutans.