VICTORY! Oil Palm Companies Pledge to Stay Out of Indonesian Rainforests
Palm oil companies operating in Indonesia have pledged to stop expanding plantations into rainforests [ark]. In late 2006 Ecological Internet was the first to launch a large international protest campaign on this matter -- bringing to the world's attention how oil palm plantations on carbon rich tropical rainforest peatlands were destroying biodiversity, global climate and orangutan habitat. Over 11,000 protestors from 114 countries sent one quarter of a million protest emails to the Indonesian government. On another occasion similar numbers brought the matter to the attention of every UN climate change national focal point. Others including Greenpeace later followed our lead [ark | search].
Together we -- including EI Earth Action Network members -- have achieved these pledges to keep oil palm out of rainforests, and this is a tremendous victory for rainforest and climate protection movement. Certainly more remains to be done. It is still questionable to use food for fuel. Indigenous and other local peoples may still lose their land to corporations. Already cleared peat soils that should be reflooded and restored to hold their carbon are likely to be developed. And the Indonesian government is notoriously fast and loose with promises to disarm environmental campaigns, and enforcement may well lag. Without continued monitoring, this pledge will be disregarded and oil palm will continue to expand even into protected areas [ark] and orangutan habitat [ark]. Yet what makes this victory so savory is that it is the companies buying the palm oil themselves that have made the pledge -- it will be hard for them to renege.
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