Posted by ianduff — 11 December 2009 at 2:34pm
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As world leaders line up in Copenhagen to agree a new climate treaty, we've also been working hard to secure a result that will have a positive impact on the global climate - by protecting Indonesia's forests.
Today we're publicly releasing new evidence that Sinar Mas, Indonesia’s biggest palm oil producer, has been persistently engaging in widespread illegal deforestation and peatland clearance. We presented presented the evidence in this dossier to one of their biggest customers, the giant Unilever corporation. Now Unilever has decided to stop buying palm oil from Sinar Mas.
It's been a few weeks since the Esperanza's
tour of Indonesia
wrapped up with an exhausting
but thrilling week of direct action focused on various palm oil tankers, and
I've since left those humid equatorial climes to return to a chilly British
winter. But even though the ship has moved on to other countries and campaigns,
the palm oil campaign continues and in the past few weeks there have been some developments.
The most obvious has been annual meeting of
the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in Bali - this could have been
the moment the industry got its act together and did something other than spin the
usual load of greenwash over its involvement in the destruction of south east
Asia's rainforests. Sadly, it was
not to be. Although our ship painting/blockading actions drew a lot of
attention, as did our earlier revelations about United
Plantations and their 'sustainable' palm oil, no real progress was made.
Last week, campaigners from Greenpeace
South-East Asia met with palm oil producers and traders to discuss the
challenges faced by the industry if it's going to get a grip on the problem of
deforestation. The seminar was designed to get these companies thinking about
the impact their trade is having on forests in the region, and working groups
brought together industry reps and campaigners to discuss the issues involved,
particularly our demand for a moratorium on clearing forest areas for palm oil
plantations.
Since the rapid turn-around of Unilever in the
wake of our Dove campaign, our campaigners have met several times with their
executives. They've been discussing how to build a coalition of allies throughout
the palm oil industry which will support a moratorium on further deforestation
in Indonesia
to grow new plantations. As Tracy
mentioned last week, even though things might go a bit quiet on this campaign
for while, that doesn't mean we're not working away behind the scenes.
This report highlights the urgent need for
global palm oil consumers and investors to support Unilever's call for
an immediate moratorium on deforestation and peatland clearance in
Indonesia.
This report focuses on Unilever,
which shares major institutional investors with other leading
corporations including Nestle, Procter & Gamble and Kraft. Not only
do these corporations share investors, they also share growing carbon
liability within their raw material supply chains through the expansion
in the palm oil sector in Indonesia.
Posted by jossc — 1 May 2008 at 12:29pm
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Potentially good news for orang-utans - Unilever announced this morning that they're now supporting our calls
for a moratorium to protect Indonesia's rainforests from destruction at the hands of the expanding palm oil industry.
When we sent in our own 'orang-utans' to Unilever HQ last week to tell them
that they needed to do more to stop rainforest and peatlands being
cleared to make way for palm oil plantations, company executives told us
that they wouldn't be forced into a quick decision on the matter.
Posted by jamie — 29 April 2008 at 3:59pm
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Just some of the men, women and things who have told Dove to stop trashing rainforests
Our Dove campaign is rolling along and at the weekend it broke out into town centres up and down the country. Groups of Greenpeace volunteers were asking members of the public to pose for photos which are now part of our growing Flickr gallery full of people who think it's a bit mad to chop down rainforests just to make soap. We've had young 'uns, old 'uns and even a Cyberman - if you've had your picture taken, see if you can find it and send it to the people behind Dove (details below).