Don't Palm Us Off Campaign

Don’t Palm Us Off is part of a national campaign urging people to sign a petition – via postcards, an interactive touch-screen at Perth Zoo or online – to mandate the labelling of products containing palm oil. MUWA will be running a postcard drive where you can show your support for this campaign in the coming weeks, so keep your eyes out for postcards (or you can visit the Perth Zoo site here and sign the online petition).

Approximately 6,000 orangutans are killed per year and the United Nations warns that orangutans could become extinct within a generation. The primary reason for the orangutans’ habitat being destroyed is the increasing demand for oil palm plantations which results in large-scale clearing of rainforests in Indonesia and Malaysia. Over 85% of the world’s palm oil comes from these two countries.

As a vegetable oil, palm oil is used in a variety of products such as chocolate, bread, detergents and cosmetics. While oil palm plantations could be grown on already-degraded land, palm oil companies lobby to use forested land because they can sell off the valuable forest timber.

The aim of the campaign is to empower consumers to make informed decisions about the food they purchase. By knowing whether or not palm oil has been used in the production of groceries and household products, you can choose not to buy those products and therefore help orangutans. It is estimated that Australians unknowingly consume an average of ten kilograms of palm oil per person each year.

In South-east Asia alone, the equivalent of 300 soccer fields are deforested every hour for oil palm plantations. In addition to fuelling global warming by releasing vast quantities of CO² into the atmosphere, this unsustainable practice is pushing species such as the Sumatran Orangutan toward extinction.

When displaced orangutans venture into the plantations in search of food, many are slaughtered. Often bounties are offered for their slaughter and orphaned infants are sold in the pet trade.

Many other animals including the Sumatran Tiger and Sumatran Elephant are also affected by the sprawl of oil palm plantations encroaching on their habitat.

Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) has the power to change food labelling legislation. However, in order to justify this change the community needs to ensure that FSANZ knows that you want the right to choose.