World Bank Funds Destructive Palm Oil Industry

Should the World Bank be lending to the Indonesian palm oil industry, which is an environmental disaster, when the Bank may be called upon to manage international forest carbon funds? Rainforest Rescue definitely doesn’t think so – and they want your help in getting the Bank to end finance of industrial development that impacts rainforests.

From Rainforest Portal:

The World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) ignored its own environmental and social protection standards when it approved over a twenty year period nearly $200 million in loan guarantees for palm oil production in Indonesia. The IFC has temporarily frozen new investments in oil palm projects and is reviewing all current oil palm projects. The message must be conveyed to the World Bank that oil palm and any finance of industrial development that deforests or diminishes primary tropical rainforest must permanently end. And certainly oil palm — or any logging of primary forests, or replacement of primary forests with plantations — is not worthy of REDD forest carbon funding.

Indonesia is home to large primary rainforests and peat swamps, which naturally hold and continue to remove carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas that causes climate change.  Rampant destruction of these forests, largely to make way for palm oil plantations, has caused giant releases of CO2 into the atmosphere, making Indonesia the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases on the planet.  Oil palm inevitably causes widespread clearance of forests and peatlands and the theft of indigenous peoples’ lands.  Auditors found that Wilmar International Ltd., the recipient of IFC loans, was illegally using fire to clear primary forests, and seizing Indigenous peoples land without free, prior, and informed consent.

Protest this conflict of interest at the Rainforest Portal website by simply adding your name and email address to a protest email that will be sent to IFC officials.

Learn more about how palm oil production is threatening endangered orangutans and other wildlife, destroying Indonesian rainforests and ‘cooking the climate’ at Greenpeace.

Link [Rainforest Portal] + [Greenpeace]
Photo credit: Redapes.org

Drop Those Cookies! Girl Scouts Want You to Pass on the Thin Mints

Next time you hear a box of delicious Girl Scout cookies calling your name, picture a sad monkey. Two girl scouts from Ann Arbor, Michigan want you to know that mass consumption of Thin Mints is putting endangered orangutans out of their homes.

Seattle Times has it:

Madison Vorva and Rhiannon Tomtishen, both 12, started doing research last fall on endangered orangutans in Indonesia as part of their Bronze Award project. They discovered the habitat of orangutans is being threatened by conversion of the land to the production of palm oil, an ingredient in Girl Scout Cookies.

Although the two have sold many boxes of cookies over the years, this year they sold magazines instead.

Evidently the Girl Scout higher-ups aren’t too pleased with this, considering that they depend upon cookie sales for funding. They’ve told the girls that ABC Bakers, who produce the cookies, have promised to avoid purchasing palm oil from areas deforested specifically for palm oil production, but this hasn’t satisfied the girls.

I used to be a Girl Scout, myself, in the 80s – pulling my little red wagon of cookies down the street. Had I caught wind of something like this, I most certainly would have taken the opportunity to yell things like ‘monkey killers’ at people to get out of selling cookies. Mostly because neighbor boys would chase me down the street on their bicycles making fun of my uniform, but also because, you know, I cared about monkeys and stuff.

Link [Seattle Times]

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons, in the spirit of Lolcats