Planetsave

So what is the problem with palm oil? Take a peek at this short video explaining:

To recap, palm oil is in many common supermarket products such as snacks, candy, and even soaps and detergents. Rainforest Action Network has created a site to educate consumers on the how destructive palm oil is to our global environment. Palm oil destroys vital ecosystems, contributes to global climate change, results in the displacement of Indigenous people and small family farmers, and is produced through exploitative labor practices.

Please help educate grocery shoppers about these facts and take action in anyway possible. RAN tells us: “Palm  oil  plantations  are  expanding  into  the  planet’s  most biodiverse  ecosystems,  including  rainforests,  grasslands  and  peat swamps in South America, Southeast Asia, the Pacific and Africa. These regions are home to millions of plant and animal species, including highly endangered orangutans, clouded leopards, and sun bears.”

Big palm oil companies pay to have important oxygen providing rainforests clear cut for their palm crops and painfully push out the native people that rely on the land. This endangers the plants, animals and waterways that entire communities have thrived on forever.

• » See also: An Ocean of Effort
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Endangered rainforest ecosystems that are made into monocultural oil palm plantations not only hurt locally but also globally as they contribute heavily to climate change. How is this? Well, in order to grow their palm crops beautiful rainforests are clear-cut and burned, and carbon-rich peat swamps are drained and burned. This burning causes major pollution.“Deforestation accounts for a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions and is the primary reason that Indonesia and Brazil are now the world’s third and fourth largest greenhouse gas polluters.“

In addition,“the spread of massive palm oil plantations often violates traditional and Indigenous land rights by forcing small family farmers to shift from subsistence to export-driven commodity farming or pushing them off their land entirely…” and “many palm oil-plantation workers face abuse, harsh working conditions, unfair pay, and exposure to toxic pesticides. In Papua New Guinea, a gendered system of palm oil harvest called the Mama Lus system pays women less and forces them into harder, more dangerous labor than their male counterparts.” explains Rainforest Action Network.

Now with internet campaigns like this it is possible for the word to spread faster than their fires and for us to take a collective stand against palm oil.

Read more on Palm Oil here:

1. Greenpeace, Dove, Palm Oil, and the Destruction of the Rainforest … Unilever imports palm oil from Indonesia, where rainforests and tropical peatlands … need for any face/body creams, oils etc..
2. Samsung to Invest $1.63 Billion in Indonesian Biodiesel Project …In response, the head of the Indonesian Palm Oil Association said…
3. Global Warming Effects and Causes: A Top 10 List : Planetsave… tropical forest lands for commodities like palm oil plantations …. I agree , that is a problem. Unkown if will warm or cool the earth.

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