Is hour Halloweem candy linked to rainforest destruction?

By Jeremy Hance - mongabay.com

A campaign by the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo hopes to raise awareness about the link between Halloween candy and deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia. Employing the images of Critically Endangered orangutans, the zoo urges consumer to only buy candy containing eco-certified palm oil by the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).

Palm oil, which is an incredibly productive vegetable oil, has become ubiquitous in recent decades in many products: from cosmetics to convenience foods, as well as popular Halloween candies. While the industry has been a boom to the nations' economies, its rapid expansion has been blamed in part for vast deforestation across Malaysia and Indonesia; in fact a recent paper for the 90 percent of palm oil plantations in the Malaysian state of Kalimantan came at the expense of forests.

Orangutans are unable to survive in the long-term in oil palm plantations as they lose their major food sources. In addition, sometimes they are hunted down as pests. This situation has led to increasingly overcrowded orangutan orphanages. However, the destruction of these forests, some of the most biodiverse in the region, not only imperils orangutans, but thousands of other species, some still unknown to science.

The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo has created a PDF file that is "meant to be a helpful guide for consumers that are concerned about orangutan conservation and deforestation due to non-sustainable palm oil production in Indonesia and Malaysia," and urges consumers to only purchase candy by RSPO members, a list that includes Nestle, Kellogg's, Hershey's and Mars among others.

"If you do not find your favorite snack/company on this list," the zoo writes, "take action by writing a letter and asking the company to join the RSPO and be committed to using certified sustainable palm oil."

Read more at http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1011-hance-halloween-palm-oil.html#PjJczKIAAefhPIrM.99

"Breakthrough" as plantation expansion rule sees palm oil company hand back community land

Posted on 01 March 2012  |  0 Comments

Pontianak, Borneo – An Indonesian palm oil company has relinquished over a thousand hectares of its plantation back to the community marking a breakthrough with respect to the workings of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).


PT Agro Wiratama which is a subsidiary of the giant Musim Mas group and a member of the RSPO had obtained a government permit to develop an oil palm plantation on 9,000 hectares of land in West Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo but agreed to relinquish more than 1,000 hectares following interventions by the local community and NGOs.

Deputy Director of Market Transformation at WWF Indonesia, Irwan Gunawan said the case shows how the RSPO can be successfully implemented, “This is a real example of how the New Plantings Procedure was designed to work. Early warning of expansion plans and a real willingness by PT Agro Wiratama and parent company Musim Mas to engage with the community and other stakeholders has resulted in a win-win-win for everyone, including the environment. 

“It shows that with careful planning and the right attitude palm oil can be sustainable. It can respect communities, generate income and protect wildlife.” 

He added, “Equally significant is the fact that the company gave back the land even though they had a legal permit to develop it – showing that the RSPO goes further than the law to protect local people and that Musim Mas is keen to foster a constructive relationship with its neighbours."

Under RSPO’s “New Planting procedures” member companies are required to publicly announce plans to expand their operations. This ensures that the social and environmental requirements of RSPO are considered before new operations begin.

PT Agro Wiratama’s plans were spotted on the RSPO website by the international human rights group, Forest People’s Programme, who alerted their partners in Borneo.

The local Indonesian NGO, Gemawan was then able to alert the local community to what was being proposed and assisted them in discussions with the local government and PT Agro Wiratama.

Following a series of meetings that involved the mapping of land use and discussions on land claims the reduction of the concession area was made official by the local regent (bupati).

One of the leaders of the local Kuayan community, Kamarudin said, “We are very pleased that our land is secure now because we’ve now got a chance to make choices about our lives.

“We now ask all the other parties involved in this decision to respect our choice.”

The Head of Mekar Jaya Village, Azim Kitung said, “Our community has been trying very hard for so long to refuse admittance to palm oil plantation developers in our village. We believe that we already had enough with the rubber, timber and rice paddies that we already own.”

According to KONTAK Rakyat Borneo, a Pontianak based NGO that also assisted the community in the case; there are 19 palm oil plantations in Sambas Regency, 17 of which are members of RSPO.

Despite the RSPO’s standards requiring member companies not to take over the lands of local communities without prior consent, Indonesian laws and land administration do not recognise most communities land rights resulting in permits being routinely handed out to companies even though they overlap areas basic to people’s livelihoods.

The National Land Agency statistics show that there are some 3,100 land conflicts in Indonesia between palm oil developers and local communities.

Swinging with Orangutans

In November, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo’s Palm Oil Awareness Team  traveled to Indonesia and Malaysia. In past blog posts, we've highlighted the team's journey. During their time in Bukit Lawang, part of the "Our Showers were cold but the water was clean..." post, the team was fortunate enough to see wild orangutans up close. The short clip below is a montage of their footage from this exciting experience.