4 April 2012

Help orangutans – make it a palm oil-free Easter

Auckland Zoo is urging New Zealanders to help orangutans and other Southeast Asian rainforest species this Easter by choosing chocolate treats and other widely consumed foods that are palm oil-free.

To help people with their shopping, the Zoo has produced a Palm Oil-Free Easter Goodie Guide and Palm Oil-Free Shopping Guide (containing hundreds of palm oil-free supermarket products), both of which are available for download from its website.

In the past week alone, around 100 Sumatran orangutans have been killed in fires reported to have been lit by palm oil companies in Sumatra’s Tripa swamp forest in Aceh province – pushing this already critically endangered great ape, the world’s slowest breeding land mammal, even closer to extinction.

Auckland Zoo director Jonathan Wilcken says the loss of so many orangutan lives and vital forest habitat is devastating. He says it highlights more than ever the urgency for us all as consumers to do everything we can to reduce consumption, and therefore demand, for palm oil.

“Here in New Zealand where palm oil is now in at least one in every 10 supermarket products, we can all do something to help. We can use our power as consumers and choose to buy products that are palm oil-free.”

Mr Wilcken says the Zoo’s friend and conservation partner, Dr Ian Singleton, director of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme - a project Auckland Zoo has supported since 2005, has described the recent events as a ‘global tragedy’.

“It is a ‘global tragedy’ and it’s not just orangutans, but also the Sumatran tiger, Asian rhino, Asian elephant and hundreds of other wildlife species that are dependent on these Sumatran rainforest ecosystems.

“By making palm oil-free choices now, we can ensure that New Zealand does not help create a future without orangutans and these other magnificent rainforest species,” says Mr Wilcken.

Palm Oil Fast Facts
• Palm oil comes from the oil palm plant, native to West Africa. It was introduced to Indonesia and Malaysia in the early 1900s. Today these two countries produce more than 85% of the world’s palm oil

• Palm oil is used in at least one in every 10 supermarket products, including food, cosmetics, cleaning and bath products. The palm kernel is also used to make animal feed

• Indonesia alone, converts 3,400km2 (340,000 ha) of forest into oil palm annually – that’s 54 rugby fields every hour! Estimates put the Sumatran orangutan population today at less than 6,600 animals

• Nearly half of Sumatra’s forests disappeared between 1985 and 2007 In the last decade, close to 80% of deforestation in the Sumatran peatlands (an area that provides key orangutan habitat and vital carbon stores) was driven by the expansion of oil palm plantations. (September 2011 UNEP – ‘Orangutans and the economics of sustainable forest management in Sumatra’ http://www.unep.org/pdf/orangutan_report_scr.pdf )

• In NZ there is currently no legal requirement for palm oil to be labelled on product packaging. Auckland Zoo wants to see compulsory labelling of palm oil or its derivatives in NZ. You can use our template letters to write to your local MP and supermarket expressing your concern about lack of palm oil labelling in NZ

• For Auckland Zoo’s Palm Oil-Free Easter Goodie Guide and Buy Palm Oil-Free Shopping Guide, visit www.aucklandzoo.co.nz

Auckland Zoo support for orangutan conservation in the wild

• Auckland Zoo has supported the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP) since 2005. In the past year the Auckland Zoo Conservation Fund contributed just under $70,000 these to 3 SOCP projects:

• Wildlife Protection Units (WPUs) in Bukit Tigapuluh National Park – these units patrol the park to protect wildlife from poachers, and are also involved in implementing education programmes and carrying out animal surveys

• Sungai Pengian Orangutan Rehabilitation Station in Bukit Tigapuluh National Park – this is where rehabilitated orangutans spend time before being released into the wild in Bukit Tigapuluh National Park

• Surveying of the River Terrapin (Batagur affinis) and Painted Terrapin (Batagur bornoensis) – two of the 29 native Indonesian freshwater turtle species that are listed as Critically Endangered by the World Conservation Union (IUCN). This is the first ever survey on these two Sumatran species that is looking for indications of presence or absence of both species in four main locations on the east coast of Sumatra.

• To find out more about the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme, visit www.sumatranorangutan.com and www.aucklandzoo.co.nz

ENDS

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