Sumatran Orangutans extinct within weeks?

I think your title is slightly misleading. I don't think the article is saying they will be extinct within weeks. The way I read it, it suggested that is a large population in one area would be wiped out, not the entire population of wild Sumatran orangutans.

Obviously this is still not good news!

If only people knew the reality behind the production of palm oil and got behind campaigns and boycotted palm oil products.
 
Might be misleading but to be honest people dont give a **** until its too late. i honestly doubt there is a single person on this site that leads a palm oil free life. not blaming people, its a near impossibility.
 
Also the dwindling rainforests are already struggling to feed the animals living there. orangs arent anti social by choice, its due to a lack of food. it is likely that starvation will cause their extinction.
 
A bit misleading on the title, (however it got my attention so good title!) but still an ecological and conservational disaster. Loosing one of the few remaining fragmented populations of these Orang-utans should be seen globally as a disaster, sadly it is not. It certainly appears to me that apart from some of us lot on here and a small percentage of the human population, that the rest really don’t care or care enough to do anything about it. It’s not just the Orang-utans, it is the whole ecosystem that is disappearing for good.

In my household we have no Palm Oil products, if you really want to help stop deforestation in Sumatra then stop using palm oil.
Those of you who say I only use it in ‘this or that and I try to cut down’ just cannot care enough in my opinion, just try to cut it out of your life over a few weeks and see how you get on and good luck with it. If it is in something you use or eat, think of the Orangs and you will probably decide that you don’t really need to use it after all.
 
The title is meant as a question. i read three different articles on this and linked the wrong one. The title is a quote from a.japanese version i read.

In Australia Palm oil is only labelled as vegetable oil. hopefully labelling will soon become compulsory but here we just dont know what we are eating.
 
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Jarkari said:
In Australia Palm oil is only labelled as vegetable oil. hopefully labelling will soon become compulsory but here we just dont know what we are eating.
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In Australia do you not have access to Sunflower oil or Rape seed oil? both are excellent altrnatives. Here in the UK Sunflower oil is about the same price as 'vegetable oil' and rape seed is a little more expensive.
 
Pootle said:
In Australia do you not have access to Sunflower oil or Rape seed oil? both are excellent altrnatives. Here in the UK Sunflower oil is about the same price as 'vegetable oil' and rape seed is a little more expensive.
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what Jarkari means is that the ingredients listed on products (such as biscuits, for example) don't say "palm oil" they simply say "vegetable oil" so you don't know which oil the product contains.
 
Chlidonias said:
what Jarkari means is that the ingredients listed on products (such as biscuits, for example) don't say "palm oil" they simply say "vegetable oil" so you don't know which oil the product contains.
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This is a problem in the UK as well. I can't imagine it would be too difficult to legislate to force palm oil to be identified but there doesn't seem to be a political will for it, despite numerous campaigns on the subject.
 
Maguari said:
This is a problem in the UK as well. I can't imagine it would be too difficult to legislate to force palm oil to be identified but there doesn't seem to be a political will for it, despite numerous campaigns on the subject.
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Sainsbury's supermarket lists palm oil on its own brand products when it is used and because of this I buy a lot more own brand products (that don't contain palm oil), simply because I know which oil is being used.

Biscuits are a real problem in my experience.
 
Chlidonias said:
what Jarkari means is that the ingredients listed on products (such as biscuits, for example) don't say "palm oil" they simply say "vegetable oil" so you don't know which oil the product contains.
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I see, with you now.

However, as a non biscuit muncher apart from the odd home made one and the fact that for the last few years I have stayed away from virtually all processed food and eat fresh veg and fresh meat it makes it easier for me to cut it out completely (and also I admit to forget about these packaged foods containing palm oil as well). Also my partner has made a real effort with regards to make-up products and creams etc, by checking their ingredients.

However in the last couple of years many companies as listed above are starting to move in the right direction with concise labelling of ingredients.
 
Good effort Pootle on the palm oil front! I too try my very best but it is always likely to slip in somewhere.

Could you possibly list or PM me some of the cosmetics your wife uses that are palm oil free as my girlfriend finds it really hard to find. Also any other common household products would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
 
Mr T said:
Good effort Pootle on the palm oil front! I too try my very best but it is always likely to slip in somewhere.

Could you possibly list or PM me some of the cosmetics your wife uses that are palm oil free as my girlfriend finds it really hard to find. Also any other common household products would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
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You cannot do it over night at all, but you can do it. I am not 100% clear of the stuff, as if eating out you never really know do you?

I will ask the missus for some of her new products and PM over the next week or so gladly.
 
Thankfully in the United States they do label the type of oil (palm oil or cottonseed oil or corn oil). I do read the labels and do not buy products with palm oil. Sometimes it is just a matter of the same product from a different brand. For example the namebrand Ritz Crackers do NOT use palm oil while the slightly cheaper generic version put out under the grocery store's (Safeway) own label does.

BTW, for any fellow Americans who do not understand what the UK forum members mean by biscuits, it is what we would call cookies (I think). They are right, this is where palm oil is used a lot (even in the famous Girl Scout Cookies that everyone gets hounded to buy at a certain time of year). I was never really in the habit of buying boxed cookies, so it is easy for me (I make pretty good homeade chocolate chip).

Sadly, I am sure it is a very tiny minority of Americans who are aware of the problem and actually practice this. Several zoos make mention of this on their websites or graphics. The only zoo I personally know of that ACTIVELY (verbally) talks about it is the El Paso Zoo, which makes it a key point in their daily asian elephant session, with docents handing out single page information sheets as well as the speaker talking about it.
 
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OrangePerson said:
I was shocked the other day to see a list of pseudonyms for palm oil on lables, this is not the list I was looking at but is a partial list.

Palm Oil’s Dirty Secret: The Many Ingredient Names For Palm Oil Rainforest Action Network Blog
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Unfortunately this list is wildly inaccurate: for example, while it is true that stearic acid can be extracted from palm oil, it can also be extracted from virtually any other vegetable oil, from fish oils and from animal fats. Likewise palmitic acid and all palmitates are so named because they can be extracted from palm oil, but they are found in virtually all oils and fats.
The problem is not really the palm oil, it is the plantations of oil palms in areas which have been cleared of virgin forest in Indonesia and other tropical countries. This produces palm oil at a low financial cost, but of course at a very high ecological one.
Having lived in West Africa, where the oil palm is a native plant, I know that local wildlife does well out of the oil palm - remember that it is the main food of the palm nut vulture (only in West Africa do you find vegetarian vultures :)). I buy unrefined West African palm oil to cook authentic groundnut stews and I make no apology for doing so.
A couple of other points: you are unlikely to see palm oil on supermarket shelves in the UK, because in our climate it is usually a solid (palm kernel oil has an even higher melting point). Anything in a bottle labelled as 'vegetable oil' is probably rapeseed oil (canola in the USA) because oilseed rape is the actually grown here - and it has a rather off-putting name. Also if you want to avoid foods containing palm oil, don't buy Palmolive soap either ;)

Alan
 
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