Zoos Victoria under fire for anti palm oil campaign

[Chlidonias]

Zoos Victoria under fire for anti-palm oil campaign - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

A corporate-funded think tank has accused the operator of the Melbourne Zoo of using taxpayer funds to run a political campaign.

Zoos Victoria has been collecting signatures to petition for compulsory labelling of palm oil in Australian food products.

The Institute of Public Affairs has released a report which questions the accuracy of the campaign's comments about the palm oil industry's effects on rainforests and orangutan populations.

The institute's Tim Wilson is also questioning how Zoos Victoria funded the campaign.

"It's certainly using its taxpayer-funded website and staff time to push this campaign, which is grossly inappropriate, where we have government bodies now lobbying other government bodies to change their regulatory practices," he said.

Mr Wilson says the public has been misled about rainforest destruction and the effect on orangutans.

"There's an often cited fact that 300 football fields are being cleared every day across South-East Asia for palm oil plantations," he said.

"That was a misrepresentation from a UN report many years ago that talked specifically about illegal logging in Indonesia, not about South-East Asia and not about palm oil."

Zoos Victoria says it is disappointed with the institute's criticism.

Community Conservation manager Rachel Lowry is standing by the facts included in the zoo campaign.

"We'd love to discuss in greater detail with them which claims they're actually mentioning," she said.

"We've actually sourced all of our information from the United Nations, we've liaised closely with Palm Oil Action Group, the WWF and we've also got the RSPO, liaised with them.

"The RSPO are actually an organisation who are pushing for the sustainable development of palm oil."

Ms Lowry says she is proud of the campaign.

"Zoos Victoria's a not-for-profit organisation. We receive one third of our money from government and the rest of our funding from admissions and philanthropic donations," she said.

"Essentially at the end of each year anything we have in profit is actually distributed across conservation projects.

"Our zoo alone has 1.6 million people who come through our gates. If we can't raise awareness about issues like this, then who can?"

 

[CGSwans]

I know a couple of IPA people and whilst they're nice and genial characters, they are somewhere to the right of Henry Ford on economic issues and intimately associated with the Liberal Party. This is all just puff and wind - the real target isn't Zoos Victoria and they couldn't care less about palm oil labelling. They're just stirring trouble 5 months ahead of a state election.

 

[CGSwans]

It should also be mentioned that Zoos Victoria is a statutory authority and engaging in lobbying is no different to Quit Victoria or the Victorian Institute of Teaching doing so.

It's a defining feature of the IPA's peculiar brand of moral outrage that they get worked up over Zoos Victoria opposing deforestation or Quit opposing tobacco advertising... but would never dream of protesting, say, Crown Casino lobbying against gambling restrictions or business groups attacking the re-introduction of basic workplace conditions.

 

[jay]

Is IPA the owners of a magazine called QUADRANT If so anyone who knows that magazine will know where the organisation stands on enviromental grounds.

 

[CGSwans]

Is IPA the owners of a magazine called QUADRANT If so anyone who knows that magazine will know where the organisation stands on enviromental grounds.

Quadrant and the IPA aren't the same organisation, but they do share a similar position on economics (Quadrant's more socially conservative) and a broadly similar milieu of theorists/activists/supporters.