Zoos from around Australia and New Zealand are running the "Don't Palm Us Off" Campaign. A petition to FSANZ (Food Standards Australia and New Zealand) to have mandatory labeling of all food products containing Palm Oil. You can sign the petition here or here.
Currently deforestation and habitat destruction on a massive scale is occuring in countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia to clear rain-forests for Palm Oil plantations. Not only is this a huge source of greenhouse gas emissions but the loss of habitat is threatening species such as "the orangutan, Sumatran tiger, Asian elephant, Asian rhino and other rain-forest species with extinction".
The palm oil from these former rain-forest areas goes into a huge number of consumer products and so the Zoo's are running the "Don't Palm Us Off" campaign to introduce mandatory labeling of which products contain Palm Oil so that customers have the option to not buy products contributing to the devastation of rainforests in South East Asia.
Why take this step, Taronga Zoo explains "To help support sustainable palm oil sources, the first step is for palm oil to be labelled on food products. Currently, with no mandatory labelling, consumers do not know what is in the products they are purchasing."
Fans of Rhys Darby from Flight of the Conchords might enjoy this little video too.
Petition is here
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