About this blog

I am an ordinary guy with an ordinary job unrelated to any of this? So why palm oil? Why so interested, and why blog about it?

In 2000 I spent two weeks in Borneo with the Orangutan Foundation UK, to see the work being done looking after rehabilitating orangutans and to witness them in their natural environment. It was an experience never to be forgotten and one I was very privileged to be part of. At that time there were many factors threatening their habitat, including illegal logging for timber and paper, clearance of land for gold mining, capturing of orangutans for pets, and deliberate creation of fires across the whole region.

All these were a very serious threat to the future of the orangutan. All these still are a serious threat.

Over and above all these threats, and more recently than my visit in 2000, has been the clearance of orangutan habitat for palm oil plantations. Orangutans are displaced from their habitat and often killed – mothers killed to be cleared from viable land and infants orphaned, sometimes sold on as pets.

Palm oil is used all round the world. The future, probably, is sustainable palm oil. If palm oil is guaranteed and confirmed sustainable, it will be sourced only from existing plantations and should have no effect on orangutans’ habitat. But I want to look into whether such a thing really exists on this blog. I also want to find out just how easy it is to avoid palm oil altogether, given the growing ubiquity of the ingredient in so many groceries and cosmetics in the western world.

It’s a cliché (I probably use them a lot even though I try not to, if so I apologise) but the next generation may never get the chance I had to witness orangutans anywhere apart from in zoos and rehab centres. Awareness of the issue of palm oil is key to ensure they have any chance whatsoever to prove my biggest fears wrong.

Thanks for reading! Please suggest, interact and comment as much as you want!

Neil