Over 85 per cent of the world's palm oil comes from Malaysia and Indonesia. Palm oil from certified sustainable sources only accounts for 8 per cent of the global supply of palm oil. An estimated 40 per cent of food on our supermarket shelves contains palm oil. In SE Asia alone, the equivalent of 300 football fields are deforested every hour for palm oil production. Palm oil typically costs the lives of up to 50 Orang-utans each week. Australians unknowingly consume on average 10 kilograms of palm oil each year because we do not currently have the ability to exercise consumer choice.
90 per cent of Orang-utan habitat has been lost already. If all of it is lost then so are the livelihoods of many people. The industry needs to increase yields on land that has already been cleared but right now there is very little incentive for them to do this. We share 97 per cent of our DNA with Orang-utans.
The 'Don't Palm Us Off' campaign is pushing for Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) to change legislation to have palm oil labelled on all food products.
Visit http://www.zoo.org.au/PalmOil
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