Greenpeace protest outside Nestle's HQ in Croydon Surrey at the start of an international action to expose Nestlé’s role in the destruction of the last remaining forests and peatlands of Indonesia. Croydon Surrey, United Kingdom. 17/03/2010.
Greenpeace use Orangutans to highlight the plight of the Indonesian rain forrests which are said to be under threat by Nestle's cultivation of palm oil.
OFFICIAL GREENPEACE PRESS RELEASE
ORANGUTAN protestors have descended on the London
headquarters of confectionary giant Nestle after
the company was revealed to be involved in
destroying the rainforest home of the last
remaining orangutans to make products like KitKat.
Campaigners from Greenpeace have scaled the
Nestle building in Croydon, where hundreds of
employees work. Other protestors are dressed as
orangutans and are appealing to Nestle staff to
stop using palm oil which has come from the
destroyed rainforests of Indonesia in Nestle
products.
Greenpeace have today released a report detailing
Nestle's use of palm oil, which is a vegetable
oil, and how this is destroying the last
rainforest habitat of the endangered orangutan.
The report details how palm oil used in Nestle
products has come from the biggest and most
destructive palm oil producer - called the Sinar
Mas Group. This company, shows the report, is
illegally destroying the Indonesian rainforest
and, by doing so, causing more climate changing
emissions.
Nestle's use of palm oil is rocketing. They use
320,000 tonnes every year - almost twice as much
as they used three years ago - in a range of
products including KitKats. Every five minutes,
enough KitKats are produced that, stacked up,
would be taller than the Eiffel Tower.
Other large companies, such as Unilever and
Kraft, have now cancelled contracts with the
Sinar Mas Group. The Group also owns Asia Pulp
and Paper, the largest paper company in
Indonesia, who are notorious for trashing
rainforests for their paper products. Nestle have
refused to rule out buying either palm oil or
paper products from the Sinar Mas Group.
Ian Duff, rainforests campaigner for Greenpeace,
said: "Nestle products like KitKats contain palm
oil from suppliers who are trashing rainforests
and driving orang-utans to extinction.
"Other big companies are acting to stop this, but
Nestle is turning a blind eye to it and
continuing to trade with a company that has done
more than any other to wipe out the rainforests
of Indonesia.
"Nestle must stop destroying rainforests for palm oil."
As part of the campaign, Greenpeace will today
release a video showing an unwitting office
worker taking a break to enjoy a KitKat but
instead chomping into an orang-utan finger.
Indonesia has one of the fastest rates of forest
destruction in the world. It holds the world
record for the fastest disappearing rainforest
amongst all major forested nations on the planet.
Since 1950, over 74 million hectares of
Indonesia's forests have been destroyed, with
additional areas being severely degraded.
Every year 1.8 billion tonnes of climate changing
greenhouse gas emissions are released by the
degradation and burning of its peatlands alone.
Such destruction has made Indonesia the world's
third largest greenhouse gas emitter, after the
US and China.
