I’ve invited Amanda Yorwerth of St Albans District Friends of the Earth to write a guest blog about the importance of putting our planet over profit and how you can help with the campaign.
It’s great that sustainable clothing brand, Tommy and Lottie, has highlighted the plight of South East Asian forest dwellers, the Sumatran orangutans, for many years, but now Friends of the Earth has joined with other organisations for a campaign that could provide a long term solution.
Did you know that palm oil is the world’s most widely used vegetable oil? It crops up in a huge variety of everyday products like biscuits, soap and chocolate and here in the UK we consume around 1 million tonnes of the stuff annually. But almost 90% of our palm oil imports come from countries in South East Asia with high deforestation rates and poor track records on human rights.
The solution is not to switch from palm oil to another vegetable oil which may turn out to be even more environmentally damaging. Instead, we need companies to only use palm oil that has been grown without the destruction of rainforests and tropical peatland, the destruction of which causes substantial carbon emissions and catastrophic fires. This leaves orangutans and indigenous people homeless and leads to conflict and widespread biodiversity loss.
But palm oil isn’t the only reason that UK companies are destroying forests abroad. Until researching this blog, I had no idea that our tiny country is the world’s second largest importer of wood, and the world’s largest importer of wood pellets.
Companies like Drax and Ikea are key offenders. Drax, a Yorkshire power plant, burns the vast majority of wood pellets imported into the country, while furniture giant Ikea is the world’s largest wood consumer.
Sadly, we can’t be sure that wood has been sourced sustainably. UK timber supply chains and the companies that profit from them have been linked to habitat destruction and human rights abuses, despite various certification schemes. So we need a UK law to make companies responsible for their supply chains.
And there are more ways in which UK companies drive deforestation.
As a vegetarian, it’s been pointed out to me that the soy based sausages I sometimes eat are leading to deforestation in South America. But most of the soy we consume is through animal products like meat, cheese and eggs. That’s because around 90% of soy consumed by the UK is used for animal feed . How can we, the consumer, be sure that products we buy have had no part in forest destruction in other parts of the world? We can’t – so, again, we need a UK law to ensure that UK companies cannot get away with this kind of damage that drives biodiversity loss, climate change and human rights abuses.
There are plenty more examples of how UK companies are causing environmental damage and human rights abuses around the world, and sadly, the schemes we rely on to uphold environmental and ethical standards aren’t working. Which is why we need a law that will.
Friends of the Earth, together with the Corporate Justice Coalition, Friends of the Earth is part of the Good Business Matters Planet Over Profit campaign, calling for a new UK law that requires companies to avoid harm to people and planet in their supply chains.
You can help protect forests and other environments around the world, and ensure that people are not abused in the production of products that you buy, by signing the petition asking for a law that makes UK companies accountable for destroying forests and peoples’ lives.
Please click the link below :
