The Orangutan habitat is endangered in Indonesia, photo from Greenpeace
An investigation shows that palm oil producers of the multinational Mondelez has destroyed almost 25.000 hectares of the orangutan habit, only in 2 years.
Mondelez is the producer of Cadbury chocolate, Ritz cookies and Oreo. Greenpeace document stands that 22 suppliers of the multinational destroyed more than 70,000 hectares of tropical jungle, an area bigger than Chicago city. The company gets a big part of the palm oil from Wilmar International, the biggest seller of this product in the world.
Oreo new flavor, deforestation
Greenpeace shows a new Oreo flavor, photo of Greenpeace manifestation
Another studio from the Liverpool John Moores University released in 2017 shows that in Borneo, 150.000 orangutans died because of forest deforestation and hunting. This number represents the half of the orangutans in the island in that period.
Mondelez and Wilmar have openly committed themselves to stop deforestation, stop destroying the wetlands and stop exploitation. After 10 and 4 years of making this promise, nothing changed. Nowadays (whenever you read this) the company is still destroying tropical forests and steeling from local communities.
The suppliers of companies such us Unilever, Nestle, Colgate, Palmolive y Mondelez, responsible of the jungle deforestation have been also being accused of putting children in the production lines, exploitation of their employees, illegal deforestation, fires and taking lands from native communities.
To buy or not to buy
Why is it still happening after all the evidence that has proven that they are responsible of all these crimes? Maybe is low vigilance, maybe the policies taken aren’t strong enough. Maybe local politics allow this to happen or maybe the companies have stronger arrangements that allow them to do whatever they want.
But one thing is for sure, if we go on buying from them, we are still responsible of killing our closest cousin. Nowadays, to buy or not to buy is a political action. So maybe we can be more careful at choosing not to buy from the ones responsible of that environmental crimes.
