Zoo Atlanta is one of my favorite places to go in the city, particularly for the gorillas and other monkeys. On my last visit, one of the trainers was talking about orangutans in the wild, and how their habitat is being destroyed all for one plant. Naturally, this caught my attention, and what I learned has changed the way I shop.
Every day, 300 football fields worth of forest are being torn down to make room for a very profitable crop: palm oil. This plant is grown in Southeast Asia, which is one of the few places orangutans still live in the wild. They are becoming closer and closer to going extinct because their habitat is being destroyed, and this one little plant is all to blame.
Palm oil is everywhere. It is in many soaps, shampoos, makeup, cleaning products and laundry detergent. It is also in about half of the items we see at the grocery store. It is such a cheap crop to produce, so it is commonly used for vegetable oil. Some brand names that use palm oil are Nestle, Pepsi, and Hershey.
Now, this does not mean we need to stop eating chocolate and drinking soda, it just means we need to find better alternatives! All you have to do is look for ingredients on the packaging, but they are not hard to find. Some store brands that have made the switch to palm-oil-free products include Kellogg's, Lean Cuisine, and Whittaker's. Since it is such a common ingredient of things we use for everyday life, the people growing it and using it for products are making a killing off it. Literally. This main crop is the reason these amazing creatures are going extinct, and hearing that was enough to make me double check the products I use.
Orangutans are incredibly smart and share about 98 percent of their DNA with humans. In 2008 they were put on the critically endangered list, and their numbers seem to only be going down. These monkeys are not the only animal suffering because of habitat loss from this crop. Zoo Atlanta participates in the great program called the Orangutan Project, and it is an organization that is dedicated to preserving wildlife and exotic species, such as tigers and other monkeys. The Orangutan Project is currently sponsoring over a dozen individual projects that include wildlife conservation, and funds scholarships for research on biology and forestry. The organization has several people backing it, one of them being Leo DiCaprio. They make it very easy to get involved, whether it be by participating in their projects or donating a few dollars. It was through their partnership with Zoo Atlanta that I found out about how important it is to not support the palm oil market.
So yes, we do live halfway around the world from where all of this is going on, but you are not totally useless! If you are interested in learning about palm oil alternatives, or if you want to make a difference, go check out The Orangutan Project and see what you can do to help!
