Stop Palm Oil From Killing the World

The palm oil industry has been gutting and ravaging the world and communities for years! Did you know that more than half of the world's products are made with palm oil? Did you also know that farming it has caused some of the worst environmental, social and humanitarian problems in the world?

Palm oil is an easily harvested/farmed product and incredibly bountiful and versatile crop, making it a prized and favorable resource for companies, hence its overuse in products. It's in most everyday items, from food and makeup to hygiene and cleaning products. In fact, palm oil supplies 40% of the world's vegetable oil demand. But the damage these farms do is beyond devastating! Pristine forests and iconic landscapes have been stripped bare to make room for the lucrative crop, decimating habitats for wildlife and pushing them close to extinction, depriving invaluable resources and livelihoods from local indigenous communities, ramping up climate change and even exploiting and abusing its workers. All in the name of profit!

What the Palm Oil Industry Does to the World:
1. The palm oil industry is one of the leading causes of deforestation in the world; in Indonesia, a staggering 24 million hectares of rainforest was destroyed between 1990 and 2015 to make way for the crop, an area almost the size of the UK. A further 1.6 million hectares was lost between 2015 and 2017 for an expansion of the farm.

2. Palm oil deforestation has caused threatened wildlife like the Orangutan, the pygmy elephant, the Sumatran rhino and tiger to now be at the brink of extinction! There are only two mating pairs of Sumatran tigers and fewer than 100 Sumatran rhinos left in the wild. Orangutans, now labelled "critically endangered", had their numbers drop over 50% between 1999 and 2015, all due to the palm oil industry.

3. Several local indigenous communities rely heavily on the now destroyed forests for their survival and livelihood. The palm oil industry, without consulting the communities, ruined the land, replaced it with palm trees and left the people of these communities starving, homeless, forced to beg for food or steal to survive. 650 land-related conflicts that affected over 650,000 households happened in 2017 and a further 410 conflicts that affected 87,568 households happened in 2018.

4. The contribution the palm oil industry has had on global warming and climate change might soon rival global aviation emissions at the rate its progressing. Forests, wetlands and peatlands, favored development spots for the palm oil industry, are carbon sinks; they absorb carbon dioxide in the air for food, preventing it from going into the atmosphere. A single tree can absorb up to 48 pounds of CO2 a year. But when a tree is forcibly removed or the ground disrupted, all that carbon gets released back into the air, adding to the already constricting heat layer around the planet.

5. Exploitation of workers, hazardous working conditions and child labor are common among the palm oil industry. With the heavy number of pesticides used for the trade, workers are constantly exposed to hazardous chemicals as well as frequently being paid under minimum wage for their back-breaking labor.

This horrendous method of farming has to stop! In this modern age, there are new sustainable and humane ways of farming this valued resource. Better yet, there are alternatives to the product altogether! And yet, some companies refuse to change from their heinous ways.

Help us show them that we won't stand for this kind of behaviour. Take the pledge below and refuse to support these big commercial brands and how they do their business. Together, we'll show them that change is not an option, it's a requirement.

By signing this petition, you pledge not to support or buy any products from these commercial brands until they make efforts to change to either sustainable palm oil farming or sustainable alternatives.

Macdonalds

Whole Foods

Colgate Palmolive
Starbucks

Walmart

Johnson & Johnson
Nestle

Kroger

Unilever
Danone

P&G

L'Oreal
Kellogs

PZ Cussons

Heinz
Pepsico

Hershey

Mondelez
General Mills

Kraft

Mars
Rickitt Benckiser

Procter & Gamble

Ferrero

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