Orangutan Trade

An investigation into the impact of the development of palm oil plantations and illegal hunting on orangutans in Borneo. Undertaken for the animal charity, One Voice, and shown on ITV News in February 2007.

watch the video on youtube

watch the video on youtube

-------------------

RELATED POSTS:

Nestle to stop using palm oil after graphic Greenpeace Youtube video airs
'Less than 20 years' left to save Orangutans

Nestle to stop using palm oil after graphic Greenpeace Youtube video airs

Kit Kat manufacturer Nestle to stop using palm oil after graphic Greenpeace Youtube video airs.

VIDEO:

Article Shared from NEWS.com.au

THE maker of KitKat chocolate bars, Nestle, has announced it will stop using oil from suppliers who are destroying rainforests.

The Sun said Nestle's move comes after Greenpeace accused the company of killing off orangutans by buying palm oil from companies connected with the destruction of rainforests.

Greenpeace released a YouTube video which showed Kit Kats were being made using oil from the biggest and most destructive producer in Indonesia - the Sinar Mas Group.

Watch the YouTube video here

The campaign was a parody of Nestle's Kit Kat ads and showed an unwitting office worker taking a break to enjoy a Kit Kat chocolate bar - but instead biting into an orangutan’s finger, causing blood to stream down his face and onto his keyboard.

The ABC said Nestle tried to get Greenpeace's video withdrawn from YouTube, but Greenpeace campaign head Steve Campbell said that only boosted the number of posts online worldwide.

"We ended up with 1.3 million views at last count of the video," he said.

Nestle vowed yesterday to snub firms that own or manage "high-risk plantations or farms linked to deforestation".

"Nestle (is) determined to ensure that our suppliers do not buy palm oil from Sinar Mas, for all our factories," the company said.

The Swiss food giant buys 320,000 tonnes of palm oil a year. It plans to source all from green sources by 2015.

Ian Duff, forest campaigner for Greenpeace, said: "Nestle has done the right thing".

RELATED POST: Less Than 20 years left to save Orangutans

Sweet Success for Nestle Campaign - Green Peace

International Whaling Commission plan would allow Japan to keep hunting

Japan continues to insist that their whaling is for scientific research and yet whale meat is still continuing to turn up on the dinner tables of the Japanese.

 Kevin Rudd said last Friday he was prepared to act against the annual whaling hunt in the international courts if diplomatic pressure on Japan failed to yield results before the start of the next annual hunt in November.Mr Rudd has threatened Japan with a lawsuit in the International Court of Justice if it does not accept his ultimatum. Rudd also promised that this would happen back in 2007.

 Whaling in Japan may have begun as early as the 12th century. During the 20th century Japan was heavily involved in commercial whaling until the International Whaling Commission's suspension on commercial whaling in 1986. Japanese whaling is currently restricted to hunts conducted by the Institute of Cetacean Research.

 

The International Whaling Commission's chairman Cristian Maquieira has released a new proposal today that COMMERCIAL whaling would be reintroduced on a limited basis and Japan would be able to continue hunting in the Antarctic.

 

Greenpeace International today described the Maquieira plan as a “disaster” for whale conservation.

Canberra is expected to reject Mr Maquieira's plan, aimed at securing the future of an IWC at risk of collapse over Japanese so-called scientific whaling and the refusal of several other members to honour the 24-year-old international ban on commercial whaling.

 

Mr Rudd and embattled Environment Minister Peter Garrett are expected to unveil an alternative Australian proposal to the IWC as early as today. (read more)

 

-----------------------------

Demand marine reserves now to help protect whales: 

SIGN THE PETITION

-----------------------------


Article Shared - The Australian - Feb 23rd, 2010


COMMERCIAL whaling would be reintroduced on a limited basis and Japan would be able to continue hunting in the Antarctic, under a proposal released today by International Whaling Commission chairman Cristian Maquieira. 


The Maquieira proposal cuts across Kevin Rudd's demand for Japan to end its Southern Ocean scientific whaling program by November, before the scheduled start of the next summer hunt.
Mr Rudd has threatened Japan with a lawsuit in the International Court of Justice if it does not accept his ultimatum.

Greenpeace International today described the Maquieira plan as a “disaster” for whale conservation, “send(ing) shock waves through international ocean conservation efforts, making it vastly more difficult to protect other rapidly declining species such as tuna and sharks”.
“The proposal rewards Japan for decades of reprehensible behaviour at the IWC and in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary,” said John Frizell, head of the Greenpeace whales campaign.
Canberra is expected to reject Mr Maquieira's plan, aimed at securing the future of an IWC at risk of collapse over Japanese so-called scientific whaling and the refusal of several other members to honour the 24-year-old international moratorium on commercial whaling.
Mr Rudd and embattled Environment Minister Peter Garrett are expected to unveil an alternative Australian proposal to the IWC as early as today.

The Maquieira proposal, developed but not endorsed by a “support group” of 12 countries including Australia and Japan, calls for suspending scientific whaling, the means by which Japan gets around the 24-year-old IWC ban on commercial whaling, this summer with quotas to catch up to 990 Southern Ocean whales.

Japan and the other IWC member countries that currently kill whales, however, would receive quotas for the next 10 years, set within sustainable levels for each hunted species.
The support group has not established what quotas would apply in the Antarctic, where only the Japan hunts, but has left the way open for targeted species to include the iconic humpback and still at-risk fin whales, as well as the numerous minkes that make up the overwhelming bulk of the Japanese fleet's catch.

In effect, this is a return to limited commercial whaling, although only open to countries like Japan, Norway and Iceland that by one means or another have flouted the whaling moratorium.
The proposal, part of a wide-ranging suite of reforms to the IWC's moribund rules and procedures, would operate until the end of 2010.

It goes early next month to an IWC working group meeting in Florida and, if approved, from there to the commission's annual meeting where, if approved, it would become the operating regime for governing both whaling and whale conservation activities.

-----------------------------


RELATED:

Japan insist whaling not a legal issue - Feb 22nd 2010
Kevin Rudd renews vow to stop Japanese whaling - The Australian 23 Feb 2010
VIDEO : Australia and Japan whaling talks stall 
Whaling in Japan - Wikipedia