Greenpeace activists won’t give Nestle-Osem a break. They say that the Indonesian rainforests and orangutans are more important than Kit Kat bars.
Greenpeace activists and protesters stormed the central production factory of Nestle-Osem in Shoham, Israel today as part of a global campaign urging Nestle to stop sourcing its palm oil from Sinarmas. Sinarmas, unfortunately, is currently uprooting the trees, orangutans, and other forms of plant and wildlife from the Indonesian rainforests in order to make room to plant the palm trees that generate the oil that Nestle requires. Kit Kat bars are good, but not good enough to warrant that.
As Greenpeace so eloquently puts it: “We all deserve to have a break – but having one shouldn’t involve taking a bite out of Indonesia’s precious rainforests. We’re asking Nestlé to give rainforests and orang-utans a break and stop buying palm oil from destroyed forests.”
For the purposes of growing the requested palm oil, 18 thousand square kilometers of rainforest land are uprooted every year. This has terrible effects on the environment, since palm trees store great amounts of carbon dioxide (actually helping reverse the possibility of ozone depletion and climate change) and because the burning of the cut down rainforest trees actually creates carbon dioxide – contributing to climate change.
Not to mention the fact that clearing the Indonesian rainforests renders many animals, including the orangutans, homeless.
Ariel Menzer, the director of the campaign in Israel, said today that “we came here today to put a tangible face to the great and irreversible damage that Nestle is causing every day. Tomorrow we will celebrate Earth Day and many of us will turn off our lights for an hour. We should also remember the damage caused to the environment by the production of Nestle products that we consume.”
Read more about other Greenpeace campaigns:
Join the Campaign to Get Facebook to Use 100% Renewable Energy
Greenpeace Petition Calls on Netanyahu to Attend Copenhagen Climate Change Summit
Luna Park, Greenpeace and Junktion Studio Go Green On Sukkot
Author: Karen Chernick
Much to the disappointment of her Moroccan grandmother, Karen became a vegetarian at the age of seven because of a heartfelt respect for other forms of life. She also began her journey to understand her surroundings and her impact on the environment. She even starting an elementary school Ecology Club and an environmental newsletter in the 3rd grade. (The proceeds of the newsletter went to non-profit environmental organizations, of course.) She now studies in New York. Karen can be reached at karen (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
