Recent News

11 May 2009
The operators of Britain's first "biofuel" power plants are considering burning palm oil, which is blamed for causing rainforest destruction in south-east Asia.

2 May 2009
It's an invisible ingredient, really, palm oil. You won't find it listed on your margarine, your bread, your biscuits or your KitKat. It's there though, under "vegetable oil". And its impact, 7,000 miles away, is very visible indeed.

1 May 2009
A cooking oil that is driving the destruction of the rainforests, displacing native people and threatening the survival of the orangutan is present in dozens of Britain's leading grocery brands, an investigation by The Independent has found.

29 April 2009
Growing economic pain may increasingly force consumers to turn to palm oil, one of the cheapest cooking oils, a move that could scupper nascent plans to slow deforestation in Southeast Asia.

16 April 2009
Over the last 40 years, global oil palm cultivation has increased exponentially, with 43 percent of the total cultivated oil palm crop currently produced in Indonesia. This inception of palm oil as a valuable commodity, particularly as biofuel, has dramatically accelerated deforestation in Borneo, with only a third of the original forest cover expected to remain by 2020.

16 April 2009
The trade in Sumatran orangutans for pets shows little sign of decline and is taking the species to the brink of extinction, a report concludes.

12 April 2009
A protected Sumatran forest which is home to a Perth-raised orang-utan released into the wild in a worldwide first two years ago could be logged, according to Australian Orang-utan Project president Leif Cocks.

8 April 2009
New US and European Union efforts to clamp down on the illegal timber trade are expected to take a multi-billion dollar annual toll on Indonesian exports because the south-east Asian nation has failed to enact standards for wood-based products in spite of years of debate.

15 March 2009
This is not a documentary for the faint-hearted but it is a documentary that should be viewed by as many people as possible. Winner of Best Documentary Short in the recent Durango Independent Film Festival, and directed by Moez Moez, ôGreenö documents the last hours of a female orangutan's life.

9 March 2009
Indonesia has applied to join a World Bank programme that supports developing nations' efforts to fight deforestation and help them earn cash through the sale of tradeable carbon credits. The Bank's $350 million Forest Carbon Partnership Facility aims to support developing states design and create projects under a U.N.-backed scheme that could eventually earn poorer nations billions of dollars a year by protecting their forests.

6 March 2009
Indonesia's Government has approved a big increase in logging of its tropical forests, a decision that could lead to a major jump in carbon emissions and, most likely, cause further deadly attacks on villagers by tigers and elephants.

16 February 2009
Environmental activists have mounted a challenge against the government's plan to allow palm oil companies to set up plantations in the country's remaining peatlands.

13 February 2009
The Agriculture Ministry will issue a decree to allow businesses to dig up the country's millions of hectares of peatland for oil palm plantations.

2 February 2009
The word came last spring at a climate change conference here. Unilever, the world's largest buyer of palm oil, would publicly call for a moratorium on deforestation by Indonesian growers of the coveted oil used in food, soaps, detergents, cosmetics and biofuel.

2 February 2009
The Forestry Ministry has said it has received a mounting number of requests from local administrations for permits to convert IndonesiaÆs dwindling forests into plantations, mostly due to uncertainty surrounding the spatial planning law.

28 January 2009
AUSTRALIA is contributing directly to the widespread destruction of tropical rainforests in Indonesia and Malaysia by importing millions of tonnes of taxpayer-subsidised biodiesel made from palm oil.

3 December 2008
A major international study says palm oil plantations reduce plant and animal diversity, and do little to reduce carbon emissions.

28 November 2008
Greenpeace has branded the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) "a farce" following their failure to take action against members they say are destroying Indonesia's peat lands and forests.

22 November 2008
California and two other U.S. states signed a pact late on Tuesday with Indonesia's Aceh province that could see forest carbon credits from Aceh accepted into U.S. emissions trading schemes.

22 November 2008
Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono on Tuesday defended Indonesia’s drive to expand oil palm plantations, despite a demand by environmentalists for a moratorium on deforestation.

10 November 2008
The first shipment of palm oil certified under the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is expected to arrive in Europe Tuesday, but an environmental group is already criticizing the initiative's credentials.