#childlabour — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #childlabour, aggregated by home.social.
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Ball and Chain.
#Football dream team.
#childlabour #WorldCup #fairtrade #dream #team -
Ball and Chain.
#Football dream team.
#childlabour #WorldCup #fairtrade #dream #team -
Ball and Chain.
#Football dream team.
#childlabour #WorldCup #fairtrade #dream #team -
Ball and Chain.
#Football dream team.
#childlabour #WorldCup #fairtrade #dream #team -
Ball and Chain.
#Football dream team.
#childlabour #WorldCup #fairtrade #dream #team -
First poster for the ‘Hershey’ biopic, in theatres on Nov. 25
Do you think they’ll include the child slavery story angle?
#Corporations #ChildLabour #Slavery #Capitalism #Movies #Cinema #Hollywood #Whitewashing #HumanRights
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First poster for the ‘Hershey’ biopic, in theatres on Nov. 25
Do you think they’ll include the child slavery story angle?
#Corporations #ChildLabour #Slavery #Capitalism #Movies #Cinema #Hollywood #Whitewashing #HumanRights
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Canada looking to beef up forced labour laws as U.S. imposes new tariffs
WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday his Liberal government will soon introduce legislation on forced labour…
#Canada #MarkCarney #CanadaBorderServicesAgency #childlabour #forcedlabour #JamiesonGreer #PrimeMinisterMarkCarney #Supplychains #TheCanadianPress #Trump
https://www.europesays.com/canada/73368/ -
https://www.europesays.com/africa/191108/ Ogun fathers probed for trafficking daughters to Libya #AkinsanyaOladimeji #ChildLabor #ChildLabour #ChildTrafficking #Crime #HumanTrafficking #IllegalMigration #KehindeRasheed #Libya #NAPTIP #Nigeria #NigeriaPoliceForce #OgunState #PoliceInvestigation #TraffickingInvestigation #VictimRepatriation
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#SodiumIonBatteries offer an alternative to tricky #lithium
Oct 26th 2023
Excerpt: "Fortunately, lithium is not the only game in town. As we report this week, a clutch of firms are making batteries based on sodium, lithium’s elemental cousin. Since sodium’s chemical properties are very similar to those of lithium, it too makes for good batteries. And sodium, which is found in the salt in #seawater, is thousands of times more abundant on Earth than lithium and cheaper to get at. Most of the companies using sodium to make batteries today are also Chinese. But pursuing the technology in the West might be a surer route to energy security than relying heavily on lithium.
"Besides its abundance, sodium has other advantages. The best lithium batteries use #cobalt and #nickel in their electrodes. Nickel, like lithium, is in short supply. #Mining it on land is #EnvironmentallyDestructive. Proposals to grab it from the #seabed instead have caused rows. A good deal of the world’s cobalt, meanwhile, is extracted from small mines in the #DemocraticRepublicOfCongo, where #ChildLabour is common and working conditions are dire. Sodium batteries, by contrast, can use #electrodes built from #iron and #manganese [and wood #lignin], which are plentiful and uncontroversial. Since the chemical components are cheap, a scaled-up industry should be able to produce batteries that cost less than their lithium counterparts.
"Sodium is not a perfect replacement for lithium. It is heavier, meaning sodium batteries will weigh more than lithium ones of an equivalent capacity. That is likely to rule them out in some cases where lightness is paramount. But for other applications, such as #GridStorage or #HomeBatteries, weight is irrelevant. Several Chinese carmakers are even beginning to put sodium batteries in #ElectricVehicles."
Read more:
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/10/26/sodium-batteries-offer-an-alternative-to-tricky-lithiumArchived version:
https://archive.ph/7x6JX#SolarPunkSunday #EnergyStorage #SodiumIon #NewTechnology #GiantLeap #Reuse #WasteReuse #NoLithiumMining #NoMining
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#SodiumIonBatteries offer an alternative to tricky #lithium
Oct 26th 2023
Excerpt: "Fortunately, lithium is not the only game in town. As we report this week, a clutch of firms are making batteries based on sodium, lithium’s elemental cousin. Since sodium’s chemical properties are very similar to those of lithium, it too makes for good batteries. And sodium, which is found in the salt in #seawater, is thousands of times more abundant on Earth than lithium and cheaper to get at. Most of the companies using sodium to make batteries today are also Chinese. But pursuing the technology in the West might be a surer route to energy security than relying heavily on lithium.
"Besides its abundance, sodium has other advantages. The best lithium batteries use #cobalt and #nickel in their electrodes. Nickel, like lithium, is in short supply. #Mining it on land is #EnvironmentallyDestructive. Proposals to grab it from the #seabed instead have caused rows. A good deal of the world’s cobalt, meanwhile, is extracted from small mines in the #DemocraticRepublicOfCongo, where #ChildLabour is common and working conditions are dire. Sodium batteries, by contrast, can use #electrodes built from #iron and #manganese [and wood #lignin], which are plentiful and uncontroversial. Since the chemical components are cheap, a scaled-up industry should be able to produce batteries that cost less than their lithium counterparts.
"Sodium is not a perfect replacement for lithium. It is heavier, meaning sodium batteries will weigh more than lithium ones of an equivalent capacity. That is likely to rule them out in some cases where lightness is paramount. But for other applications, such as #GridStorage or #HomeBatteries, weight is irrelevant. Several Chinese carmakers are even beginning to put sodium batteries in #ElectricVehicles."
Read more:
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/10/26/sodium-batteries-offer-an-alternative-to-tricky-lithiumArchived version:
https://archive.ph/7x6JX#SolarPunkSunday #EnergyStorage #SodiumIon #NewTechnology #GiantLeap #Reuse #WasteReuse #NoLithiumMining #NoMining
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#SodiumIonBatteries offer an alternative to tricky #lithium
Oct 26th 2023
Excerpt: "Fortunately, lithium is not the only game in town. As we report this week, a clutch of firms are making batteries based on sodium, lithium’s elemental cousin. Since sodium’s chemical properties are very similar to those of lithium, it too makes for good batteries. And sodium, which is found in the salt in #seawater, is thousands of times more abundant on Earth than lithium and cheaper to get at. Most of the companies using sodium to make batteries today are also Chinese. But pursuing the technology in the West might be a surer route to energy security than relying heavily on lithium.
"Besides its abundance, sodium has other advantages. The best lithium batteries use #cobalt and #nickel in their electrodes. Nickel, like lithium, is in short supply. #Mining it on land is #EnvironmentallyDestructive. Proposals to grab it from the #seabed instead have caused rows. A good deal of the world’s cobalt, meanwhile, is extracted from small mines in the #DemocraticRepublicOfCongo, where #ChildLabour is common and working conditions are dire. Sodium batteries, by contrast, can use #electrodes built from #iron and #manganese [and wood #lignin], which are plentiful and uncontroversial. Since the chemical components are cheap, a scaled-up industry should be able to produce batteries that cost less than their lithium counterparts.
"Sodium is not a perfect replacement for lithium. It is heavier, meaning sodium batteries will weigh more than lithium ones of an equivalent capacity. That is likely to rule them out in some cases where lightness is paramount. But for other applications, such as #GridStorage or #HomeBatteries, weight is irrelevant. Several Chinese carmakers are even beginning to put sodium batteries in #ElectricVehicles."
Read more:
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/10/26/sodium-batteries-offer-an-alternative-to-tricky-lithiumArchived version:
https://archive.ph/7x6JX#SolarPunkSunday #EnergyStorage #SodiumIon #NewTechnology #GiantLeap #Reuse #WasteReuse #NoLithiumMining #NoMining
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#SodiumIonBatteries offer an alternative to tricky #lithium
Oct 26th 2023
Excerpt: "Fortunately, lithium is not the only game in town. As we report this week, a clutch of firms are making batteries based on sodium, lithium’s elemental cousin. Since sodium’s chemical properties are very similar to those of lithium, it too makes for good batteries. And sodium, which is found in the salt in #seawater, is thousands of times more abundant on Earth than lithium and cheaper to get at. Most of the companies using sodium to make batteries today are also Chinese. But pursuing the technology in the West might be a surer route to energy security than relying heavily on lithium.
"Besides its abundance, sodium has other advantages. The best lithium batteries use #cobalt and #nickel in their electrodes. Nickel, like lithium, is in short supply. #Mining it on land is #EnvironmentallyDestructive. Proposals to grab it from the #seabed instead have caused rows. A good deal of the world’s cobalt, meanwhile, is extracted from small mines in the #DemocraticRepublicOfCongo, where #ChildLabour is common and working conditions are dire. Sodium batteries, by contrast, can use #electrodes built from #iron and #manganese [and wood #lignin], which are plentiful and uncontroversial. Since the chemical components are cheap, a scaled-up industry should be able to produce batteries that cost less than their lithium counterparts.
"Sodium is not a perfect replacement for lithium. It is heavier, meaning sodium batteries will weigh more than lithium ones of an equivalent capacity. That is likely to rule them out in some cases where lightness is paramount. But for other applications, such as #GridStorage or #HomeBatteries, weight is irrelevant. Several Chinese carmakers are even beginning to put sodium batteries in #ElectricVehicles."
Read more:
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/10/26/sodium-batteries-offer-an-alternative-to-tricky-lithiumArchived version:
https://archive.ph/7x6JX#SolarPunkSunday #EnergyStorage #SodiumIon #NewTechnology #GiantLeap #Reuse #WasteReuse #NoLithiumMining #NoMining
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#SodiumIonBatteries offer an alternative to tricky #lithium
Oct 26th 2023
Excerpt: "Fortunately, lithium is not the only game in town. As we report this week, a clutch of firms are making batteries based on sodium, lithium’s elemental cousin. Since sodium’s chemical properties are very similar to those of lithium, it too makes for good batteries. And sodium, which is found in the salt in #seawater, is thousands of times more abundant on Earth than lithium and cheaper to get at. Most of the companies using sodium to make batteries today are also Chinese. But pursuing the technology in the West might be a surer route to energy security than relying heavily on lithium.
"Besides its abundance, sodium has other advantages. The best lithium batteries use #cobalt and #nickel in their electrodes. Nickel, like lithium, is in short supply. #Mining it on land is #EnvironmentallyDestructive. Proposals to grab it from the #seabed instead have caused rows. A good deal of the world’s cobalt, meanwhile, is extracted from small mines in the #DemocraticRepublicOfCongo, where #ChildLabour is common and working conditions are dire. Sodium batteries, by contrast, can use #electrodes built from #iron and #manganese [and wood #lignin], which are plentiful and uncontroversial. Since the chemical components are cheap, a scaled-up industry should be able to produce batteries that cost less than their lithium counterparts.
"Sodium is not a perfect replacement for lithium. It is heavier, meaning sodium batteries will weigh more than lithium ones of an equivalent capacity. That is likely to rule them out in some cases where lightness is paramount. But for other applications, such as #GridStorage or #HomeBatteries, weight is irrelevant. Several Chinese carmakers are even beginning to put sodium batteries in #ElectricVehicles."
Read more:
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/10/26/sodium-batteries-offer-an-alternative-to-tricky-lithiumArchived version:
https://archive.ph/7x6JX#SolarPunkSunday #EnergyStorage #SodiumIon #NewTechnology #GiantLeap #Reuse #WasteReuse #NoLithiumMining #NoMining
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Oreo Maker Linked to Ongoing Deforestation and Human Rights Abuses
Mondelēz International, the company behind Oreo biscuits, continues to source palm oil from suppliers linked to rainforest destruction, exploitation of workers, and #violence against #Indigenous land defenders. Despite marketing its palm oil as “sustainable” and RSPO-certified, investigations show that these claims amount to greenwashing, with human rights abuses and #deforestation ongoing in its supply chain. We demand urgent action to expose these deceptive practices and protect marginalised indigenous peoples, endangered animals and endangered plants. #BoycottPalmOil #HumanRights
🍪🔥 #Mondelez maker of #Oreos is fuelling rainforest #ecocide and #humanrights abuses. They source #palmoil linked to #childlabour and exploitation 💀🌴 Use your wallet as a weapon to help animals and indigenous people! #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife https://palmoildetectives.com/2026/02/04/oreo-maker-linked-to-ongoing-deforestation-and-human-rights-abuses/
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterOreo’s “sustainable” #palmoil is a #greenwashing myth—deforestation and human rights abuses continue in #Mondelēz’s supply chain. Demand real change! #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife #HumanRights @palmoildetect 🌴☠️🚫 https://palmoildetectives.com/2026/02/04/oreo-maker-linked-to-ongoing-deforestation-and-human-rights-abuses/
Share to BlueSky Share to Twitterhttps://youtu.be/eG8V-Cmj4Es?si=D3KyWvCa_A1ULdVQ
Rainforest Action Network. (2025, May 14). The maker of Oreos is not taking its human rights responsibilities seriously.
Mondelēz International, the global food giant responsible for Oreo biscuits, faces renewed scrutiny for its palm oil sourcing practices. Despite public claims of using “sustainable” RSPO-certified palm oil, evidence from multiple investigations shows that human rights abuses and deforestation remain widespread in the company’s supply chain.
Between 2015 and 2017, 22 of Mondelēz’s palm oil suppliers cleared over 70,000 hectares of rainforest, including 25,000 hectares of orangutan habitat in Indonesia. These suppliers have also been accused of child labour, worker exploitation, illegal deforestation, forest fires, and land grabbing. Much of this palm oil is sourced from Wilmar International, the world’s largest palm oil trader, which has repeatedly failed to monitor or control its suppliers’ destructive practices.
Despite adopting a “No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation” policy, Mondelēz’s reliance on RSPO certification has been widely criticised as ineffective and misleading. The RSPO standard has failed to prevent land grabs, forced labour, and environmental harm, while the company continues to market its products as ethical and sustainable.
Kiki Taufik, head of Greenpeace Southeast Asia’s Indonesia forests campaign, said: “It’s outrageous that despite promising to clean up its palm oil almost ten years ago, Mondelēz is still trading with forest destroyers. Palm oil can be made without destroying forests, yet our investigation discovered that Mondelēz suppliers are still trashing forests and wrecking orangutan habitat, pushing these beautiful and intelligent creatures to the brink of extinction. They’re literally dying for a cookie”.
The article highlights that these issues are not isolated incidents but reflect systemic failures in the palm oil sector’s self-regulation and corporate accountability. The continued use of “sustainable” palm oil claims is described as greenwashing, misleading consumers while abuses persist.
The article calls for urgent action from consumers, advocates, and policymakers to demand real accountability from companies like Mondelēz. Protecting Indigenous communities, upholding workers’ rights, and halting deforestation are identified as urgent priorities.
Rainforest Action Network. (2025, May 14). The maker of Oreos is not taking its human rights responsibilities seriously.
ENDS
Read more about deforestation and ecocide in the palm oil industry
Meat-Stinking Giant Flower Has A Delectable Aroma For Pollinators
Titan Arum AKA ‘Corpse Flowers’ is famous for its repulsive meat smell. Palm oil agriculture is a massive threat to these rare stinky plants. Take action!
Western Parotia Parotia sefilata
Western Parotias AKA Arfak Parotias are stunning bird-of-paradise of West Papua known for their mesmerising dances. Palm oil and mining ecocide are threats
Capped Langur Trachypithecus pileatus
Capped langurs are found in India Bhutan Bangladesh and Myanmar, they are vulnerable from palm oil and other forms of deforestation. Take action for them!
World’s Wealthiest Drive Two Thirds of Global Warming Since 1990
Wealthiest people in USA and China responsible for 2/3 of global warming since 1990. Climate policies needed to target the richest people on the planet now!
Jaguars and Pumas Eat More Monkeys in Damaged Forests
In fragmented forests of Mexico, big cats find it hard to locate prey ungulates instead seeking tree-dwelling #monkeys – that’s bad news for primates!
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Take Action in Five Ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
Enter your email address
Sign Up
Join 3,174 other subscribers2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.
Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20
https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20
https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support#BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4wildlife #BoycottPalmOil #childlabour #corruption #deforestation #ecocide #GHG #greenwashing #HumanRights #indigenous #landgrabbing #Mondelez #News #Oreos #PalmOil #palmOilBiofuel #palmOilDeforestation #palmoil #violence
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Oreo Maker Linked to Ongoing Deforestation and Human Rights Abuses
Mondelēz International, the company behind Oreo biscuits, continues to source palm oil from suppliers linked to rainforest destruction, exploitation of workers, and #violence against #Indigenous land defenders. Despite marketing its palm oil as “sustainable” and RSPO-certified, investigations show that these claims amount to greenwashing, with human rights abuses and #deforestation ongoing in its supply chain. We demand urgent action to expose these deceptive practices and protect marginalised indigenous peoples, endangered animals and endangered plants. #BoycottPalmOil #HumanRights
🍪🔥 #Mondelez maker of #Oreos is fuelling rainforest #ecocide and #humanrights abuses. They source #palmoil linked to #childlabour and exploitation 💀🌴 Use your wallet as a weapon to help animals and indigenous people! #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife https://palmoildetectives.com/2026/02/04/oreo-maker-linked-to-ongoing-deforestation-and-human-rights-abuses/
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterOreo’s “sustainable” #palmoil is a #greenwashing myth—deforestation and human rights abuses continue in #Mondelēz’s supply chain. Demand real change! #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife #HumanRights @palmoildetect 🌴☠️🚫 https://palmoildetectives.com/2026/02/04/oreo-maker-linked-to-ongoing-deforestation-and-human-rights-abuses/
Share to BlueSky Share to Twitterhttps://youtu.be/eG8V-Cmj4Es?si=D3KyWvCa_A1ULdVQ
Rainforest Action Network. (2025, May 14). The maker of Oreos is not taking its human rights responsibilities seriously.
Mondelēz International, the global food giant responsible for Oreo biscuits, faces renewed scrutiny for its palm oil sourcing practices. Despite public claims of using “sustainable” RSPO-certified palm oil, evidence from multiple investigations shows that human rights abuses and deforestation remain widespread in the company’s supply chain.
Between 2015 and 2017, 22 of Mondelēz’s palm oil suppliers cleared over 70,000 hectares of rainforest, including 25,000 hectares of orangutan habitat in Indonesia. These suppliers have also been accused of child labour, worker exploitation, illegal deforestation, forest fires, and land grabbing. Much of this palm oil is sourced from Wilmar International, the world’s largest palm oil trader, which has repeatedly failed to monitor or control its suppliers’ destructive practices.
Despite adopting a “No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation” policy, Mondelēz’s reliance on RSPO certification has been widely criticised as ineffective and misleading. The RSPO standard has failed to prevent land grabs, forced labour, and environmental harm, while the company continues to market its products as ethical and sustainable.
Kiki Taufik, head of Greenpeace Southeast Asia’s Indonesia forests campaign, said: “It’s outrageous that despite promising to clean up its palm oil almost ten years ago, Mondelēz is still trading with forest destroyers. Palm oil can be made without destroying forests, yet our investigation discovered that Mondelēz suppliers are still trashing forests and wrecking orangutan habitat, pushing these beautiful and intelligent creatures to the brink of extinction. They’re literally dying for a cookie”.
The article highlights that these issues are not isolated incidents but reflect systemic failures in the palm oil sector’s self-regulation and corporate accountability. The continued use of “sustainable” palm oil claims is described as greenwashing, misleading consumers while abuses persist.
The article calls for urgent action from consumers, advocates, and policymakers to demand real accountability from companies like Mondelēz. Protecting Indigenous communities, upholding workers’ rights, and halting deforestation are identified as urgent priorities.
Rainforest Action Network. (2025, May 14). The maker of Oreos is not taking its human rights responsibilities seriously.
ENDS
Read more about deforestation and ecocide in the palm oil industry
Meat-Stinking Giant Flower Has A Delectable Aroma For Pollinators
Titan Arum AKA ‘Corpse Flowers’ is famous for its repulsive meat smell. Palm oil agriculture is a massive threat to these rare stinky plants. Take action!
Western Parotia Parotia sefilata
Western Parotias AKA Arfak Parotias are stunning bird-of-paradise of West Papua known for their mesmerising dances. Palm oil and mining ecocide are threats
Capped Langur Trachypithecus pileatus
Capped langurs are found in India Bhutan Bangladesh and Myanmar, they are vulnerable from palm oil and other forms of deforestation. Take action for them!
World’s Wealthiest Drive Two Thirds of Global Warming Since 1990
Wealthiest people in USA and China responsible for 2/3 of global warming since 1990. Climate policies needed to target the richest people on the planet now!
Jaguars and Pumas Eat More Monkeys in Damaged Forests
In fragmented forests of Mexico, big cats find it hard to locate prey ungulates instead seeking tree-dwelling #monkeys – that’s bad news for primates!
Load more posts
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Take Action in Five Ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
Enter your email address
Sign Up
Join 3,174 other subscribers2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.
Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20
https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20
https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support#BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4wildlife #BoycottPalmOil #childlabour #corruption #deforestation #ecocide #GHG #greenwashing #HumanRights #indigenous #landgrabbing #Mondelez #News #Oreos #PalmOil #palmOilBiofuel #palmOilDeforestation #palmoil #violence
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Indigenous Peoples Fight Climate Change
In the wake of the worst wildfires in living memory in Mexico and Central America in 2024, news outlets were looking for someone to blame. Howler monkeys and many species of parrots perished in the blazes. Slash and burn farming practices by Belize‘s indigenous communities were singled out as a primary cause. Yet this knee-jerk reaction is not evidence based and doesn’t take into account forces like corporate landgrabbing for mining and agribusinesses like meat, soy and palm oil.
Belize’s indigenous Maya communities are rebuilding stronger based on the collective notion of se’ komonil: reciprocity, solidarity, traditional knowledge, gender equity, togetherness and community.
In the wake of horrific #wildfires in #Belize and #Mexico caused by #climatechange, #indigenous #Maya are rebuilding using the notion of se’ komonil: reciprocity #community and solidarity. #indigenousrights #landrights #BoycottPalmOil @palmoildetect https://wp.me/pcFhgU-924
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterWritten by James Stinson, Senior Research Associate and Evaluation Specialist, Young Lives Research Lab, Faculty of Education, York University, Canada and Lee Mcloughlin, PhD student, Global Sociocultural Studies, Florida International University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Driven by extreme heat and drought, some of the worst wildfires in living memory raged across Mexico and Central America through April and May 2024.
News agencies reported howler monkeys dropping dead from trees, and parrots and other birds falling from the skies.
In Belize, a state of emergency was declared as wildfires burned tens of thousands of hectares of highly bio-diverse forest. Farmers suffered huge losses as fires destroyed crops and homes, and communities across the country suffered from hazardous air quality and hot, sleepless nights. Many risked their lives to fight off the approaching fires.
As the wildfire crisis subsided with rains in June, public attention shifted toward identifying the causes and allocating blame. Many singled out the “slash and burn” farming practices in Belize’s Indigenous communities as the primary cause. This simple knee-jerk reaction ignores the underlying causes of the climate crisis, are scientifically unfounded and stoke resentment of Indigenous Peoples.
Young Mayan women. Image source: WikipediaFanning the flames
On June 5, one of Belize’s major news networks ran a story with the headline “Are Primitive Farming Techniques Responsible for Wildfires?” The story placed blame for Belize’s wildfires on “slash-and-burn farming”, arguing that “there has to be a shift away from this destructive means of agriculture.”
The story was followed by an op-ed published online asserting that “because of the increased amounts of escaped agricultural fires, aided by climate change, global warming and drought, slash and burn has become more of a problem than the solution it once was.” This sentiment was further reinforced by Belize’s prime minister, who declared that “slash аnd burn has to be something of the past.”
While some of the recent fires in Belize were connected to agricultural burning — and poorly managed fire-clearing practices can have negative air-quality impacts — blaming “slash and burn” for the wildfire crisis ignores the larger context and conditions that made it possible, namely global warming.
May 2024 was the hottest and driest month in Belize’s history. This extreme heat is part of a broader global trend, with June 2024 marking the 13th consecutive “hottest month on record” globally.
More fundamentally, these statements confuse other forms of slash-and-burn agriculture with the distinct “milpa” systems employed by Indigenous people in Belize.
Indigenous knowledge undermined
Throughout Belize, Indigenous Maya farmers commonly practise a form of agriculture referred to as milpa in which fire is used to clear fields and fertilize the soil. Within this system, small areas of forest are chopped down, burned, and planted with maize, beans, squash and other crops. After being cultivated for a year or two, the field is then left fallow and allowed to regenerate back to forest cover while the farmers move on to a new area within a cyclical pattern where areas are reused after a regenerative period.
Commonly derided as slash-and-burn farming, milpa has long been perceived as environmentally destructive. This perspective has been perpetuated by long-standing myths and misconceptions that portray the farming practices of non-Europeans, and specifically the use of fire, as wasteful and irrational.
In Belize, this negative view of slash and burn has driven many colonial and post-colonial interventions to modernize Maya farming practices.
Recent research, however, has shown that the lands of Indigenous Peoples around the world have reduced deforestation and degradation rates relative to non-protected areas. The southern Toledo district of Belize, where the majority of Maya communities are located, boasts a forest cover rate of 71 per cent, significantly higher than the national average of 63 per cent.
Further research has found that the species composition of contemporary Mesoamerican forests has been shaped by the agricultural practices of ancient Maya farmers.
In Belize, fire has been found to play a role in promoting ecosystem health and resilience and intermediate levels of forest disturbance caused by milpa can increase species diversity. Well-managed milpa farming can support soil fertility, result in long-term carbon sequestration and enriched woodland vegetation.
Research has also shown that previous studies of deforestation in southern Belize significantly overestimated the rate of deforestation due to milpa agriculture by not accounting for its rotational process.
Many researchers now believe that milpa is a more benign alternative, in terms of environmental effects, than most other permanent farming systems in the humid tropics. Indeed, findings such as these have led to a growing appreciation for the role of Indigenous Peoples in advancing nature-based and life-enhancing climate solutions.
Unfortunately, research in the region has also found that climate change is undermining the ecological sustainability of milpa farming by forcing farmers to abandon traditional practices and adopt counterproductive measures in their struggle to adapt. In some cases, this has resulted in a decrease in the biodiversity and ecological resilience of the milpa system. This issue is compounded by the decreasing participation of young people, resulting in a further generational loss of traditional ecological knowledge.
Together, these issues are serving to alter and undermine a livelihood strategy that has proven sustainable for thousands of years. However, rather than call for Maya farmers to abandon slash and burn, we encourage support for the self-determined efforts of Maya communities to adapt to this changing climate. https://www.youtube.com/embed/ok787HRp_gA?wmode=transparent&start=0 A video documenting the Maya response to the 2024 wildfire crisis.
Planting seeds of collaboration
Since winning a groundbreaking land rights claim in 2015, Maya communities in southern Belize have been working to promote an Indigenous future based on principles of reciprocity, solidarity, traditional knowledge, gender equity and, most significantly, se’ komonil, the Maya notion of togetherness and community.
Led by a collaboration of Maya leaders and non-governmental organizations, work toward this has included efforts to revitalize traditional institutions and governance systems, as well as the development of an Indigenous Forest Caring Strategy and fire-permitting system. In an effort to encourage and support the participation of youth in this process, Maya leaders have collaborated with the Young Lives Research Lab at York University to develop the Partnership for Youth and Planetary Wellbeing.
Building on previous research with Maya youth, the project has produced innovative youth-led research and education on the impacts of climate change, the importance of food sovereignty, traditional ecological knowledge and the struggle to secure Indigenous land rights in Maya communities. This work has been shared with global policymakers at the United Nations and local audiences in Belize.
Rather than fanning the flames of climate blame, we must work together to revitalize Indigenous knowledge systems and plant seeds of climate collaboration and care.
Written by James Stinson, Senior Research Associate and Evaluation Specialist, Young Lives Research Lab, Faculty of Education, York University, Canada and Lee Mcloughlin, PhD student, Global Sociocultural Studies, Florida International University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
ENDS
Read more about human rights abuses and child slavery in the palm oil and gold mining industries
Investigation by Bloomberg exposes that despite being RSPO members, #SOCFIN plantations in #WestAfrica are the epicentre of #humanrights abuses, sexual coercion, environmental destruction, and #landgrabbing. Operating in #Liberia, #Ghana, #Nigeria, and beyond, SOCFIN’s…
Palm Oil Threatens Ancient Noken Weaving in West Papua
Colonial palm oil and sugarcane causing the loss of West Papuans’ cultural identity. Land grabs force communities from forests, threatening Noken weaving
Family Ties Expose Deforestation and Rights Violations in Indonesian Palm Oil
An explosive report by the Environment Investigation Agency (EIA) details how Indonesia’s Fangiono family, through a wide corporate web, is linked to ongoing #deforestation, #corruption, and #indigenousrights abuses for #palmoil. Calls mount for…
West Papuan Indigenous Women Fight Land Seizures
Indigenous Melanesian women in West Papua fight land seizures for palm oil and sugar plantations, protecting their ancestral rights. Join #BoycottPalmOil
Greasing the Wheels of Colonialism: Palm Oil Industry in West Papua
A landmark study published in Global Studies Quarterly in April 2025 has revealed that the rapid expansion of the #palmoil industry in #WestPapua is not only fuelling #deforestation, #ecocide and environmental destruction but…
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Take Action in Five Ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
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Join 3,171 other subscribers2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.
Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20
https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20
https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support#belize #boycottPalmOil #boycottpalmoil #childLabour #childSlavery #climatechange #community #goldMining #humanRights #hunger #indigenous #indigenousActivism #indigenousKnowledge #indigenousRights #indigenousrights #landRights #landgrabbing #landrights #maya #mexico #palmOil #poverty #slavery #wildfires
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Indigenous Peoples Fight Climate Change
In the wake of the worst wildfires in living memory in Mexico and Central America in 2024, news outlets were looking for someone to blame. Howler monkeys and many species of parrots perished in the blazes. Slash and burn farming practices by Belize‘s indigenous communities were singled out as a primary cause. Yet this knee-jerk reaction is not evidence based and doesn’t take into account forces like corporate landgrabbing for mining and agribusinesses like meat, soy and palm oil.
Belize’s indigenous Maya communities are rebuilding stronger based on the collective notion of se’ komonil: reciprocity, solidarity, traditional knowledge, gender equity, togetherness and community.
In the wake of horrific #wildfires in #Belize and #Mexico caused by #climatechange, #indigenous #Maya are rebuilding using the notion of se’ komonil: reciprocity #community and solidarity. #indigenousrights #landrights #BoycottPalmOil @palmoildetect https://wp.me/pcFhgU-924
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterWritten by James Stinson, Senior Research Associate and Evaluation Specialist, Young Lives Research Lab, Faculty of Education, York University, Canada and Lee Mcloughlin, PhD student, Global Sociocultural Studies, Florida International University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Driven by extreme heat and drought, some of the worst wildfires in living memory raged across Mexico and Central America through April and May 2024.
News agencies reported howler monkeys dropping dead from trees, and parrots and other birds falling from the skies.
In Belize, a state of emergency was declared as wildfires burned tens of thousands of hectares of highly bio-diverse forest. Farmers suffered huge losses as fires destroyed crops and homes, and communities across the country suffered from hazardous air quality and hot, sleepless nights. Many risked their lives to fight off the approaching fires.
As the wildfire crisis subsided with rains in June, public attention shifted toward identifying the causes and allocating blame. Many singled out the “slash and burn” farming practices in Belize’s Indigenous communities as the primary cause. This simple knee-jerk reaction ignores the underlying causes of the climate crisis, are scientifically unfounded and stoke resentment of Indigenous Peoples.
Young Mayan women. Image source: WikipediaFanning the flames
On June 5, one of Belize’s major news networks ran a story with the headline “Are Primitive Farming Techniques Responsible for Wildfires?” The story placed blame for Belize’s wildfires on “slash-and-burn farming”, arguing that “there has to be a shift away from this destructive means of agriculture.”
The story was followed by an op-ed published online asserting that “because of the increased amounts of escaped agricultural fires, aided by climate change, global warming and drought, slash and burn has become more of a problem than the solution it once was.” This sentiment was further reinforced by Belize’s prime minister, who declared that “slash аnd burn has to be something of the past.”
While some of the recent fires in Belize were connected to agricultural burning — and poorly managed fire-clearing practices can have negative air-quality impacts — blaming “slash and burn” for the wildfire crisis ignores the larger context and conditions that made it possible, namely global warming.
May 2024 was the hottest and driest month in Belize’s history. This extreme heat is part of a broader global trend, with June 2024 marking the 13th consecutive “hottest month on record” globally.
More fundamentally, these statements confuse other forms of slash-and-burn agriculture with the distinct “milpa” systems employed by Indigenous people in Belize.
Indigenous knowledge undermined
Throughout Belize, Indigenous Maya farmers commonly practise a form of agriculture referred to as milpa in which fire is used to clear fields and fertilize the soil. Within this system, small areas of forest are chopped down, burned, and planted with maize, beans, squash and other crops. After being cultivated for a year or two, the field is then left fallow and allowed to regenerate back to forest cover while the farmers move on to a new area within a cyclical pattern where areas are reused after a regenerative period.
Commonly derided as slash-and-burn farming, milpa has long been perceived as environmentally destructive. This perspective has been perpetuated by long-standing myths and misconceptions that portray the farming practices of non-Europeans, and specifically the use of fire, as wasteful and irrational.
In Belize, this negative view of slash and burn has driven many colonial and post-colonial interventions to modernize Maya farming practices.
Recent research, however, has shown that the lands of Indigenous Peoples around the world have reduced deforestation and degradation rates relative to non-protected areas. The southern Toledo district of Belize, where the majority of Maya communities are located, boasts a forest cover rate of 71 per cent, significantly higher than the national average of 63 per cent.
Further research has found that the species composition of contemporary Mesoamerican forests has been shaped by the agricultural practices of ancient Maya farmers.
In Belize, fire has been found to play a role in promoting ecosystem health and resilience and intermediate levels of forest disturbance caused by milpa can increase species diversity. Well-managed milpa farming can support soil fertility, result in long-term carbon sequestration and enriched woodland vegetation.
Research has also shown that previous studies of deforestation in southern Belize significantly overestimated the rate of deforestation due to milpa agriculture by not accounting for its rotational process.
Many researchers now believe that milpa is a more benign alternative, in terms of environmental effects, than most other permanent farming systems in the humid tropics. Indeed, findings such as these have led to a growing appreciation for the role of Indigenous Peoples in advancing nature-based and life-enhancing climate solutions.
Unfortunately, research in the region has also found that climate change is undermining the ecological sustainability of milpa farming by forcing farmers to abandon traditional practices and adopt counterproductive measures in their struggle to adapt. In some cases, this has resulted in a decrease in the biodiversity and ecological resilience of the milpa system. This issue is compounded by the decreasing participation of young people, resulting in a further generational loss of traditional ecological knowledge.
Together, these issues are serving to alter and undermine a livelihood strategy that has proven sustainable for thousands of years. However, rather than call for Maya farmers to abandon slash and burn, we encourage support for the self-determined efforts of Maya communities to adapt to this changing climate. https://www.youtube.com/embed/ok787HRp_gA?wmode=transparent&start=0 A video documenting the Maya response to the 2024 wildfire crisis.
Planting seeds of collaboration
Since winning a groundbreaking land rights claim in 2015, Maya communities in southern Belize have been working to promote an Indigenous future based on principles of reciprocity, solidarity, traditional knowledge, gender equity and, most significantly, se’ komonil, the Maya notion of togetherness and community.
Led by a collaboration of Maya leaders and non-governmental organizations, work toward this has included efforts to revitalize traditional institutions and governance systems, as well as the development of an Indigenous Forest Caring Strategy and fire-permitting system. In an effort to encourage and support the participation of youth in this process, Maya leaders have collaborated with the Young Lives Research Lab at York University to develop the Partnership for Youth and Planetary Wellbeing.
Building on previous research with Maya youth, the project has produced innovative youth-led research and education on the impacts of climate change, the importance of food sovereignty, traditional ecological knowledge and the struggle to secure Indigenous land rights in Maya communities. This work has been shared with global policymakers at the United Nations and local audiences in Belize.
Rather than fanning the flames of climate blame, we must work together to revitalize Indigenous knowledge systems and plant seeds of climate collaboration and care.
Written by James Stinson, Senior Research Associate and Evaluation Specialist, Young Lives Research Lab, Faculty of Education, York University, Canada and Lee Mcloughlin, PhD student, Global Sociocultural Studies, Florida International University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
ENDS
Read more about human rights abuses and child slavery in the palm oil and gold mining industries
Investigation by Bloomberg exposes that despite being RSPO members, #SOCFIN plantations in #WestAfrica are the epicentre of #humanrights abuses, sexual coercion, environmental destruction, and #landgrabbing. Operating in #Liberia, #Ghana, #Nigeria, and beyond, SOCFIN’s…
Palm Oil Threatens Ancient Noken Weaving in West Papua
Colonial palm oil and sugarcane causing the loss of West Papuans’ cultural identity. Land grabs force communities from forests, threatening Noken weaving
Family Ties Expose Deforestation and Rights Violations in Indonesian Palm Oil
An explosive report by the Environment Investigation Agency (EIA) details how Indonesia’s Fangiono family, through a wide corporate web, is linked to ongoing #deforestation, #corruption, and #indigenousrights abuses for #palmoil. Calls mount for…
West Papuan Indigenous Women Fight Land Seizures
Indigenous Melanesian women in West Papua fight land seizures for palm oil and sugar plantations, protecting their ancestral rights. Join #BoycottPalmOil
Greasing the Wheels of Colonialism: Palm Oil Industry in West Papua
A landmark study published in Global Studies Quarterly in April 2025 has revealed that the rapid expansion of the #palmoil industry in #WestPapua is not only fuelling #deforestation, #ecocide and environmental destruction but…
Load more posts
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Take Action in Five Ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
Enter your email address
Sign Up
Join 3,171 other subscribers2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.
Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20
https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20
https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support#belize #boycottPalmOil #boycottpalmoil #childLabour #childSlavery #climatechange #community #goldMining #humanRights #hunger #indigenous #indigenousActivism #indigenousKnowledge #indigenousRights #indigenousrights #landRights #landgrabbing #landrights #maya #mexico #palmOil #poverty #slavery #wildfires
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Child Poverty Day.
#childpoverty #poverty #children #endpoverty #childlabour #help #education #charity #endchildpoverty #hunger #letschangethestory #nopoverty #stopchildlabour #unsustainabilitygoals #change #school #humanrights #child #povertyinindia #ukpoverty #humanity #childrenscharity #povertyalleviation #worlddayagainstchildlabour #indiaanduk #indiapovertyproblem #streetlifeiscruel #goal #povertyindia #poorindia Child Poverty Day is celebrated today. Every year…
https://itsmostamazingindia.wordpress.com/2025/10/17/child-poverty-day/
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Child Poverty Day.
#childpoverty #poverty #children #endpoverty #childlabour #help #education #charity #endchildpoverty #hunger #letschangethestory #nopoverty #stopchildlabour #unsustainabilitygoals #change #school #humanrights #child #povertyinindia #ukpoverty #humanity #childrenscharity #povertyalleviation #worlddayagainstchildlabour #indiaanduk #indiapovertyproblem #streetlifeiscruel #goal #povertyindia #poorindia Child Poverty Day is celebrated today. Every year…
https://itsmostamazingindia.wordpress.com/2025/10/17/child-poverty-day/
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Child Poverty Day.
#childpoverty #poverty #children #endpoverty #childlabour #help #education #charity #endchildpoverty #hunger #letschangethestory #nopoverty #stopchildlabour #unsustainabilitygoals #change #school #humanrights #child #povertyinindia #ukpoverty #humanity #childrenscharity #povertyalleviation #worlddayagainstchildlabour #indiaanduk #indiapovertyproblem #streetlifeiscruel #goal #povertyindia #poorindia Child Poverty Day is celebrated today. Every year…
https://itsmostamazingindia.wordpress.com/2025/10/17/child-poverty-day/
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Geared towards a #teen audience.
On the way to school, a boy is confronted by an enormous man whose hand grabs hold of his school bag and tosses it into the air. The hand pushes him towards a huge padlock, then forces him to enter through the keyhole: the schoolboy is imprisoned in a hazardous lock factory. Like the other children inside, he finds himself forced to operate a high-speed punch press. Struggling to follow the movements of the machine, he cuts off a finger. He tries to run away, but is recaptured.
Back at the factory he starts to cough up blood after inhaling iron particles that will prove lethal: the child dies on the job. Coldly, the hand picks up his body and drops it in the box the padlocks are shipped in, symbol of his murdered innocence.
How can we live with forced child labour? This #India / #Canada co-production is inspired by #Article32 of the United Nations Convention on the #RightsOfTheChild , which particularly upholds the child's right to be protected from economic #exploitation. An #AnimatedFilm without words for 12- to 17-year olds.
https://www.nfb.ca/film/locked/
#ChildrensRights #ForcedChildLabour #ChildLabour #ChildAbuse #StolenChildhood #CanadianFilm #NFB #ShortFilm
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Geared towards a #teen audience.
On the way to school, a boy is confronted by an enormous man whose hand grabs hold of his school bag and tosses it into the air. The hand pushes him towards a huge padlock, then forces him to enter through the keyhole: the schoolboy is imprisoned in a hazardous lock factory. Like the other children inside, he finds himself forced to operate a high-speed punch press. Struggling to follow the movements of the machine, he cuts off a finger. He tries to run away, but is recaptured.
Back at the factory he starts to cough up blood after inhaling iron particles that will prove lethal: the child dies on the job. Coldly, the hand picks up his body and drops it in the box the padlocks are shipped in, symbol of his murdered innocence.
How can we live with forced child labour? This #India / #Canada co-production is inspired by #Article32 of the United Nations Convention on the #RightsOfTheChild , which particularly upholds the child's right to be protected from economic #exploitation. An #AnimatedFilm without words for 12- to 17-year olds.
https://www.nfb.ca/film/locked/
#ChildrensRights #ForcedChildLabour #ChildLabour #ChildAbuse #StolenChildhood #CanadianFilm #NFB #ShortFilm
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This Sci-Fi Show Exposes How Elites Justify Evil
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lIkJpfgKr4#socialContract #TechnoOligarchy #AI #TheExpanse #Injustice #Politics #HumanDignity #SelfPreservasion #TechnoFascism #Congo #ChildLabor #Exploitation #WageSlavery #ChildLabour #Fainess #Devency
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Human rights and environmental violations throughout Australian supply chains ?
Creating a mandatory human rights due diligence regime for Australian companies"We analysed the human rights commitments of 25 of the top companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), including some of our largest banks and mining companies."
"We found Australian companies have a long way to go in “knowing and showing” a commitment to respect human rights, suggesting an urgent need for reform...It is clear from our research that many large Australian companies are not operating in line with international standards."
"One response could be for Australia to follow the European Union’s lead and create a mandatory human rights due diligence regime. Australian companies must take proactive steps to comply with international standards. Our findings suggest the government should enact a stronger and broader mandatory human rights due diligence law covering all human rights. "
>>
https://theconversation.com/some-of-australias-largest-companies-are-failing-to-know-and-show-their-respect-for-human-rights-250055
#HumanRights #ModernSlavery #transparency #DueDilligence #EUDR #SupplyChains #environment #pollution #LoggingImpacts #PayGap #ChildLabour #industry #DoingBusiness #mining #banks #energy #insurance #transportation #telecommunication #media #health #pharmaceuticals #governance -
Human rights and environmental violations throughout Australian supply chains ?
Creating a mandatory human rights due diligence regime for Australian companies"We analysed the human rights commitments of 25 of the top companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), including some of our largest banks and mining companies."
"We found Australian companies have a long way to go in “knowing and showing” a commitment to respect human rights, suggesting an urgent need for reform...It is clear from our research that many large Australian companies are not operating in line with international standards."
"One response could be for Australia to follow the European Union’s lead and create a mandatory human rights due diligence regime. Australian companies must take proactive steps to comply with international standards. Our findings suggest the government should enact a stronger and broader mandatory human rights due diligence law covering all human rights. "
>>
https://theconversation.com/some-of-australias-largest-companies-are-failing-to-know-and-show-their-respect-for-human-rights-250055
#HumanRights #ModernSlavery #transparency #DueDilligence #EUDR #SupplyChains #environment #pollution #LoggingImpacts #PayGap #ChildLabour #industry #DoingBusiness #mining #banks #energy #insurance #transportation #telecommunication #media #health #pharmaceuticals #governance -
Palm Oil Protesters Silenced and Arrested in Congo
On April 30, 2024, a shocking and disgraceful incident occurred in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). During a meeting of shareholders from Plantations et Huileries du Congo (PHC), (formerly known as Feronia) environmental rights defenders were arrested, and a journalist was kidnapped after displaying banners denouncing PHC’s mistreatment of local communities. PHC, formerly known as Feronia, is a multinational company that operates large palm oil plantations in the DRC. Take action in solidarity of these people and #BoycottPalmOil when you shop!
In April, environmental defenders in the #DRC were arrested and kidnapped at a shareholder meeting for highlighting #PalmOil #HumanRights abuses 🔥🌴⛔️ Since then no action has been taken! Stand with them 💪 #WorkersRights #BoycottPalmOil https://wp.me/pcFhgU-8xX @palmoildetect
Share to BlueSky Share to Twitter#PalmOil giant #PHC formerly #Feronia, violently silences environmental defenders in the #DRC #Congo. Protesters arrested, journalist kidnapped, workers left without justice. Take action for #HumanRights #BoycottPalmOil 🌴🚫 @palmoildetect https://wp.me/pcFhgU-8xX
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterZongwe Lukama, F. (2023, May 2). DRC: Mystery and collusion in the disappearance of environmental defenders fighting palm oil multinationals. Kilalo Press. Business and Human Rights Resource Centre has since asked for a company response, but to date none has been forthcoming from the palm oil company.
Arrests and Abduction at PHC Shareholders Meeting
On Tuesday, April 30, 2024, a shocking and disgraceful incident occurred in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). During a meeting of shareholders from Plantations et Huileries du Congo (PHC), environmental rights defenders were arrested, and an environmental journalist was kidnapped after displaying banners denouncing PHC’s mistreatment of local communities. PHC, formerly known as Feronia, is a multinational company that operates large palm oil plantations in the DRC.
Who are Plantations et Huileries du Congo (PHC)?
Plantations et Huileries du Congo (PHC) are a palm oil company that operate extensive palm oil plantations in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The company produces palm oil used in many products like food, cosmetics, and biofuels. PHC has faced numerous protests and criticism for its detrimental impact on the environment and local communities.
The people versus Feronia: Fighting palm oil agrocolonialism in the Congo
This powerful #comic is by Didier Kassai and Dieudonne Botoko Kendewa is about a community in the #Congo 🇨🇩 living next to the #Feronia #palmoil plantation. They faced #violence…
by Palm Oil DetectivesThe Protesters’ Demands
The protest was sparked by a letter from the Réseau d’Information et d’Appui aux ONG (RIAO – DRC), a network supporting non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the DRC. This letter led PHC to hold an urgent meeting in Kinshasa.
Protesters had several demands:
- Release people who were unjustly imprisoned.
- Compensate workers for accidents and retirees.
- Reopen the Lokutu and Boteka ports, which they argue are public roads, not PHC property.
Call to Action and Strong Suppression
The protesters wanted to push state authorities to act on an open letter from RIAO – DRC and its partners. This letter discussed mediation claims funded by the German Bank (DEG) and the Dutch Development Bank (FMO) to help communities affected by PHC. Unfortunately, security forces were called to stop the protesters, damage their equipment, and kidnap the journalist and environmental defender.
An Urgent Appeal for Support
RIAO-RDC, a national support network for NGOs, made an urgent call to security authorities and stakeholders to find their members, Dieumerci Mpay Ngomba, and a cameraman journalist from Numerica TV in Kinshasa. They called these actions “kidnapping” and stressed that defenders of forest community rights should not face political or rights abuses.
An Alarming and Unjust Situation for Environmental Defenders
The situation for environmental defenders in the DRC is worrying. RIAO-RDC said Dieumerci was arrested because of a complaint by PHC. At the General Prosecutor’s Office near the Court of Appeal of Kinshasa Gombe, protesters were charged with inciting breaches against public authority under article 135 of the Congolese penal code.
Targeting Environmental Advocates
RIAO-RDC believes that PHC is mainly targeting Jean François Mombia Atukua, who previously led a disguised march against RIAO and its director at the Lokutu base. The organisation urges the judiciary to ensure the safety of those arrested and uphold press freedom and human rights.
Company Response
Following publication PHC did not respond to the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre’s request for comment regarding these allegations.
References
- La Rédaction. (2024, May 3). DRC: Mystery and Collusion in the Disappearance of Environmental Defenders Fighting Palm Oil Multinationals. Kilalo Press.
- Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. DRC: Mystery and Collusion in the Disappearance of Environmental Defenders Fighting Palm Oil Multinationals.
- Palm Oil Detectives. (2022, February 3). Research: Small Room for Compromise Between Oil Palm Cultivation and Primate Conservation in Africa.
- Palm Oil Detectives. (2021, September 1). Africa’s Rainforests Are Different: Why It Matters That They’re Protected.
- Palm Oil Detectives. (2021, February 14). As Palm Oil Production Ramps Up in Africa, Communities Work to Avoid Problems Plaguing Other Regions.
- Palm Oil Detectives. (2021, January 18). Africa: Species Endangered by Palm Oil Deforestation
- Palm Oil Detectives. (2022, June 16). The People Versus Feronia: Fighting Palm Oil Agrocolonialism in the Congo. https://palmoildetectives.com/2022/06/16/the-people-versus-feronia-fighting-palm-oil-agrocolonialism-in-the-congo/
Zongwe Lukama, F. (2023, May 2). DRC: Mystery and collusion in the disappearance of environmental defenders fighting palm oil multinationals. Kilalo Press. Business and Human Rights Resource Centre has since asked for a company response, but to date none has been forthcoming from the palm oil company.
ENDS
Read more about human rights abuses and child slavery in the palm oil industry
Greasing the Wheels of Colonialism: Palm Oil Industry in West Papua
A landmark study published in Global Studies Quarterly in April 2025 has revealed that the rapid expansion of the #palmoil industry in #WestPapua is not only fuelling #deforestation, #ecocide and environmental destruction but…
Palm Oil Workers Expose Industry Practices Resembling Colonialism
Palm Oil Workers Expose Industry Practices Resembling Colonialism | A coalition of palm oil workers in Indonesia has unveiled industry practices that mirror colonial exploitation, including land grabbing, poor working conditions, and environmental…
Papua’s ‘Empty Lands’: A Dangerous Myth Displacing Indigenous Peoples
In #WestPapua, on illegally colonised and disputed land taken by violence from Melanesian Indigenous peoples last century by Indonesian forces, authorities label indigenous lands as “empty”. This is done in order to justify…
Research: Palm Oil Plantations Threaten Indigenous Waterways
Research: Palm Oil Plantations Threaten Indigenous Waterways | A study by the University of Massachusetts Amherst reveals that the expansion of oil palm plantations in West Papua’s Kais River watershed has significantly degraded…
New Research: Indigenous Communities Reduce Amazon Deforestation by 83%”
Although #deforestation rates in the Brazilian #Amazon have halved, this globally critical biome is still losing more than 5,000km² every year. That’s an area three times larger than Greater London. By combining satellite…
Load more posts
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Take Action in Five Ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
Enter your email address
Sign Up
Join 1,397 other subscribers2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.
Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20
https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20
https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support#BoycottPalmOil #BoycottPalmOil #childLabour #childSlavery #Congo #corruption #DemocracticRepublicOfCongo #DRC #Feronia #humanRights #HumanRights #indigenousRights #landRights #landgrabbing #PalmOil #palmoil #PHC #slavery #workersRights #WorkersRights
-
Children’s Day in India: A Legacy of Pandit Nehru's Vision for the Future.
https://aliyesha.com/sub/articles/news/display/al_childrens_day_in_india_2024
#india #childrensday #baldiwas #nehru #PanditNehru #education #nutrition #youth #ChildLabour
Enjoy tracker free reading with us. #privacy #privacymatters
-
Children’s Day in India: A Legacy of Pandit Nehru's Vision for the Future.
https://aliyesha.com/sub/articles/news/display/al_childrens_day_in_india_2024
#india #childrensday #baldiwas #nehru #PanditNehru #education #nutrition #youth #ChildLabour
Enjoy tracker free reading with us. #privacy #privacymatters
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agK3EZv8Q44
How L'Oreal Poisoned the World (...and also sells products to #ApartheidIsrael)
#cosmetics #Bodycare #Haircare #maquillage #capitalism #corporategreed #consumerknowledge #labourexploitation #childlabour
AND....THE...SKINCARE PRODUCTS...DON'T WORK!
At the 20 minute mark, ignore the phoney self-promotion for this dude's products. TACKY.
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agK3EZv8Q44
How L'Oreal Poisoned the World (...and also sells products to #ApartheidIsrael)
#cosmetics #Bodycare #Haircare #maquillage #capitalism #corporategreed #consumerknowledge #labourexploitation #childlabour
AND....THE...SKINCARE PRODUCTS...DON'T WORK!
At the 20 minute mark, ignore the phoney self-promotion for this dude's products. TACKY.
-
Snack giant PepsiCo allegedly sourced “sustainable” palm oil from razed Indigenous land in Peru
PepsiCo‘s supply chain is allegedly linked to environmental and human rights violations in Peru, involving Amazon deforestation and Indigenous land invasion. For three years, palm oil from deforested Shipibo-Konibo territory has been used in products like Gatorade, Mountain Dew, Cheetos, Doritos and more. PepsiCo sources oil from Ocho Sur, a company notorious for environmental crimes and forest loss. The palm oil industry in Peru, which doubled production in a decade, is allegedly responsible for significant illegal deforestation, violent indigenous landgrabbing, animal extinction and human rights abuses. Take action every time you shop and #Boycottpalmoil for wildlife and Indigenous people.
Corrupt so-called “sustainable” #palmoil is never far from your own fridge. Food #giant #PepsiCo, maker of snack favs #Cheetos #Gatorade gets #palmoil 🤮at the expense of Shipibo-Konibo people of #Peru 🇵🇪 Fight back and #BoycottPalmOil 🪔🚫 @palmoildetect https://wp.me/pcFhgU-8EG
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterDYK the #palmoil in #food like #Doritos 🤒🤮 and #Gatorade 🫗 is linked to #indigenous #landgrabbing and violence in #Peru? 🇵🇪 It’s what the ads leave out that’s most important. Learn more about how you can #BoycottPalmOil 🧐 via @palmoildetect https://wp.me/pcFhgU-8EG
Share to BlueSky Share to Twitterhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72e5HYiY7N8
The article below was originally published on April 18 2024 by Ojo Público and MongaBay. Written By Elisângela Mendonça , Aramís Castro , Andrew Wasley. Photography: David Díaz, Illustration by Claudia Calderón. This investigation was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network. Read more
Sign petition: Tell PepsiCo stop destroying rainforests for palm oil!
PepsiCo’s profit-first palm oil policy is still destroying rainforests.
Meanwhile, PepsiCo keeps on promising that it’s working towards a truly sustainable palm oil policy, making commitments to human rights and zero deforestation. But this new report leaves no doubt: this whole time, PepsiCo’s palm oil promises have been nothing but smoke and mirrors.
Sign the Eko petitionPeruvian palm oil linked to environmental and human rights violations ended up in the supply chain for the makers of Gatorade and Cheetos
The US food and drink giant PepsiCo has been linked through its supply chain to Amazon deforestation and the invasion of Indigenous lands in Peru, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), Mongabay and Peruvian outlet Ojo Público can reveal.
For at least three years, PepsiCo’s Peruvian suppliers have been sourcing palm oil from deforested territory claimed by the Shipibo-Konibo people in Ucayali, eastern Peru.
The company, which manufactures snacks including Cheetos and Gatorade, runs a factory in Mexico that buys Peruvian palm oil after it has been processed at a Mexican refinery. That refinery buys from a Peruvian consortium, Sol de Palma, that shares storage facilities with Ocho Sur, a notorious US-funded business accused of repeated environmental and human rights violations.
The storage facilities mix the various batches of palm oil, meaning PepsiCo products likely contain Ocho Sur oil despite no longer buying directly from the company.
Ocho Sur is linked to 155 sq km of forest loss in the past decade – both within its own property and through its direct suppliers. While some of the forest loss took place under other companies, satellite analyses by the Center for Climate Crime Analysis (CCCA) and TBIJ show clear deforestation on Ocho Sur’s land in the past three years.
Palm oil production in Peru has more than doubled in the past decade and Ucayali, a hotspot for cultivation on the border with Brazil, now has the country’s second-highest rate of forest loss. It’s estimated that about 30% of the country’s palm plantations are on illegally deforested land. Half of the oil is sent to international markets.
Today, Ocho Sur is the second-largest palm oil company in Peru. It was created in 2016 after acquiring the assets of two other controversial companies active in the region since 2012.
“Before 2012, the deforestation rates were pretty low,” said Tom Younger, an anthropologist working with the Forest Peoples’s Programme, an NGO. The arrival of palm oil plantations, he said, “set into motion some dynamics of land invasion and deforestation”.
Some of the forest loss on company-run oil palm plantations occurred on land claimed by the Santa Clara de Uchunya community of Shipibo-Konibo Indigenous people. They have endured a long and often hostile battle for recognition, and only a tiny portion of the 200 sq km of land the community claims has been formally titled.
In 2020, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a regional legal body, ordered the Peruvian state to protect the Santa Clara de Uchunya community against threats and land invasions.
Luisa Mori Gonzáles, president of the community’s defence front, says the arrival of the palm oil industry has affected their food supply and sown division.
“We use that territory to feed ourselves or to hunt,” she told TBIJ and Ojo-Público. “The company put it in their [other community members’] heads that they are going to have money and wealth – but that is a lie.”
Deforestation near the Santa Clara de Uchunya communityDavid Díaz/OjoPúblicoNeither Ocho Sur nor the liquidated companies whose assets it acquired had obtained the necessary environmental permit for their plantations. The Peruvian Agriculture Ministry sanctioned and fined the dissolved company Plantaciones de Ucayali in 2015 for failing to comply with an order to stop its activities. Ocho Sur eventually paid these fines in 2022, but by 2018 the companies had failed to conserve the legally required 30% of forest, the non-profit Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has found. It is unclear whether the majority of the deforestation took place under Plantaciones de Ucayali or Ocho Sur.
Impunity for environmental crimes such as illegal deforestation is a major problem, according to Julia Urrunaga of the EIA, which recently published a report linking Peruvian palm oil to other well-known food and cosmetics companies.
“The authorities have the responsibility of guaranteeing that what is sold has a legal origin,” said Urrunaga.“If a product is being marketed that is being grown and produced in illegally deforested areas without a production permit, that should be an illegal product.”
Experts attribute the growth of palm oil in Latin America, today the second largest producing region for the industry outside south-east Asia – and the fastest growing – in part to its weaker regulation.
Earlier this year, Peru’s Congress approved a new amendment to its forest and wildlife law, loosening requirements for deforestation in “agriculture exclusion areas” and forgiving historic offences.
Robert Heilmayr, an environmental economist teaching at the University of California Santa Barbara, told TBIJ that while private-sector commitments have brought some positive advances in transparency in countries like Indonesia, the industry’s complexity makes full traceability a challenge.
He said: “It gets a little bit hard to know exactly where the fresh fruit bunches are coming from and there’s no third-party auditing of those supply lists.”
According to CCCA’s analysis, PepsiCo manufactures at least 15 products that contain Peruvian palm oil refined in Mexico – among them Doritos, Cheetos and Gatorade. It has pledged to make 100% of its palm oil supply deforestation-free by the end of 2022 and for its operation to be net zero by 2040.
Concerns about the legal origins of palm oil have also given rise to international initiatives like the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the industry’s most widely used sustainability certification scheme.
The Santa Clara de Uchunya community of Shipibo-Konibo Indigenous people have only been officially granted a fraction of their claimed territory. Photo: David Díaz/OjoPúblicoPeru has ten RSPO members. Ocho Sur is not a member and only one of the companies in Sol de Palma’s consortium is.
PepsiCo said: “We take all inquiries like this seriously and have initiated an investigation through our established grievance process to assess whether any action on our part is required.” The company stressed that Ocho Sur is not a direct supplier and said it has engaged its direct suppliers to better understand their ties to Ocho Sur and ensure they take corrective actions if needed.
Ocho Sur said that it could not be held responsible for the actions of the companies whose assets it had taken over. It referred TBIJ to a document submitted to the UN in December 2023 that repeatedly states that it has no financial or legal links to one of those businesses. In the document it also strenuously denied sowing division in local communities and said that since its founding, the company had made special efforts “to forge a friendly, fruitful and mutually respectful relationship” with Indigenous and other groups. It said that it fully complies with all obligations with respect to Indigenous peoples’ rights and the environment and does not allow deforestation in its supply chain.
On the subject of environmental permits, Ocho Sur added: “The certification has been requested for a long time and [Midagri, the agriculture ministry] has failed to make a statement on the matter, granting it, as it should, or providing reasonable arguments to justify its refusal.”
Oleomex, owner of the Mexican refinery that supplies PepsiCo’s factory, said: “The oil we supply to our customer meets all sustainability standards as it is RSPO-certified oil.” However, it added that supply contracts with Ocho Sur were negotiated through a third party and that it has agreed to suspend them until the complaints raised in the investigation are resolved.
Sol de Palma did not comment.
Peruvian judges are yet to rule on whether Ocho Sur can be held responsible for past incursions into the Santa Clara de Uchunya community.
While the community awaits that ruling, Mori Gonzáles has vowed to continue protecting the territory: “We’re going to fight for as long as we can.”
The article below was originally published on April 18 2024 by OjoPúblico and MongaBay. Written By Elisângela Mendonça , Aramís Castro , Andrew Wasley. Photography: David Díaz, Illustration by Claudia Calderón. This investigation was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network.
ENDS
Read more about human rights abuses and child slavery in the palm oil and gold mining industries
Investigation by Bloomberg exposes that despite being RSPO members, #SOCFIN plantations in #WestAfrica are the epicentre of #humanrights abuses, sexual coercion, environmental destruction, and #landgrabbing. Operating in #Liberia, #Ghana, #Nigeria, and beyond, SOCFIN’s…
Palm Oil Threatens Ancient Noken Weaving in West Papua
Colonial palm oil and sugarcane causing the loss of West Papuans’ cultural identity. Land grabs force communities from forests, threatening Noken weaving
Family Ties Expose Deforestation and Rights Violations in Indonesian Palm Oil
An explosive report by the Environment Investigation Agency (EIA) details how Indonesia’s Fangiono family, through a wide corporate web, is linked to ongoing #deforestation, #corruption, and #indigenousrights abuses for #palmoil. Calls mount for…
West Papuan Indigenous Women Fight Land Seizures
Indigenous Melanesian women in West Papua fight land seizures for palm oil and sugar plantations, protecting their ancestral rights. Join #BoycottPalmOil
Greasing the Wheels of Colonialism: Palm Oil Industry in West Papua
A landmark study published in Global Studies Quarterly in April 2025 has revealed that the rapid expansion of the #palmoil industry in #WestPapua is not only fuelling #deforestation, #ecocide and environmental destruction but…
Load more posts
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Take Action in Five Ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
Enter your email address
Sign Up
Join 3,172 other subscribers2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.
Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20
https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20
https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support#boycottPalmOil #boycottpalmoil #cheetos #childLabour #childSlavery #doritos #food #gatorade #giant #humanRights #indigenous #indigenousRights #landRights #landgrabbing #ochoSur #palmOil #palmoil #pepsico #peru #poverty #slavery
-
Snack giant PepsiCo allegedly sourced “sustainable” palm oil from razed Indigenous land in Peru
PepsiCo‘s supply chain is allegedly linked to environmental and human rights violations in Peru, involving Amazon deforestation and Indigenous land invasion. For three years, palm oil from deforested Shipibo-Konibo territory has been used in products like Gatorade, Mountain Dew, Cheetos, Doritos and more. PepsiCo sources oil from Ocho Sur, a company notorious for environmental crimes and forest loss. The palm oil industry in Peru, which doubled production in a decade, is allegedly responsible for significant illegal deforestation, violent indigenous landgrabbing, animal extinction and human rights abuses. Take action every time you shop and #Boycottpalmoil for wildlife and Indigenous people.
Corrupt so-called “sustainable” #palmoil is never far from your own fridge. Food #giant #PepsiCo, maker of snack favs #Cheetos #Gatorade gets #palmoil 🤮at the expense of Shipibo-Konibo people of #Peru 🇵🇪 Fight back and #BoycottPalmOil 🪔🚫 @palmoildetect https://wp.me/pcFhgU-8EG
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterDYK the #palmoil in #food like #Doritos 🤒🤮 and #Gatorade 🫗 is linked to #indigenous #landgrabbing and violence in #Peru? 🇵🇪 It’s what the ads leave out that’s most important. Learn more about how you can #BoycottPalmOil 🧐 via @palmoildetect https://wp.me/pcFhgU-8EG
Share to BlueSky Share to Twitterhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72e5HYiY7N8
The article below was originally published on April 18 2024 by Ojo Público and MongaBay. Written By Elisângela Mendonça , Aramís Castro , Andrew Wasley. Photography: David Díaz, Illustration by Claudia Calderón. This investigation was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network. Read more
Sign petition: Tell PepsiCo stop destroying rainforests for palm oil!
PepsiCo’s profit-first palm oil policy is still destroying rainforests.
Meanwhile, PepsiCo keeps on promising that it’s working towards a truly sustainable palm oil policy, making commitments to human rights and zero deforestation. But this new report leaves no doubt: this whole time, PepsiCo’s palm oil promises have been nothing but smoke and mirrors.
Sign the Eko petitionPeruvian palm oil linked to environmental and human rights violations ended up in the supply chain for the makers of Gatorade and Cheetos
The US food and drink giant PepsiCo has been linked through its supply chain to Amazon deforestation and the invasion of Indigenous lands in Peru, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), Mongabay and Peruvian outlet Ojo Público can reveal.
For at least three years, PepsiCo’s Peruvian suppliers have been sourcing palm oil from deforested territory claimed by the Shipibo-Konibo people in Ucayali, eastern Peru.
The company, which manufactures snacks including Cheetos and Gatorade, runs a factory in Mexico that buys Peruvian palm oil after it has been processed at a Mexican refinery. That refinery buys from a Peruvian consortium, Sol de Palma, that shares storage facilities with Ocho Sur, a notorious US-funded business accused of repeated environmental and human rights violations.
The storage facilities mix the various batches of palm oil, meaning PepsiCo products likely contain Ocho Sur oil despite no longer buying directly from the company.
Ocho Sur is linked to 155 sq km of forest loss in the past decade – both within its own property and through its direct suppliers. While some of the forest loss took place under other companies, satellite analyses by the Center for Climate Crime Analysis (CCCA) and TBIJ show clear deforestation on Ocho Sur’s land in the past three years.
Palm oil production in Peru has more than doubled in the past decade and Ucayali, a hotspot for cultivation on the border with Brazil, now has the country’s second-highest rate of forest loss. It’s estimated that about 30% of the country’s palm plantations are on illegally deforested land. Half of the oil is sent to international markets.
Today, Ocho Sur is the second-largest palm oil company in Peru. It was created in 2016 after acquiring the assets of two other controversial companies active in the region since 2012.
“Before 2012, the deforestation rates were pretty low,” said Tom Younger, an anthropologist working with the Forest Peoples’s Programme, an NGO. The arrival of palm oil plantations, he said, “set into motion some dynamics of land invasion and deforestation”.
Some of the forest loss on company-run oil palm plantations occurred on land claimed by the Santa Clara de Uchunya community of Shipibo-Konibo Indigenous people. They have endured a long and often hostile battle for recognition, and only a tiny portion of the 200 sq km of land the community claims has been formally titled.
In 2020, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a regional legal body, ordered the Peruvian state to protect the Santa Clara de Uchunya community against threats and land invasions.
Luisa Mori Gonzáles, president of the community’s defence front, says the arrival of the palm oil industry has affected their food supply and sown division.
“We use that territory to feed ourselves or to hunt,” she told TBIJ and Ojo-Público. “The company put it in their [other community members’] heads that they are going to have money and wealth – but that is a lie.”
Deforestation near the Santa Clara de Uchunya communityDavid Díaz/OjoPúblicoNeither Ocho Sur nor the liquidated companies whose assets it acquired had obtained the necessary environmental permit for their plantations. The Peruvian Agriculture Ministry sanctioned and fined the dissolved company Plantaciones de Ucayali in 2015 for failing to comply with an order to stop its activities. Ocho Sur eventually paid these fines in 2022, but by 2018 the companies had failed to conserve the legally required 30% of forest, the non-profit Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has found. It is unclear whether the majority of the deforestation took place under Plantaciones de Ucayali or Ocho Sur.
Impunity for environmental crimes such as illegal deforestation is a major problem, according to Julia Urrunaga of the EIA, which recently published a report linking Peruvian palm oil to other well-known food and cosmetics companies.
“The authorities have the responsibility of guaranteeing that what is sold has a legal origin,” said Urrunaga.“If a product is being marketed that is being grown and produced in illegally deforested areas without a production permit, that should be an illegal product.”
Experts attribute the growth of palm oil in Latin America, today the second largest producing region for the industry outside south-east Asia – and the fastest growing – in part to its weaker regulation.
Earlier this year, Peru’s Congress approved a new amendment to its forest and wildlife law, loosening requirements for deforestation in “agriculture exclusion areas” and forgiving historic offences.
Robert Heilmayr, an environmental economist teaching at the University of California Santa Barbara, told TBIJ that while private-sector commitments have brought some positive advances in transparency in countries like Indonesia, the industry’s complexity makes full traceability a challenge.
He said: “It gets a little bit hard to know exactly where the fresh fruit bunches are coming from and there’s no third-party auditing of those supply lists.”
According to CCCA’s analysis, PepsiCo manufactures at least 15 products that contain Peruvian palm oil refined in Mexico – among them Doritos, Cheetos and Gatorade. It has pledged to make 100% of its palm oil supply deforestation-free by the end of 2022 and for its operation to be net zero by 2040.
Concerns about the legal origins of palm oil have also given rise to international initiatives like the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the industry’s most widely used sustainability certification scheme.
The Santa Clara de Uchunya community of Shipibo-Konibo Indigenous people have only been officially granted a fraction of their claimed territory. Photo: David Díaz/OjoPúblicoPeru has ten RSPO members. Ocho Sur is not a member and only one of the companies in Sol de Palma’s consortium is.
PepsiCo said: “We take all inquiries like this seriously and have initiated an investigation through our established grievance process to assess whether any action on our part is required.” The company stressed that Ocho Sur is not a direct supplier and said it has engaged its direct suppliers to better understand their ties to Ocho Sur and ensure they take corrective actions if needed.
Ocho Sur said that it could not be held responsible for the actions of the companies whose assets it had taken over. It referred TBIJ to a document submitted to the UN in December 2023 that repeatedly states that it has no financial or legal links to one of those businesses. In the document it also strenuously denied sowing division in local communities and said that since its founding, the company had made special efforts “to forge a friendly, fruitful and mutually respectful relationship” with Indigenous and other groups. It said that it fully complies with all obligations with respect to Indigenous peoples’ rights and the environment and does not allow deforestation in its supply chain.
On the subject of environmental permits, Ocho Sur added: “The certification has been requested for a long time and [Midagri, the agriculture ministry] has failed to make a statement on the matter, granting it, as it should, or providing reasonable arguments to justify its refusal.”
Oleomex, owner of the Mexican refinery that supplies PepsiCo’s factory, said: “The oil we supply to our customer meets all sustainability standards as it is RSPO-certified oil.” However, it added that supply contracts with Ocho Sur were negotiated through a third party and that it has agreed to suspend them until the complaints raised in the investigation are resolved.
Sol de Palma did not comment.
Peruvian judges are yet to rule on whether Ocho Sur can be held responsible for past incursions into the Santa Clara de Uchunya community.
While the community awaits that ruling, Mori Gonzáles has vowed to continue protecting the territory: “We’re going to fight for as long as we can.”
The article below was originally published on April 18 2024 by OjoPúblico and MongaBay. Written By Elisângela Mendonça , Aramís Castro , Andrew Wasley. Photography: David Díaz, Illustration by Claudia Calderón. This investigation was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network.
ENDS
Read more about human rights abuses and child slavery in the palm oil and gold mining industries
Investigation by Bloomberg exposes that despite being RSPO members, #SOCFIN plantations in #WestAfrica are the epicentre of #humanrights abuses, sexual coercion, environmental destruction, and #landgrabbing. Operating in #Liberia, #Ghana, #Nigeria, and beyond, SOCFIN’s…
Palm Oil Threatens Ancient Noken Weaving in West Papua
Colonial palm oil and sugarcane causing the loss of West Papuans’ cultural identity. Land grabs force communities from forests, threatening Noken weaving
Family Ties Expose Deforestation and Rights Violations in Indonesian Palm Oil
An explosive report by the Environment Investigation Agency (EIA) details how Indonesia’s Fangiono family, through a wide corporate web, is linked to ongoing #deforestation, #corruption, and #indigenousrights abuses for #palmoil. Calls mount for…
West Papuan Indigenous Women Fight Land Seizures
Indigenous Melanesian women in West Papua fight land seizures for palm oil and sugar plantations, protecting their ancestral rights. Join #BoycottPalmOil
Greasing the Wheels of Colonialism: Palm Oil Industry in West Papua
A landmark study published in Global Studies Quarterly in April 2025 has revealed that the rapid expansion of the #palmoil industry in #WestPapua is not only fuelling #deforestation, #ecocide and environmental destruction but…
Load more posts
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Take Action in Five Ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
Enter your email address
Sign Up
Join 3,172 other subscribers2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.
Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20
https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20
https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support#boycottPalmOil #boycottpalmoil #cheetos #childLabour #childSlavery #doritos #food #gatorade #giant #humanRights #indigenous #indigenousRights #landRights #landgrabbing #ochoSur #palmOil #palmoil #pepsico #peru #poverty #slavery
-
Snack giant PepsiCo allegedly sourced “sustainable” palm oil from razed Indigenous land in Peru
PepsiCo‘s supply chain is allegedly linked to environmental and human rights violations in Peru, involving Amazon deforestation and Indigenous land invasion. For three years, palm oil from deforested Shipibo-Konibo territory has been used in products like Gatorade, Mountain Dew, Cheetos, Doritos and more. PepsiCo sources oil from Ocho Sur, a company notorious for environmental crimes and forest loss. The palm oil industry in Peru, which doubled production in a decade, is allegedly responsible for significant illegal deforestation, violent indigenous landgrabbing, animal extinction and human rights abuses. Take action every time you shop and #Boycottpalmoil for wildlife and Indigenous people.
Corrupt so-called “sustainable” #palmoil is never far from your own fridge. Food #giant #PepsiCo, maker of snack favs #Cheetos #Gatorade gets #palmoil 🤮at the expense of Shipibo-Konibo people of #Peru 🇵🇪 Fight back and #BoycottPalmOil 🪔🚫 @palmoildetect https://wp.me/pcFhgU-8EG
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterDYK the #palmoil in #food like #Doritos 🤒🤮 and #Gatorade 🫗 is linked to #indigenous #landgrabbing and violence in #Peru? 🇵🇪 It’s what the ads leave out that’s most important. Learn more about how you can #BoycottPalmOil 🧐 via @palmoildetect https://wp.me/pcFhgU-8EG
Share to BlueSky Share to Twitterhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72e5HYiY7N8
The article below was originally published on April 18 2024 by Ojo Público and MongaBay. Written By Elisângela Mendonça , Aramís Castro , Andrew Wasley. Photography: David Díaz, Illustration by Claudia Calderón. This investigation was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network. Read more
Sign petition: Tell PepsiCo stop destroying rainforests for palm oil!
PepsiCo’s profit-first palm oil policy is still destroying rainforests.
Meanwhile, PepsiCo keeps on promising that it’s working towards a truly sustainable palm oil policy, making commitments to human rights and zero deforestation. But this new report leaves no doubt: this whole time, PepsiCo’s palm oil promises have been nothing but smoke and mirrors.
Sign the Eko petitionPeruvian palm oil linked to environmental and human rights violations ended up in the supply chain for the makers of Gatorade and Cheetos
The US food and drink giant PepsiCo has been linked through its supply chain to Amazon deforestation and the invasion of Indigenous lands in Peru, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), Mongabay and Peruvian outlet Ojo Público can reveal.
For at least three years, PepsiCo’s Peruvian suppliers have been sourcing palm oil from deforested territory claimed by the Shipibo-Konibo people in Ucayali, eastern Peru.
The company, which manufactures snacks including Cheetos and Gatorade, runs a factory in Mexico that buys Peruvian palm oil after it has been processed at a Mexican refinery. That refinery buys from a Peruvian consortium, Sol de Palma, that shares storage facilities with Ocho Sur, a notorious US-funded business accused of repeated environmental and human rights violations.
The storage facilities mix the various batches of palm oil, meaning PepsiCo products likely contain Ocho Sur oil despite no longer buying directly from the company.
Ocho Sur is linked to 155 sq km of forest loss in the past decade – both within its own property and through its direct suppliers. While some of the forest loss took place under other companies, satellite analyses by the Center for Climate Crime Analysis (CCCA) and TBIJ show clear deforestation on Ocho Sur’s land in the past three years.
Palm oil production in Peru has more than doubled in the past decade and Ucayali, a hotspot for cultivation on the border with Brazil, now has the country’s second-highest rate of forest loss. It’s estimated that about 30% of the country’s palm plantations are on illegally deforested land. Half of the oil is sent to international markets.
Today, Ocho Sur is the second-largest palm oil company in Peru. It was created in 2016 after acquiring the assets of two other controversial companies active in the region since 2012.
“Before 2012, the deforestation rates were pretty low,” said Tom Younger, an anthropologist working with the Forest Peoples’s Programme, an NGO. The arrival of palm oil plantations, he said, “set into motion some dynamics of land invasion and deforestation”.
Some of the forest loss on company-run oil palm plantations occurred on land claimed by the Santa Clara de Uchunya community of Shipibo-Konibo Indigenous people. They have endured a long and often hostile battle for recognition, and only a tiny portion of the 200 sq km of land the community claims has been formally titled.
In 2020, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a regional legal body, ordered the Peruvian state to protect the Santa Clara de Uchunya community against threats and land invasions.
Luisa Mori Gonzáles, president of the community’s defence front, says the arrival of the palm oil industry has affected their food supply and sown division.
“We use that territory to feed ourselves or to hunt,” she told TBIJ and Ojo-Público. “The company put it in their [other community members’] heads that they are going to have money and wealth – but that is a lie.”
Deforestation near the Santa Clara de Uchunya communityDavid Díaz/OjoPúblicoNeither Ocho Sur nor the liquidated companies whose assets it acquired had obtained the necessary environmental permit for their plantations. The Peruvian Agriculture Ministry sanctioned and fined the dissolved company Plantaciones de Ucayali in 2015 for failing to comply with an order to stop its activities. Ocho Sur eventually paid these fines in 2022, but by 2018 the companies had failed to conserve the legally required 30% of forest, the non-profit Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has found. It is unclear whether the majority of the deforestation took place under Plantaciones de Ucayali or Ocho Sur.
Impunity for environmental crimes such as illegal deforestation is a major problem, according to Julia Urrunaga of the EIA, which recently published a report linking Peruvian palm oil to other well-known food and cosmetics companies.
“The authorities have the responsibility of guaranteeing that what is sold has a legal origin,” said Urrunaga.“If a product is being marketed that is being grown and produced in illegally deforested areas without a production permit, that should be an illegal product.”
Experts attribute the growth of palm oil in Latin America, today the second largest producing region for the industry outside south-east Asia – and the fastest growing – in part to its weaker regulation.
Earlier this year, Peru’s Congress approved a new amendment to its forest and wildlife law, loosening requirements for deforestation in “agriculture exclusion areas” and forgiving historic offences.
Robert Heilmayr, an environmental economist teaching at the University of California Santa Barbara, told TBIJ that while private-sector commitments have brought some positive advances in transparency in countries like Indonesia, the industry’s complexity makes full traceability a challenge.
He said: “It gets a little bit hard to know exactly where the fresh fruit bunches are coming from and there’s no third-party auditing of those supply lists.”
According to CCCA’s analysis, PepsiCo manufactures at least 15 products that contain Peruvian palm oil refined in Mexico – among them Doritos, Cheetos and Gatorade. It has pledged to make 100% of its palm oil supply deforestation-free by the end of 2022 and for its operation to be net zero by 2040.
Concerns about the legal origins of palm oil have also given rise to international initiatives like the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the industry’s most widely used sustainability certification scheme.
The Santa Clara de Uchunya community of Shipibo-Konibo Indigenous people have only been officially granted a fraction of their claimed territory. Photo: David Díaz/OjoPúblicoPeru has ten RSPO members. Ocho Sur is not a member and only one of the companies in Sol de Palma’s consortium is.
PepsiCo said: “We take all inquiries like this seriously and have initiated an investigation through our established grievance process to assess whether any action on our part is required.” The company stressed that Ocho Sur is not a direct supplier and said it has engaged its direct suppliers to better understand their ties to Ocho Sur and ensure they take corrective actions if needed.
Ocho Sur said that it could not be held responsible for the actions of the companies whose assets it had taken over. It referred TBIJ to a document submitted to the UN in December 2023 that repeatedly states that it has no financial or legal links to one of those businesses. In the document it also strenuously denied sowing division in local communities and said that since its founding, the company had made special efforts “to forge a friendly, fruitful and mutually respectful relationship” with Indigenous and other groups. It said that it fully complies with all obligations with respect to Indigenous peoples’ rights and the environment and does not allow deforestation in its supply chain.
On the subject of environmental permits, Ocho Sur added: “The certification has been requested for a long time and [Midagri, the agriculture ministry] has failed to make a statement on the matter, granting it, as it should, or providing reasonable arguments to justify its refusal.”
Oleomex, owner of the Mexican refinery that supplies PepsiCo’s factory, said: “The oil we supply to our customer meets all sustainability standards as it is RSPO-certified oil.” However, it added that supply contracts with Ocho Sur were negotiated through a third party and that it has agreed to suspend them until the complaints raised in the investigation are resolved.
Sol de Palma did not comment.
Peruvian judges are yet to rule on whether Ocho Sur can be held responsible for past incursions into the Santa Clara de Uchunya community.
While the community awaits that ruling, Mori Gonzáles has vowed to continue protecting the territory: “We’re going to fight for as long as we can.”
The article below was originally published on April 18 2024 by OjoPúblico and MongaBay. Written By Elisângela Mendonça , Aramís Castro , Andrew Wasley. Photography: David Díaz, Illustration by Claudia Calderón. This investigation was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network.
ENDS
Read more about human rights abuses and child slavery in the palm oil and gold mining industries
Investigation by Bloomberg exposes that despite being RSPO members, #SOCFIN plantations in #WestAfrica are the epicentre of #humanrights abuses, sexual coercion, environmental destruction, and #landgrabbing. Operating in #Liberia, #Ghana, #Nigeria, and beyond, SOCFIN’s…
Palm Oil Threatens Ancient Noken Weaving in West Papua
Colonial palm oil and sugarcane causing the loss of West Papuans’ cultural identity. Land grabs force communities from forests, threatening Noken weaving
Family Ties Expose Deforestation and Rights Violations in Indonesian Palm Oil
An explosive report by the Environment Investigation Agency (EIA) details how Indonesia’s Fangiono family, through a wide corporate web, is linked to ongoing #deforestation, #corruption, and #indigenousrights abuses for #palmoil. Calls mount for…
West Papuan Indigenous Women Fight Land Seizures
Indigenous Melanesian women in West Papua fight land seizures for palm oil and sugar plantations, protecting their ancestral rights. Join #BoycottPalmOil
Greasing the Wheels of Colonialism: Palm Oil Industry in West Papua
A landmark study published in Global Studies Quarterly in April 2025 has revealed that the rapid expansion of the #palmoil industry in #WestPapua is not only fuelling #deforestation, #ecocide and environmental destruction but…
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Take Action in Five Ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
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Join 3,172 other subscribers2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.
Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20
https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20
https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support#boycottPalmOil #boycottpalmoil #cheetos #childLabour #childSlavery #doritos #food #gatorade #giant #humanRights #indigenous #indigenousRights #landRights #landgrabbing #ochoSur #palmOil #palmoil #pepsico #peru #poverty #slavery
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Snack giant PepsiCo allegedly sourced “sustainable” palm oil from razed Indigenous land in Peru
PepsiCo‘s supply chain is allegedly linked to environmental and human rights violations in Peru, involving Amazon deforestation and Indigenous land invasion. For three years, palm oil from deforested Shipibo-Konibo territory has been used in products like Gatorade, Mountain Dew, Cheetos, Doritos and more. PepsiCo sources oil from Ocho Sur, a company notorious for environmental crimes and forest loss. The palm oil industry in Peru, which doubled production in a decade, is allegedly responsible for significant illegal deforestation, violent indigenous landgrabbing, animal extinction and human rights abuses. Take action every time you shop and #Boycottpalmoil for wildlife and Indigenous people.
Corrupt so-called “sustainable” #palmoil is never far from your own fridge. Food #giant #PepsiCo, maker of snack favs #Cheetos #Gatorade gets #palmoil 🤮at the expense of Shipibo-Konibo people of #Peru 🇵🇪 Fight back and #BoycottPalmOil 🪔🚫 @palmoildetect https://wp.me/pcFhgU-8EG
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterDYK the #palmoil in #food like #Doritos 🤒🤮 and #Gatorade 🫗 is linked to #indigenous #landgrabbing and violence in #Peru? 🇵🇪 It’s what the ads leave out that’s most important. Learn more about how you can #BoycottPalmOil 🧐 via @palmoildetect https://wp.me/pcFhgU-8EG
Share to BlueSky Share to Twitterhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72e5HYiY7N8
The article below was originally published on April 18 2024 by Ojo Público and MongaBay. Written By Elisângela Mendonça , Aramís Castro , Andrew Wasley. Photography: David Díaz, Illustration by Claudia Calderón. This investigation was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network. Read more
Sign petition: Tell PepsiCo stop destroying rainforests for palm oil!
PepsiCo’s profit-first palm oil policy is still destroying rainforests.
Meanwhile, PepsiCo keeps on promising that it’s working towards a truly sustainable palm oil policy, making commitments to human rights and zero deforestation. But this new report leaves no doubt: this whole time, PepsiCo’s palm oil promises have been nothing but smoke and mirrors.
Sign the Eko petitionPeruvian palm oil linked to environmental and human rights violations ended up in the supply chain for the makers of Gatorade and Cheetos
The US food and drink giant PepsiCo has been linked through its supply chain to Amazon deforestation and the invasion of Indigenous lands in Peru, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), Mongabay and Peruvian outlet Ojo Público can reveal.
For at least three years, PepsiCo’s Peruvian suppliers have been sourcing palm oil from deforested territory claimed by the Shipibo-Konibo people in Ucayali, eastern Peru.
The company, which manufactures snacks including Cheetos and Gatorade, runs a factory in Mexico that buys Peruvian palm oil after it has been processed at a Mexican refinery. That refinery buys from a Peruvian consortium, Sol de Palma, that shares storage facilities with Ocho Sur, a notorious US-funded business accused of repeated environmental and human rights violations.
The storage facilities mix the various batches of palm oil, meaning PepsiCo products likely contain Ocho Sur oil despite no longer buying directly from the company.
Ocho Sur is linked to 155 sq km of forest loss in the past decade – both within its own property and through its direct suppliers. While some of the forest loss took place under other companies, satellite analyses by the Center for Climate Crime Analysis (CCCA) and TBIJ show clear deforestation on Ocho Sur’s land in the past three years.
Palm oil production in Peru has more than doubled in the past decade and Ucayali, a hotspot for cultivation on the border with Brazil, now has the country’s second-highest rate of forest loss. It’s estimated that about 30% of the country’s palm plantations are on illegally deforested land. Half of the oil is sent to international markets.
Today, Ocho Sur is the second-largest palm oil company in Peru. It was created in 2016 after acquiring the assets of two other controversial companies active in the region since 2012.
“Before 2012, the deforestation rates were pretty low,” said Tom Younger, an anthropologist working with the Forest Peoples’s Programme, an NGO. The arrival of palm oil plantations, he said, “set into motion some dynamics of land invasion and deforestation”.
Some of the forest loss on company-run oil palm plantations occurred on land claimed by the Santa Clara de Uchunya community of Shipibo-Konibo Indigenous people. They have endured a long and often hostile battle for recognition, and only a tiny portion of the 200 sq km of land the community claims has been formally titled.
In 2020, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a regional legal body, ordered the Peruvian state to protect the Santa Clara de Uchunya community against threats and land invasions.
Luisa Mori Gonzáles, president of the community’s defence front, says the arrival of the palm oil industry has affected their food supply and sown division.
“We use that territory to feed ourselves or to hunt,” she told TBIJ and Ojo-Público. “The company put it in their [other community members’] heads that they are going to have money and wealth – but that is a lie.”
Deforestation near the Santa Clara de Uchunya communityDavid Díaz/OjoPúblicoNeither Ocho Sur nor the liquidated companies whose assets it acquired had obtained the necessary environmental permit for their plantations. The Peruvian Agriculture Ministry sanctioned and fined the dissolved company Plantaciones de Ucayali in 2015 for failing to comply with an order to stop its activities. Ocho Sur eventually paid these fines in 2022, but by 2018 the companies had failed to conserve the legally required 30% of forest, the non-profit Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has found. It is unclear whether the majority of the deforestation took place under Plantaciones de Ucayali or Ocho Sur.
Impunity for environmental crimes such as illegal deforestation is a major problem, according to Julia Urrunaga of the EIA, which recently published a report linking Peruvian palm oil to other well-known food and cosmetics companies.
“The authorities have the responsibility of guaranteeing that what is sold has a legal origin,” said Urrunaga.“If a product is being marketed that is being grown and produced in illegally deforested areas without a production permit, that should be an illegal product.”
Experts attribute the growth of palm oil in Latin America, today the second largest producing region for the industry outside south-east Asia – and the fastest growing – in part to its weaker regulation.
Earlier this year, Peru’s Congress approved a new amendment to its forest and wildlife law, loosening requirements for deforestation in “agriculture exclusion areas” and forgiving historic offences.
Robert Heilmayr, an environmental economist teaching at the University of California Santa Barbara, told TBIJ that while private-sector commitments have brought some positive advances in transparency in countries like Indonesia, the industry’s complexity makes full traceability a challenge.
He said: “It gets a little bit hard to know exactly where the fresh fruit bunches are coming from and there’s no third-party auditing of those supply lists.”
According to CCCA’s analysis, PepsiCo manufactures at least 15 products that contain Peruvian palm oil refined in Mexico – among them Doritos, Cheetos and Gatorade. It has pledged to make 100% of its palm oil supply deforestation-free by the end of 2022 and for its operation to be net zero by 2040.
Concerns about the legal origins of palm oil have also given rise to international initiatives like the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the industry’s most widely used sustainability certification scheme.
The Santa Clara de Uchunya community of Shipibo-Konibo Indigenous people have only been officially granted a fraction of their claimed territory. Photo: David Díaz/OjoPúblicoPeru has ten RSPO members. Ocho Sur is not a member and only one of the companies in Sol de Palma’s consortium is.
PepsiCo said: “We take all inquiries like this seriously and have initiated an investigation through our established grievance process to assess whether any action on our part is required.” The company stressed that Ocho Sur is not a direct supplier and said it has engaged its direct suppliers to better understand their ties to Ocho Sur and ensure they take corrective actions if needed.
Ocho Sur said that it could not be held responsible for the actions of the companies whose assets it had taken over. It referred TBIJ to a document submitted to the UN in December 2023 that repeatedly states that it has no financial or legal links to one of those businesses. In the document it also strenuously denied sowing division in local communities and said that since its founding, the company had made special efforts “to forge a friendly, fruitful and mutually respectful relationship” with Indigenous and other groups. It said that it fully complies with all obligations with respect to Indigenous peoples’ rights and the environment and does not allow deforestation in its supply chain.
On the subject of environmental permits, Ocho Sur added: “The certification has been requested for a long time and [Midagri, the agriculture ministry] has failed to make a statement on the matter, granting it, as it should, or providing reasonable arguments to justify its refusal.”
Oleomex, owner of the Mexican refinery that supplies PepsiCo’s factory, said: “The oil we supply to our customer meets all sustainability standards as it is RSPO-certified oil.” However, it added that supply contracts with Ocho Sur were negotiated through a third party and that it has agreed to suspend them until the complaints raised in the investigation are resolved.
Sol de Palma did not comment.
Peruvian judges are yet to rule on whether Ocho Sur can be held responsible for past incursions into the Santa Clara de Uchunya community.
While the community awaits that ruling, Mori Gonzáles has vowed to continue protecting the territory: “We’re going to fight for as long as we can.”
The article below was originally published on April 18 2024 by OjoPúblico and MongaBay. Written By Elisângela Mendonça , Aramís Castro , Andrew Wasley. Photography: David Díaz, Illustration by Claudia Calderón. This investigation was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network.
ENDS
Read more about human rights abuses and child slavery in the palm oil and gold mining industries
Investigation by Bloomberg exposes that despite being RSPO members, #SOCFIN plantations in #WestAfrica are the epicentre of #humanrights abuses, sexual coercion, environmental destruction, and #landgrabbing. Operating in #Liberia, #Ghana, #Nigeria, and beyond, SOCFIN’s…
Palm Oil Threatens Ancient Noken Weaving in West Papua
Colonial palm oil and sugarcane causing the loss of West Papuans’ cultural identity. Land grabs force communities from forests, threatening Noken weaving
Family Ties Expose Deforestation and Rights Violations in Indonesian Palm Oil
An explosive report by the Environment Investigation Agency (EIA) details how Indonesia’s Fangiono family, through a wide corporate web, is linked to ongoing #deforestation, #corruption, and #indigenousrights abuses for #palmoil. Calls mount for…
West Papuan Indigenous Women Fight Land Seizures
Indigenous Melanesian women in West Papua fight land seizures for palm oil and sugar plantations, protecting their ancestral rights. Join #BoycottPalmOil
Greasing the Wheels of Colonialism: Palm Oil Industry in West Papua
A landmark study published in Global Studies Quarterly in April 2025 has revealed that the rapid expansion of the #palmoil industry in #WestPapua is not only fuelling #deforestation, #ecocide and environmental destruction but…
Load more posts
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Take Action in Five Ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
Enter your email address
Sign Up
Join 3,172 other subscribers2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.
Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20
https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20
https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support#boycottPalmOil #boycottpalmoil #cheetos #childLabour #childSlavery #doritos #food #gatorade #giant #humanRights #indigenous #indigenousRights #landRights #landgrabbing #ochoSur #palmOil #palmoil #pepsico #peru #poverty #slavery
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Connecting #Capitalism to #Colonialism
“Colonialism has never ended. #Slavery has never ended. #Feudalism has never ended. The power elite just find more and more inventive ways to #exploit the majority.”
by Alnoor ladha
August, 2021"When we think of colonialism, slavery, and feudalism, we perhaps envisage these subjects as elements of our history: abhorrent, destructive, and with lasting repercussions - but essentially something in our past which we must recognise, address and account. What we perhaps don’t think of is the food on our plates, the clothes we’re wearing, or even the phone in our hands.
"In our global economy, however, #SupplyChains hide a magnitude of #HumanRights abuses and #EnvironmentalDestruction, including #ChildLabour, slave labour, resource depletion, toxic #dumping, illegal #deforestation, corporate threats, the murder of #LandDefenders… amongst many other social and #ecological atrocities.
"But what does this have to do with colonialism? When it comes to consumption and the material objects which occupy our daily lives, people are increasingly talking about the hidden cost, or the true cost of things. We often see that it is communities and peoples in the so-called #GlobalSouth who are bearing that true cost. It is not by coincidence that economic globalisation, the inevitable consequence of capitalism, leads to more destruction in nations which have historically been colonised, marginalised, and labelled as ‘developing’ countries. This is because the ostensible ‘success’ of both capitalism and colonialism hinges upon exploitation."
Read more:
https://www.ecoresolution.earth/resources/captialism-to-colonialism#Oligarchy #Elite #Oiligarchy #Crapitalism #CorporateColonialism
-
Connecting #Capitalism to #Colonialism
“Colonialism has never ended. #Slavery has never ended. #Feudalism has never ended. The power elite just find more and more inventive ways to #exploit the majority.”
by Alnoor ladha
August, 2021"When we think of colonialism, slavery, and feudalism, we perhaps envisage these subjects as elements of our history: abhorrent, destructive, and with lasting repercussions - but essentially something in our past which we must recognise, address and account. What we perhaps don’t think of is the food on our plates, the clothes we’re wearing, or even the phone in our hands.
"In our global economy, however, #SupplyChains hide a magnitude of #HumanRights abuses and #EnvironmentalDestruction, including #ChildLabour, slave labour, resource depletion, toxic #dumping, illegal #deforestation, corporate threats, the murder of #LandDefenders… amongst many other social and #ecological atrocities.
"But what does this have to do with colonialism? When it comes to consumption and the material objects which occupy our daily lives, people are increasingly talking about the hidden cost, or the true cost of things. We often see that it is communities and peoples in the so-called #GlobalSouth who are bearing that true cost. It is not by coincidence that economic globalisation, the inevitable consequence of capitalism, leads to more destruction in nations which have historically been colonised, marginalised, and labelled as ‘developing’ countries. This is because the ostensible ‘success’ of both capitalism and colonialism hinges upon exploitation."
Read more:
https://www.ecoresolution.earth/resources/captialism-to-colonialism#Oligarchy #Elite #Oiligarchy #Crapitalism #CorporateColonialism
-
Mandatory anti-slavery declarations risk becoming ‘box-ticking exercise’, say UK MPs | Modern slavery | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/11/mandatory-anti-slavery-declarations-risk-becoming-box-ticking-exercise-say-uk-mps#AntiSlavery
#ModernSlavery
#MPs
#2015ModernSlaveryAct
#IGT
#Mining
#GamingTechnology
#GamingTech
#Metals
#ForcedLabour
#ChildLabour
#Loughton
#DCMS
#AntiSlaveryInternational
#Latham -
Child labor returns to the United States: A society moving in reverse - World Socialist Web Site
#ChildLabor
#ChildLabour
#US
#Republican
#SocialRegression
#EconomicPolicyInstitute
#LetChildrenBeChildren
#RightsOfChildren -
Child labor returns to the United States: A society moving in reverse - World Socialist Web Site
#ChildLabor
#ChildLabour
#US
#Republican
#SocialRegression
#EconomicPolicyInstitute
#LetChildrenBeChildren
#RightsOfChildren -
Eyewitness Story: The Last Village by Dr Setia Budhi
A lone Dayak village in Borneo surrounded by palm oil plantations has held out for 14 years and resisted
corporate infiltration by global palm oil giants. My name is Dr Setia Budhi, I am a Dayak ethnographer and human rights advocate. I visited this village recently to see how they were going.Pictured: The Barito River, the largest river in South Kalimantan Borneo by Aditya Perdana, Getty Images
“#Dayaks DO NOT want their lands turned to #palmoil. 1. They depend on rainforests for food/weaving. 2. They don’t want their roaming area disturbed 3. They don’t want to lose their land.” Dr Setia Budhi #Boycottpalmoil 🤬🌴🚫 https://palmoildetectives.com/2022/11/02/eyewitness-story-by-dr-setia-budhi-the-last-village/ @palmoildetect.bsky.social
Share to BlueSky Share to Twitter“In #Indonesia and #Malaysia’s media, people can’t distinguish #fact from #fiction. A positive narrative about #Dayaks and #palmoil is #greenwashing. This is NOT the lived reality for #Dayak people” @Setiabudhi18 #Boycottpalmoil 🌴🩸🧐⛔️ @palmoildetect https://palmoildetectives.com/2022/11/02/eyewitness-story-by-dr-setia-budhi-the-last-village/
Share to BlueSky Share to Twitter Original tweetRecently, I stayed a Ngaju Dayak village for 15 days
During my visit I wrote a lot, chatted with villagers and visited palm oil farmers.
This remote village is 125 km from downtown Banjarmasin. It’s a distance of about two hours by motorbike to arrive in a neighboring village and from then there, three hours by boat.
Located on the banks of the Barito river, the people who live here are the Ngaju Dayak.
Pictured: Dayak long house in Kalimantan, PxFuel.
The first time I visited this village was 14 years ago in 2008
Since then, I’ve always followed its development by reading the news. Especially interesting is the development that the villagers have refused the presence of palm oil plantations. They have refused to give up their lands to global corporate palm oil companies.
Fourteen years ago, I thought that this village would eventually be besieged by the expansion of oil palm plantations. My suspicions were based on what happened in neighbouring villages. They had given up and accepted the omnipresence of palm oil. Many residents sold their land to the plantations.
In these other towns, some residents work with palm oil companies in a cooperative way. Their land is planted with palm oil and they, as owners, work for the company for wages. Their activities include land-clearing, planting palm oil, along with fertilising and liming the soil.
Pictured: Klotok traditional river boat on a river in Borneo by Guenterguni Getty ImagesSo these people work on their own land. At that time, their daily wages are around 50,000 rupiahs ($3.30 USD) per day.
There are three reasons why the villagers do not want their ancestral lands to become a palm oil plantation:
1. They depend on the rainforest and peatlands for natural resources such as fisheries, agriculture and rattan weaving.
2. They don’t want their roaming area to be disturbed.
3. They don’t want to lose their land.
By roaming area‟ you probably think of a suburban area near you. For Dayaks, their roaming area is vastly different.
Clockwise: The Barito River: The largest river in South Kalimantan Borneo by Aditya Perdana Getty Images; Wooden Dayak village – Long Iram on the riverbank Mahakam river East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Getty Images; Nature in Annah Rais Sarawak, Malaysia by Nyiragongo Getty Images; Barito River -The largest river in South Kalimantan, Indonesia by Aditya Perdana Getty Images; Borneo’s spectacular rivers and rainforests; Getty Images; A group of beautiful Dayak Fruit Bats Dyacopterus spadiceus perched inside a hut at the Way Kambas National Park in Sumatra via Getty Images Signature collection.
The Dayak people need a roaming area for hunting, fishing and foraging for herbs, building materials and medicines
Pictured: Dayak family, Central Kalimantan by IndoMet licensed under CC BY 2.0The palm oil industry is an unstoppable global corporate juggernaut that has become increasingly greedy for land in the past ten years.
When you hear about even a tiny piece of land that is about to be sold, global palm oil companies immediately and aggressively go after the land as buyers. They bargain and negotiate, driving the price down that they pay for the land – so the traditional landowners do not get paid what the land is really worth.
Pictured: Plasma Poverty, a joint investigation by Gecko Project and the BBC into major supermarket brands like Mondelez and Nestle (RSPO members) who are stripping smallholder farmers of their share of profit for palm oil.
To read the news in Indonesia and Malaysia is to read brazen lies and greenwashing about palm oil
Reading news about palm oil is an astonishing experience that will fill you with confusion and incredulity. Your newsfeed will be brimming with stories about the greatness of oil palm and the welfare of farmers.
Palm oil is considered “good” in a neoliberal sense of the financial and economic growth that it brings here as a country. Also palm oil is considered “good” as an environmentally-friendly and healthy ingredient for all to buy and consume.
There is a flood of greenwashing news across all media channels: TV, online media, and social media channels celebrating the virtues of this enormously destructive ingredient. This false narrative emphasises palm oil as a method of “care for the environment‟.
For this reason, nowadays I choose to distance myself from social media, as this content is dishonest about what palm oil is in reality.
Fake news and greenwashing example: Dayak indigenous palm oil smallholders
“Many of us grow rice, fruits and vegetables on our indigenous lands for survival and depend on the cash sales from oil palm fruits to buy what we cannot grow. Our oil palm trees empower us as indigenous peoples.”
‘Discrimination against palm oil is an injustice against indigenous people’, Borneo Today, 2018.
The reality of palm oil is vastly different for Dayak peoples
Reports carried out by news media in Borneo simulate the facts about the real events and the detrimental impact of palm oil on Dayak communities.
We as the audience must remain constantly vigilant and aware that this is bad news.
“An assistant manager came to my home. On that day my oldest son had fever. He said to my husband, “Your five hectares of land here is gone and two hectares here is gone. Go to the company and get your money.” My husband told them he doesn’t want to sell. Months later, while I was at my mother’s new house [in the plantation] and my husband was away in Malaysia, we heard a loud noise and could see smoke. I went to see, and it was crazy. My house was already burned. Everything was in there, my son’s bicycle, clothes, and all the wood we planned to build a house, all was gone.”
~ Francesca, a 28-year-old Iban Dayak mother of two, told Human Rights Watch about how she and her husband refused relocation. She said that company representatives torched her home, rendering them homeless. Story via Human Rights Watch
Pictured: Rainforest on fire, Getty Images
Pollution run-off in an RSPO member palm oil plantation in Sumatra. Craig Jones Wildlife PhotographyDeforestation for palm oil at ground level – Getty Images videoDeforestation for palm oil waste reservoirs- Getty ImagesThe difficulty of addressing and resolving oil palm conflicts is due not only to the inadequacies of Indonesia’s legal framework regarding land and plantations but also to the way in which Indonesia’s informalized state institutions foster collusion between local power holders and palm oil companies. This collusion enables companies to evade regulation, suppress community protests and avoid engaging in constructive efforts to resolve conflicts. Furthermore, this collusion has made the available conflict resolution mechanisms largely ineffective.
Anti-Corporate Activism and Collusion: The Contentious Politics of Palm Oil Expansion in Indonesia, (2022). Ward Berenschot, et. al., Geoforum, Volume 131, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.03.002
With the palm oil narrative in Indonesia – many people can no longer distinguish the real from the fake, the fact from the simulation
The media presents a seemingly diverse chorus of voices that all seem to be singing from the same songbook – all of them praising palm oil.
Interviews with field officers, researchers, seminar recordings, podcasts, PR and advertising campaigns are backed financially by the palm oil industry to glaze over and greenwash the immense environmental and social impact of palm oil.
Instead we are presented with a positive narrative about palm oil that offers improved living conditions for farmers. This is not the lived reality for Dayak people. We are told that palm oil is a lucrative crop that benefits the farmers. This is not the lived reality for Dayak people.
Pictured: A Dayak woman weaves pandan in a traditional longhouse, PxFuelThe greenwashing of palm oil deforestation intensifies as time goes on
News articles and reports talk about how this country is preparing to deal with climate change, so as not to damage forests and also to save forests from deforestation.
The news about child labour, child slavery and women working on oil palm plantations in horrific conditions gets little attention in media.
News about customary Dayak lands that are seized for palm oil illegally or by force is online only momentarily and quickly disappears. These violations human rights are rendered invisible by the media in here.
In our news hungry and busy world, most people don’t read beyond the headlines. The messy, corrupt and invisible world of massive land-clearing for palm oil goes on without the world knowing about it through the media. In the meantime, tropical rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia are silently disappearing.
Deforestation by Sean Weston https://seanweston.co.ukThe current era of fake news was predicted by Jean Baudrillard several decades ago
When we can no longer distinguish the truth, the facts and the real from a news. This is Hyperreality.
“The real has died and been replaced by Simulation”
~ Jean Baudrillard.
This is what Jean Baudrillard called the era of Simulacra, Simulation, and Hyperreality. When the news plays with symbols, and the public who consume or read the news only see and know about the simulation, we are existing in Hyperreality, in a Simulacra.
People who consume the news only know the simulation/ hyperreality in a Simulacra – Jean Baudrillard
A Simulacra is a combination of values, facts, signs, images and codes. In this reality we no longer find references or representations except the simulacra itself.
People who consume the news only know the simulation/ hyperreality in a Simulacra – Jean BaudrillardImage, originally tweeted by lookcaitlin (@lookcaitlin) on September 17, 2022.
Greenwashing and denialism in the media about the environmental impact of palm oil
A recent report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) found that the palm oil industry used the same aggressive tactics for greenwashing akin to the tobacco and alcohol industries. Read more
Read WHO reportResearch studies of SE Asian media reporting on palm oil show a denialist and greenwashing narrative that is similar to climate change denialism i.e. climate change greenwashing.
“We found that media reporting of the denialist narrative is more prevalent than that of the peer-reviewed science consensus-view that palm oil plantations on tropical peat could cause excessive greenhouse gas emissions and enhance the risk of fires.
“Our article alerts to the continuation of unsustainable practices as justified by the media to the public, and that the prevalence of these denialist narratives constitute a significant obstacle in resolving pressing issues such as transboundary haze, biodiversity loss, and land-use change related greenhouse gas emissions in Southeast Asia.”~ Liu, Felicia & Ganesan, Vignaa & Smith, Thomas. (2020). Contrasting communications of sustainability science in the media coverage of palm oil agriculture on tropical peatlands in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Environmental Science & Policy. 114. 162-169. 10.1016/j.envsci.2020.07.004.
Deforestation – Craig Jones Wildlife Photography Pictured clockwise: An orangutan grips helplessly onto a broken and destroyed tree, Craig Jones Wildlife Photography; River pollution, PxFuel; A freshly destroyed rainforest in Indonesia, Craig Jones Wildlife Photography; A vast and lifeless palm oil plantation, Greenpeace.Impact of the media Simulacrum on Dayak people
Media coverage about the “goodness of palm oil” has a deep psychological impact on Dayak communities. In the news, this is where the simulation or simulacra begins to occur.
Pictured: Dayak men in Kalimantan, Pxfuel.Some people cannot sort and distinguish the truth of the news content from the actual facts. Meanwhile, the village that I visited is still holding on to their traditional way of life – not to palm oil. This is the Last Village.
Dayak people in the neighbouring village tell them how they have lost their fishing resources. That now, because of the palm oil run-off and pollution there are no more fish to catch. Their roaming area has become too narrow.
They say: “Oh you are right! Keep on resisting the palm oil siege! For we are now labourers toiling for little money on our ancestral land.”
Dr Setia Budhi, Barito River, 25, July 2022
Further reading
Liu, Felicia & Ganesan, Vignaa & Smith, Thomas. (2020). Contrasting communications of sustainability science in the media coverage of palm oil agriculture on tropical peatlands in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Environmental Science & Policy. 114. 162-169. 10.1016/j.envsci.2020.07.004.
Manzo, Kate & Padfield, Rory. (2016). Palm oil not polar bears: Climate change and development in Malaysian media. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. 41. 10.1111/tran.12129.
Morris J. Simulacra in the Age of Social Media: Baudrillard as the Prophet of Fake
News. Journal of Communication Inquiry. 2021;45(4):319-336. doi:10.1177/0196859920977154Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (1998). Under the Shadows of the Queen of Diamonds: The Process of Marginalization in Isolated Communities. Indonesian Torch Foundation, Jakarta.
“The Forest is the father, land is the mother and rivers are blood
“That’s the spirituality of most Dayak people in Kalimantan. They understand the interdependent nature of everything in nature.”
~ Dr Setia Budhi : Dayak Ethnographer
Read Dr Budhi’s story Read ‘The Orangutan with the Golden Hair’Pictured: Untouched rainforest, Sumatra. Craig Jones Wildlife Photography
Here are some other ways you can help by using your wallet as a weapon and joining the #Boycott4Wildlife
Why join the #Boycott4Wildlife?
Greenwashing Tactic #4: Fake Labels
The Counterpunch: Consumer Solutions To Fight Extinction
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Palm Oil Detectives is 100% self-funded
Palm Oil Detectives is completely self-funded by its creator. All hosting and website fees and investigations into brands are self-funded by the creator of this online movement. If you like what I am doing, you and would like me to help meet costs, please send Palm Oil Detectives a thanks on Ko-Fi.
Say thanks on Ko-FiPalm Oil Detectives is 100% self-funded
Palm Oil Detectives is completely self-funded by its creator. All hosting and website fees and investigations into brands are self-funded by the creator of this online movement. If you like what I am doing, you and would like me to help meet costs, please send Palm Oil Detectives a thanks on Ko-Fi.
Say thanks on Ko-Fi#Borneo #BoycottPalmOil #childLabour #childSlavery #conflictCommodity #Dayak #Dayaks #DrSetiaBudhi #fact #fiction #greenwashing #humanRights #hunger #IndigenousActivism #indigenousRights #Indonesia #landRights #landgrabbing #palmOilDeforestation #palmoil #pollution #poverty #violence #waterPollution #workersRights
-
Stepping forward with public commitments for Making different sectors carbon neutral by 2050
Already months we can find youngsters coming on the streets to wake up politicians, opening their eyes for the miserable predicament for our climate and conservation of plants and animals.
This week, leaders from some of the most heavily polluting industries on the planet – shipping, aviation, iron and steel to name a few – stepped forward with public commitments to make each sector carbon neutral by 2050. Others in the private sector committed themselves to advancing universal healthcare, improving air quality, halting deforestation and tackling child labour, all key elements in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
In its third year the SDI Summit is already able to get more business leaders coming to this meeting than any other organized meeting by the World Economic Forum outside the Annual Meeting in Davos. A back-of-the envelope calculation based on the CEOs and chairs that joined the SDI suggested the combined annual turnover of companies they represent was nearly $1 trillion.
Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte, was allowed to kick off the proceedings telling how the Netherlands has set very ambitious climate targets. According to him – 49% emissions reductions by 2030 and climate neutrality by 2050.
But as well as mitigation efforts such as reducing emissions, Rutte says his government has also focused on adaptation – building resilience to the climate conditions that are becoming unavoidable, such as rising sea levels.
What’s the PM’s advice for other countries? Be clear on the steps you want to achieve, he says, and make sure you educate and bring as many people along with you as possible.
The 18-year-old Indonesian activist Melati Wijsen, a few days after millions of young people swarmed the streets in cities all over the world in an effort to pressure governments to take meaningful action against climate change, spoke about the role of young people in finding solutions to the climate crisis.
“We’re unstoppable,”
she said.
“You saw us on the streets on Friday, millions of us came out. It’s an unstoppable movement that’s demanding change.”
Action such as bans on single-use plastics has taken too long, she adds, and with 2030 just around the corner, we need to speed up the implementation of climate solutions.
**
It is incredible how we still have so many politicians who still keep denying we are facing a terrible situation for plant, animals as well as human beings. It is like they prefer not to see that greenhouse gas emissions are rising. In preference for creating more jobs in polluting industries they have no ears for scientists’ extreme weather predictions which appear to be coming true. All over the world we find politicians who put economic matters in front of ecological matters. The keep their nose closed for the air in our cities which is becoming dangerous. How long shall it take before they come to see how our earth is crying, having groundwater getting scarce, ocean health and fish stocks declining, whilst they allow forests and natural habitats being destroyed. But the ordinary citizen is also often at fault, polluting their habitat with all the rubbish they produce. Lots of people also do not have an eye for the plastic in our ocean which is out of control. They do close their ears for the many researchers that warn that a “biological annihilation” of wildlife means a human-driven sixth mass extinction event is underway.
Mankind risks flipping itself out of the goldilocks “Holocene” period of predictable warm weather (which has allowed humans to flourish during the last 12,000 years) and into a highly risky “hothouse earth” scenario, with uncontrolled feedback driving faster warming and more droughts and storms.
Global middle class is expanding, and millions of people are being lifted out of poverty. The bad news: wealth inequality within countries, in both the industrialized and developing worlds, is actually worsening. Meanwhile many people (23 million in 2017 alone) are already being displaced by natural catastrophes aggravated by the effects of climate change. While a number of public-private partnerships have been formed to tackle these issues, more must be done to restructure development finance in such a way that makes it more attractive to a wider array of investors. Excluding people from the benefits of economic growth can undermine the sustainability of that growth – and failing to address serious environmental issues, like threats to biodiversity and natural resources, is a formula for disaster.
People should be aware that answers for our climate won’t come from governments, businesses, and academia alone – they should also come from the public.
Delivering on the ambitions of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Climate Agreement is no easy task.Taking place during the United Nations General Assembly, the SDI summit engages the most relevant and influential leaders across business, government, civil society, NGOs and academia to collaborate on and address the world’s most pressing problems. But without contributions of people from all over the world, to this important debate, they’ll be speaking only to themselves.
If you’d like to get involved, read more about the five questions below, and head to the WEF submissions page to upload your video, from mobile or desktop. Please take note of their recommendations when shooting video, otherwise they may not be able to feature your submission.
1. What’s the biggest thing we should change in the way we live to create a #sustainableworld?
2. What action should governments take to create a #sustainableworld?
3. How should business change to create a #sustainableworld?
4. How can we work together to create a #sustainableworld?
5. What technology can best help us achieve a #sustainableworld?
You can share your perspective. The Forum is asking participants on the ground at the World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Development Impact Summit (#sdi19) to also give them their answers to these questions, and they’ll be featuring the best of the responses on weforum.org/sustainableworld, as well as across Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
The complexity of today’s world calls for new ways of working together to tackle global challenges. Driving progress towards meeting the SDGs and tackling climate change aren’t easy tasks, but no global challenge is too daunting to address as long as we work together.
Rate this:
#2030AgendaForSustainableDevelopment #BiologicalAnnihilation #CarbonDioxideEmissions #CarbonEmissionS_ #CarbonNeutral #ChildLabour #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateConditionS_ #ClimateNeutrality #ClimateTargetS_ #CO2Emissions #Deforestation #FishStockS_ #GlobalWarming #GreenhouseGasEmissionS_ #Groundwater #MarkRutte #MelatiWijsen #MitigationEffortS_ #Netherlands #ParisClimateAgreement #PlasticPollution #PlasticWaste #PollutingIndustry #PublicCommitment #SDISummit #SustainableDevelopmentGoalsSDGs_ #UniversalHealthcare #WorldEconomicForum
-
Stepping forward with public commitments for Making different sectors carbon neutral by 2050
Already months we can find youngsters coming on the streets to wake up politicians, opening their eyes for the miserable predicament for our climate and conservation of plants and animals.
This week, leaders from some of the most heavily polluting industries on the planet – shipping, aviation, iron and steel to name a few – stepped forward with public commitments to make each sector carbon neutral by 2050. Others in the private sector committed themselves to advancing universal healthcare, improving air quality, halting deforestation and tackling child labour, all key elements in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
In its third year the SDI Summit is already able to get more business leaders coming to this meeting than any other organized meeting by the World Economic Forum outside the Annual Meeting in Davos. A back-of-the envelope calculation based on the CEOs and chairs that joined the SDI suggested the combined annual turnover of companies they represent was nearly $1 trillion.
Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte, was allowed to kick off the proceedings telling how the Netherlands has set very ambitious climate targets. According to him – 49% emissions reductions by 2030 and climate neutrality by 2050.
But as well as mitigation efforts such as reducing emissions, Rutte says his government has also focused on adaptation – building resilience to the climate conditions that are becoming unavoidable, such as rising sea levels.
What’s the PM’s advice for other countries? Be clear on the steps you want to achieve, he says, and make sure you educate and bring as many people along with you as possible.
The 18-year-old Indonesian activist Melati Wijsen, a few days after millions of young people swarmed the streets in cities all over the world in an effort to pressure governments to take meaningful action against climate change, spoke about the role of young people in finding solutions to the climate crisis.
“We’re unstoppable,”
she said.
“You saw us on the streets on Friday, millions of us came out. It’s an unstoppable movement that’s demanding change.”
Action such as bans on single-use plastics has taken too long, she adds, and with 2030 just around the corner, we need to speed up the implementation of climate solutions.
**
It is incredible how we still have so many politicians who still keep denying we are facing a terrible situation for plant, animals as well as human beings. It is like they prefer not to see that greenhouse gas emissions are rising. In preference for creating more jobs in polluting industries they have no ears for scientists’ extreme weather predictions which appear to be coming true. All over the world we find politicians who put economic matters in front of ecological matters. The keep their nose closed for the air in our cities which is becoming dangerous. How long shall it take before they come to see how our earth is crying, having groundwater getting scarce, ocean health and fish stocks declining, whilst they allow forests and natural habitats being destroyed. But the ordinary citizen is also often at fault, polluting their habitat with all the rubbish they produce. Lots of people also do not have an eye for the plastic in our ocean which is out of control. They do close their ears for the many researchers that warn that a “biological annihilation” of wildlife means a human-driven sixth mass extinction event is underway.
Mankind risks flipping itself out of the goldilocks “Holocene” period of predictable warm weather (which has allowed humans to flourish during the last 12,000 years) and into a highly risky “hothouse earth” scenario, with uncontrolled feedback driving faster warming and more droughts and storms.
Global middle class is expanding, and millions of people are being lifted out of poverty. The bad news: wealth inequality within countries, in both the industrialized and developing worlds, is actually worsening. Meanwhile many people (23 million in 2017 alone) are already being displaced by natural catastrophes aggravated by the effects of climate change. While a number of public-private partnerships have been formed to tackle these issues, more must be done to restructure development finance in such a way that makes it more attractive to a wider array of investors. Excluding people from the benefits of economic growth can undermine the sustainability of that growth – and failing to address serious environmental issues, like threats to biodiversity and natural resources, is a formula for disaster.
People should be aware that answers for our climate won’t come from governments, businesses, and academia alone – they should also come from the public.
Delivering on the ambitions of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Climate Agreement is no easy task.Taking place during the United Nations General Assembly, the SDI summit engages the most relevant and influential leaders across business, government, civil society, NGOs and academia to collaborate on and address the world’s most pressing problems. But without contributions of people from all over the world, to this important debate, they’ll be speaking only to themselves.
If you’d like to get involved, read more about the five questions below, and head to the WEF submissions page to upload your video, from mobile or desktop. Please take note of their recommendations when shooting video, otherwise they may not be able to feature your submission.
1. What’s the biggest thing we should change in the way we live to create a #sustainableworld?
2. What action should governments take to create a #sustainableworld?
3. How should business change to create a #sustainableworld?
4. How can we work together to create a #sustainableworld?
5. What technology can best help us achieve a #sustainableworld?
You can share your perspective. The Forum is asking participants on the ground at the World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Development Impact Summit (#sdi19) to also give them their answers to these questions, and they’ll be featuring the best of the responses on weforum.org/sustainableworld, as well as across Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
The complexity of today’s world calls for new ways of working together to tackle global challenges. Driving progress towards meeting the SDGs and tackling climate change aren’t easy tasks, but no global challenge is too daunting to address as long as we work together.
Rate this:
#2030AgendaForSustainableDevelopment #BiologicalAnnihilation #CarbonDioxideEmissions #CarbonEmissionS_ #CarbonNeutral #ChildLabour #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateConditionS_ #ClimateNeutrality #ClimateTargetS_ #CO2Emissions #Deforestation #FishStockS_ #GlobalWarming #GreenhouseGasEmissionS_ #Groundwater #MarkRutte #MelatiWijsen #MitigationEffortS_ #Netherlands #ParisClimateAgreement #PlasticPollution #PlasticWaste #PollutingIndustry #PublicCommitment #SDISummit #SustainableDevelopmentGoalsSDGs_ #UniversalHealthcare #WorldEconomicForum