The world’s forests are being destroyed against a background of corruption, illegality and apathy. This article was originally published in The Ecologist magazine, 28th March, 2022
A complex web of financial instruments allowing crime, corruption and wrong-doing, hidden behind shell corporations and offshore companies was exposed with the release of thePanama Papers.
This shadow network is being used by individuals and companies behind the destruction of our planet’s forests
Indonesia has lost vast amounts of primary rainforest, behind only Brazil in scale for these losses. Some of the largest palm oil and timber companies operating in the country have disguised the extent of their operations through “shadow companies”. This means that who truly benefits from their activities is deliberately made harder or impossible to trace.
RSPO member Wilmar is responsible for palm oil deforestation despite supposedly using “sustainable” palm oil
Wilmar responsible for palm oil deforestation despite supposedly using “sustainable” palm oil.
Indigenous rights violations
The Indonesian part of the island of Papua is a “new frontier” of palm oil deforestation in the country. This is against theexpress wishes of local Indigenous peoples. Previous deforestation went ahead despiteIndonesian government officials claiming that the permits to do so in the regionwere falsified.
Companies were then given permission to continue clearing the forest as long as they “fix their permits”. In other words, as long as they retrospectively got the permits they needed from the start.
However, the forests of Papua may have been handed a lifeline: the Indonesian government has just cancelled192 deforestation permits. For the sake of people, wildlife and the climate, they need to stay cancelled.
Forests will keep being cleared with impunity without financial transparency, accountability and enforcement.
The “clear forests first, apply for permits later” approach is not limited to Indonesia. In Paraguay, a government whistleblower provided evidence that the same problem was happening there. In that case, the deforestation included the lands of the Ayoreo Totobiegosode Indigenous peoples.
The Amazon rainforest over time
Global Witness October 2021 Report: Violence and death for palm oil connected to household supermarket brands (RSPO members)
“One palm oil firm, Rimbunan Hijau, [Papua New Guinea] negligently ignored repeated and avoidable worker deaths and injuries on palm oil plantations, with at least 11 workers and the child of one worker losing their lives over an eight-year period.
“Tainted palm oil from Papua New Guinea plantations was sold to household name brands, all of them RSPO members including Kellogg’s, Nestlé, Colgate, Danone, Hershey’s and PZ Cussons and Reckitt Benckiser”
Where voluntary pledges have led to environmental successes they have been partial. The Amazon soy moratorium was designed to stop companies clearing Amazonia for the crop, and it has had some impact.
The rate of soy-related deforestation in Amazonia fell by84 percent between 2004 and 2012, as a result of the moratorium and connected policy efforts.
However, this is arguably because companies have simply been able to shift to another, less protected biome; the neighbouring Cerrado, a precious ecosystem in its own right, which is now thefrontier of deforestation in South America.
Data on corporate deforestation from the supply chain mapping initiative Trase show that companies who have pledged not to cause deforestation for soy causeas much as those who have made no such commitment.
Felled
The New York Declaration on Forests from 2014 pledged tohalve deforestation by 2020 and end it by 2030, yet rates of forest loss have been41 percent higher in the years since the agreement was signed.
The impact of pledges made at COP26 to reverse and end deforestationin a decade is yet to be seen, but it is noteworthy that the Brazilian Amazon started 2022 with the fastest rate of deforestation in 14 years.
Certification schemes purporting to ensure wood and timber products also have weaknesses. The assessment bodies responsible for conferring prized sustainability certification like the Forest Stewardship Council ecolabel are paid for by the companies they audit, competing with one another for this income. This creates a “race to the bottom” as it incentivises weak auditing in order to win more business.
These certification schemes have also been found to accredit illegally felled wood, including trees fromprotected forests in Siberia, some of which ended up in childrens’ furniture from IKEA.
Time-bound
No wonder, then, that many timber firms arelobbying to be exempt from upcoming EU laws to keep the products of environmental destruction and human rights abuses out of European supply chains. They claim that certified status – demonstrated to be flawed – should be enough to allow them this exemption.
While a great deal of forestry is not connected to crime, corruption, human rights abuses and the destruction of irreplaceable nature, far too much is. All our most basichuman rights depend on a sustainable environment. We cannot let it be destroyed for a handful of people to profit.
Without financial transparency, accountability, and enforcement of strong laws to protect forests, they will keep being cleared with impunity.
States must step in andpass legislation which requires robust, transparent and time-bound reductions in deforestation for companies wishing to be part of their supply chains. The future of people and the planet depends on it.
The Author
Steve Trent is the founder and CEO of the Environmental Justice Foundation.
Although conservation efforts have historically focused attention on protecting rare, charismatic, and endangered species, the “insect apocalypse” presents a different challenge. In addition to the loss of rare taxa, many reports mention sweeping declines of formerly abundant insects [e.g., Warren et al. (29)], raising concerns about ecosystem function.
In the last 10,000 years the human population has grown from 1 million to 7.8 billion. Much of Earth’s arable lands are already in agriculture (1), millions of acres of tropical forest are cleared each year (2, 3), atmospheric CO2 levels are at their highest concentrations in more than 3 million y (4), and climates are erratically and steadily changing from pole to pole, triggering unprecedented droughts, fires, and floods across continents.
Indeed, most biologists agree that the world has entered its sixth mass extinction event, the first since the end of the Cretaceous Period 66 million y ago, when more than 80% of all species, including the nonavian dinosaurs, perished.
Ongoing losses have been clearly demonstrated for better-studied groups of organisms. Terrestrial vertebrate population sizes and ranges have contracted by one-third, and many mammals have experienced range declines of at least 80% over the last century (5).
A 2019 assessment suggests that half of all amphibians are imperiled (2.5% of which have recently gone extinct) (6). Bird numbers across North America have fallen by 2.9 billion since 1970 (7). Prospects for the world’s coral reefs, beyond the middle of this century, could scarcely be more dire (8). A 2020 United Nations report estimated that more than a million species are in danger of extinction over the next few decades (9), but also see the more bridled assessments in refs. 10 and 11.
Loss of Abundant Species
Insects comprise much of the animal biomass linking primary producers and consumers, as well as higher-level consumers in freshwater and terrestrial food webs. Situated at the nexus of many trophic links, many numerically abundant insects provide ecosystem services upon which humans depend: the pollination of fruits, vegetables, and nuts; the biological control of weeds, agricultural pests, disease vectors, and other organisms that compete with humans or threaten their quality of life; and the macrodecomposition of leaves and wood and removal of dung and carrion, which contribute to nutrient cycling, soil formation, and water purification. Clearly, severe insect declines can potentially have global ecological and economic consequences.
Insect diversity
(A) Pennants (Libellulidae): Dragonflies are among the most familiar and popular insects, renowned for their appetite for mosquitoes.
(B) Robber flies (Asilidae): These sit-and-wait predators often perch on twigs that allow them to ambush passing prey; accordingly they have enormous eyes.
(C) Katydids (Tettigoniidae): This individual is one molt away from having wings long enough to fly (that also will be used to produce its mating song).
(D) Bumble bees (Apidae): Important pollinators in temperate, montane, and subpolar regions especially of heaths (including blueberries and cranberries).
(E) Wasp moths (Erebidae): Compelling mimics that are hyperdiverse in tropical forests; many are toxic and unpalatable to vertebrates.
(F) Leafhoppers (Cicadellidae): A diverse family with 20,000 species, some of which are important plant pests; many communicate with each other by vibrating their messages through a shared substrate.
(G) Cuckoo wasps (Chrysididae): Striking armored wasps that enter nests of other bees—virtually impermeable to stings—to lay their eggs in brood cells of a host bee.
(H) Tortoise beetles (Chrysomelidae): Mostly tropical plant feeders; this larva is advertising its unpalatability with bold yellow, black, and cream colors.
(I) Mantises (Mantidae): These voracious sit-and-wait predators have acute eyesight and rapid predatory strikes; prey are instantly impaled and held in place by the sharp foreleg spines.
(J) Emerald moths (Geometridae): Diverse family of primarily forest insects; their caterpillars include the familiar inchworms.
(K) Tiger beetles (Cicindelidae): “Tigers” use acute vision and long legs to run down their prey, which are dispatched with their huge jaws.
(L) Planthoppers (Fulgoridae): Tropical family of splendid insects, whose snouts are curiously varied and, in a few lineages, account for half the body mass. Images credit: Michael Thomas (photographer).
The Stressors
Abundant evidence demonstrates that the principal stressors—land-use change (especially deforestation), climate change, agriculture, introduced species, nitrification, and pollution—underlying insect declines are those also affecting other organisms.
Locally and regionally, insects are challenged by additional stressors, such as insecticides, herbicides, urbanization, and light pollution. In areas of high human activity, where insect declines are most conspicuous, multiple stressors occur simultaneously.
Considerable uncertainty remains about the relative importance of these stressors, their interactions, and the temporal and spatial variations in their intensity. Hallmann et al. (13), in their review of the dramatic losses of flying insects from the Krefeld region, noted that no simple cause had emerged and that “weather, land use, and [changed] habitat characteristics cannot explain this overall decline…”
When asked about his group’s early findings of downward population trends in insects (12), Dirzo summed up his thinking by stating that the falling numbers were likely due to a
“multiplicity of factors, most likely with habitat destruction, deforestation, fragmentation, urbanization, and agricultural conversion being among the leading factors” (40). His assessment seems to capture the essence of the problem: Insects are suffering from “death by a thousand cuts” (Fig. 1).
Taking the domesticated honey bee as an example, its declines in the United States have been linked to (introduced) mites, viral infections, microsporidian parasites, poisoning by neonicotinoid and other pesticides, habitat loss, overuse of artificial foods to maintain hives, and inbreeding; and yet, after 14+ y of research it is still unclear which of these, a combination thereof, or as yet unidentified factors are most detrimental to bee health.
Death by a thousand cuts: Global threats to insect diversity. Stressors from 10 o’clock to 3 o’clock anchor to climate change.
Each is an imperiled insect that represents a larger lineage that includes many International Union for Conservation of Nature “red list” species (i.e., globally extinct, endangered, and threatened species). Illustration: Virginia R. Wagner (artist).
Here are some other ways you can help by using your wallet as a weapon and joining the #Boycott4Wildlife
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.
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.
In 2022, 71 environmental and #humanrights groups from around the world wrote to the EU Commission to warn that certification schemes and ecolabels were not sufficient to prevent human rights abuses and deforestation from entering the European Union. Although fast forward to 2025 and lobbyists have again watered down the #EUDR and #CSDDD, what the future holds is anybody’s guess!
In the UK, industry lobbyists including Ferrero and serial greenwashing outfit Orangutan Land Trust watered down the UK’s commitment to not importing deforestation into the UK. The new trade deal with #Malaysia paves the way for mass importation of palm oil ecocide.
Signatories: 71 environmental and human rights NGOs
Considering the shortcomings of certification schemes that the European Commission itself has documented, we are deeply troubled by the current arguments coming from industry players advocating for a stronger role for certification in the regulation, including a way for companies to use these systems as proof of compliance with binding EU rules. Below are ten reasons why this should not happen.
1. Certification is not designed to achieve the main objective of the regulation – preventing deforestationand other harms
The EC’s own Commission Staff Working Document Impact Assessment (hereafter EC Impact Assessment) concludes that “the consensus is that [voluntary certification] schemes on their own have not been able to provide the changes needed to prevent deforestation”. This is the position defended by the European Parliament and by most NGOs. Certification schemes do not have a deforestation standard, or the standard does not meet the deforestation definition as proposed in the anti-deforestation regulation. For example, because companies are allowed to clear forests to establish plantations and remediate or compensate with conservation elsewhere.
1. Certification is not designed to achieve the main objective of the regulation – preventing deforestation and other harms
Numerous studies conducted by WWF, FSCWatch, and Greenpeace and academic studies on Indonesia, have additionally concluded that certification on its own has not helped companies meet their commitments to exclude deforestation from their supply chains.
This led some actors such as WWF to lose faith in certification scheme Roundtable of Responsible Soy (RTRS), not only due to limited uptake, but more specifically, because in biomes where soy is produced, zero-deforestation commitments have so far failed to reduce deforestation. In support of this finding, the Dutch supermarket industry representative (CBL) stated that RTRS “has not appeared to be sufficient to halt [deforestation and conversion] developments and accelerate the transition to a sustainable soy chain”.
“Certification (or verification) schemes may, in some cases, contribute to achieving compliance with the due diligence requirement, however the use of certification does not automatically imply compliance with due diligence obligations. There is abundant literature on certification schemes shortcomings in terms of governance, transparency, clarity of standards, and reliability of monitoring systems”.
2. Certification does not provide the information needed to comply with the EU regulation
It does not create transparency of the supply chain or provide information on the geographical origin
As indicated in Article 8 of the Proposal, “because deforestation is linked to land-use change, monitoring requires a precise link between the commodity or product placed on or exported from the EU market and the plot of land where it was grown or raised.” Most certification schemes, however, require only a minimal level of traceability and transparency.
2. Certification does not provide the information needed to comply with the EU regulation
As indicated in the EC’s Study On Certification And Verification Schemes In The Forest Sector, schemes make use of Chain of Custody (CoC) models, but very few apply a traceability system, making it difficult to track the claims of certification, from the forest to the end buyer. One of the most common CoC models used is Mass Balance. This model allows uncertified and untraceable supplies to be physically mixed with certified supplies and end up in EU supply chains. For the most part, certification schemes do not include the systematic ability to verify transactions of volumes, species, and qualities between entities, thus leaving the systems vulnerable to manipulation and fraud.
3. Certification does not provide guarantees for the legality of the product
Certification schemes do not have the authority to confirm or enforce compliance with national laws precisely because they are voluntary.
Article 3 in the proposed anti-deforestation regulation states that products are prohibited on the European market if they are not “produced in accordance with the relevant legislation of the country of production”.
3. Certification does not provide guarantees for the legality of the product
However, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), for example, has explicitly stated its standards are voluntary and “do not extend to enforcing or confirming the legal standing of a company’s use of land (which is a mandate only held by the national authority)”.
4. Certification does not identify or prevent harms. Audit teams lack time and expertise
According to the EC “labour, environmental and human rights laws will need to be taken into account when assessing compliance” and identifying harms. However, multiple reports by Friends of the Earth Netherlands, the Environmental Investigation Agency, and ECCHR, reveal that auditing firms responsible for checking compliance are fundamentally failing to identify and mitigate unsustainable practices within certification schemes due to lack of time and lack of expertise. Proper audits on social and human rights issues require extensive consultation to gain full community perspectives on land use, conflicts, or environmental harm. Certification Body (CB) procedures do not allow for this (due to financial resources).
RSPO’s own analysis reads that “the credibility of the RSPO certification scheme has been consistently undermined by documentation of poor practice, and concerns of the extent to which the Assurance System is being implemented”.
Oppressed and stretched NGO groups and communities in the global South spend time and resources on these consultation processes. They face backlash for speaking out during consultations without any guarantee that their input is included in the certification assessment. The EU should not become complicit in exploitation of rightsholders and stakeholders in their monitoring role.
5. Certification bodies and their auditors are not independent from the company they certify
The lack of independent audits, considered to be key in ensuring the robustness of certification, was highlighted in the EC Impact Assessment as a key weakness of private certification schemes.
If clients (businesses) hire, supervise, and pay audit firms, they are exposed to a structural risk of conflict of interest, which may lead to a lower level of control.
Previous studies by Friends of the Earth, IUCN, RAN, and Environmental Investigation Agency have shown that, for example in the palm oil industry, when auditors and certification companies are directly hired by an audited company, independence is inhibited and the risk of violations increases.
5. Certification bodies and their auditors are not independent from the company they certify
Also, auditor dependence on company services such as transport and accommodation is problematic. The EC adds to this that these systems are sensitive to fraud given that certified companies may easily mislead their auditors even if the audit is conducted with the greatest care and according to all procedures.
“For example, a company may be selling products containing a volume of “certified” timber material that exceeds the volume of certified raw material that they are buying.”
6. Prevention of environmental and social harm cannot be outsourced, particularly because certification bodies are not liable for harms in the plantations they certify
The EU anti-deforestation regulation requires that operators shall exercise due diligence prior to placing relevant commodities on the Union market. Private certification may, in some cases, facilitate compliance with this requirement.
However, as reiterated by German human rights law firm ECCHR the control of compliance is outsourced to private certification bodies, in an unregulated audit and certification market, where CBs are not liable for potential harm.
This leads to inability to distinguish unreliable audits from reliable ones and to competition without rules, setting in motion a ‘race to the bottom’. Certification initiatives have increasingly received complaints for lack of proper due diligence.
For instance, the UK OECD National Contact Point has recently found that Bonsucro breached the Guidelines in relation to due diligence and leverage when reaccepting MPG-T as a member, and the Netherlands NCP handled a complaint about ING’s due diligence policies and practices regarding palm oil.
6. Prevention of environmental and social harm cannot be outsourced, particularly because certification bodies are not liable for harms in the plantations they certify
The OECD guidelines confirm that certification is not a proxy for due diligence, as well as various governments. As echoed by the EC Impact Assessment, “maintaining operators’ responsibility for correctly implementing due diligence obligations when they use certification, aims at ensuring that authorities remain empowered to monitor and sanction incompliant behaviour, as the reliability of those [certification] systems has repeatedly been challenged by evidence on the ground.”
7. Certification cannot guarantee Free, Prior and Informed Consent or prevent land grabbing of indigenous land
Indigenous Peoples and local communities have a recognised role in preserving the lands they own and manage, but insecure land tenure is a major driver of deforestation and forest degradation.
Certification bodies commit to investigating whether lands are subject to customary rights of indigenous peoples and whether land transfers have been developed with Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC).
However, assessing whether land user rights and consultation rights were respected needs to consider the historical context, a multi-actor perspective and deep understanding of local conflicts. Considering the apparent low level of knowledge of auditors on human rights and legal issues, assessing prior land use and conflicts is an impossible task for a team of international auditors with limited time.
7. Certification cannot guarantee Free, Prior and Informed Consent or prevent land grabbing of indigenous land
In Malaysia communities are often not consulted before the issuance of the logging licences. MTCS certified concessions encroach on indigenous territories while the judiciary recognised indigenous customary land rights are a form of property rights protected by the Federal Constitution.
Additionally, certification schemes failed on numerous occasions to address complaints by communities whose land was taken by palm oil companies, including the case of oil palm giant Sime Darby in Indonesia and Socfin in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. Certification will not lead to redress or resolution of problems linked to EU operators.
Claiming a brand or commodity is green based on unreliable, ineffective endorsements or eco-labels such as the RSPO, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or FairTrade coffee and cocoa. Greenwashing: Fake Labels and fake certifications Ecolabels are…
Critics have argued that improving the image of forest and ecosystem risk commodities stimulates demand. Certification risks enabling destructive businesses to continue operating as usual and expand their practices, thereby increasing the harm.
“If certification on its own is unable to guarantee that commodity production is entirely free of deforestation or human rights abuses, there is little to suggest that using certification as a tool for proving compliance with legal requirements could solve the issues in supply chains and fulfil the legislation’s objectives.
8. Certification provides opportunities for greenwashing and increases vested interests in and corporate power over natural resources.
In this context, recognising a particular certification scheme as a proof of compliance removes any incentive to improve the scheme or to replace it with a more reliable alternative, effectively contributing to the institutionalisation of greenwashing.”
For example, a number of recent logging industry scandals suggest that the Forest Stewardship Council label has at times served merely to “greenwash” or “launder” trafficking in illegal timber, compelling NGOs to demand systemic change. The difference between certified and non-certified plantations in South East Asia was not significant.
9. Certification promotes the expansion of industrial agriculture and thereby prevents the transition needed to halt deforestation
This prevents the transition towards community-based forest management and agro-ecology, with food sovereignty as a leading principle
There are multiple drivers of deforestation, but the evidence is clear in pointing to industrial agricultural expansion as one of the most important. Ultimately, certification initiatives fail to challenge the ideology underpinning the continuation of industrial commodity crop production, and can instead serve to greenwash further agro-commodity expansion.
Corporations, along with their certifications, continue to seek legitimacy through a ‘feed the world’ narrative.
9. Certification promotes the expansion of industrial agriculture and thereby prevents the transition needed to halt deforestation
The “expansion is the only way”argument has long since been discredited by international institutions such as FAO; we produce enough to feed the projected world populations, much of this coming from small-scale peasant producers using a fraction of the resources. Moreover, as smallholders are directly impacted by deforestation and often depend on large operators and are hereby forced to expand agricultural land and degrading their direct environment, they are therefore an essential part of the solution.
10. Certification directs resources towards a million-dollar certification industry
While community and smallholder forest and agriculture management are extremely underfunded.
As explained by the EC Impact Assessment, private certification can be a costly process and resources spent to certify operations and to support the various schemes’ managerial structures could be used for other ends. Considering that smallholders represent a large share of producers in the relevant sectors, they also represent a crucial part of the solution to deforestation.
The EU should stop financing and promoting improvements in a certification system, benefiting industrial forest and plantation companies, that has been proven to fail.
It would be a more effective use of public and private resources to pay smallholders adequately for their products and adhere to their calls if they seek technical or financial support.
10. Certification directs resources towards a million-dollar certification industry
To conclude, building on these arguments, we foresee that if decision makers give in to the lobby from industry and certification’s role is reconsidered or promoted in the current proposal, the EU anti-deforestation regulation will not deliver, as it will not only lose its potential to provide information needed to comply with the regulation but lose its ability to curb deforestation and forest degradation all together.
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.
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.
This incredible comic was created by Didier Kassai with research by Judith Verweijen and Dieudonne Botoko Kendewa of the University of Sussex and the University of Sheffield. The comic was originally posted by Cartoon Movement.
The comic is based on field research conducted around the Feronia palm oil plantation in Tshopo province in north-east DR 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 and #landgrabbing from this corporation. Take action! #Boycottpalmoil 🌴🩸☠️🚫https://palmoildetectives.com/2022/06/16/the-people-versus-feronia-fighting-palm-oil-agrocolonialism-in-the-congo/
The story focuses on people living next to the Feronia concession and how they experience and fight against the company. While the names in the comic are fictional, the described events are based on testimonies we gathered during our field research. This includes accounts of repression and heavy-handed responses by the security services, which highlight the dangers faced by those defending their land, their livelihoods and the environment.
Feronia used to be an RSPO palm oil plantation but is now nolonger a part of the RSPO.
Research was carried out by researchers from the Université Catholique du Graben, the University of Sheffield and the Organisation Congolaise des Ecologistes et Amis de la Nature (OCEAN).
Many oil palm plantations’ concessions in West and Central Africa were built on lands stolen from communities during colonial occupations. This is the case in the DRC, where food company Unilever began its palm oil empire. Today, these plantations are still sites of on-going poverty and violence. It is time to end the colonial model of concessions and return the land to its original owners.
Didier Kassaï was born in 1974 in Sibut, Central African Republic. He is known for his involvement in the Central African press. His albums are The Odyssey of Mongou and Storm on Bangui. He won Best Project Award at Algiers fest.
Judith Verweijen is a Lecturer at the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on the interplay of violence, conflicts around natural resources and social mobilisation. She focuses on eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where she has regularly conducted fieldwork since 2010.
Dieudonné Botoko Kendewa holds an engineering degree from the Faculty Institute of Agronomic Sciences of Yangambi. He is currently in charge of the Forestry Management Unit within the NGO OCEAN. He has almost a decade of experience with baseline studies and forest inventories for the management of village forest lands, participatory mapping processes and facilitating negotiations over the social clauses in forest contract specifications. Currently, he is involved in REDD+ and the sustainable production of wood-energy by rural producers in the Kisangani supply basin.
AC stands in solidarity with #landrights defenders in #DRCongo who are facing violence, intimidation, and harassment for speaking up against #Feronia palm oil. We call on authorities to take immediate action to investigate and end abuses against #HRDs. https://t.co/QeX9kaMBHw
#DRCongo: As Feronia Inc faces liquidation and abandons parts of its plantations, communities reoccupy lands stolen from them more than 100 years ago, and get back to traditional palm oil production. https://t.co/mvOzgs7wn8pic.twitter.com/gdvpL92GUN
"We are happy to finally have access to lands that we have be kept out of for so long"
After years of disputes & unrest, locals in DR Congo have reclaimed hundreds of hectares of land abandoned by Feronia as the Canadian palm oil giant faces liquidation:https://t.co/0UCvCQsskppic.twitter.com/l2SxBDLaZ1
Feronia, a palm oil firm part-owned by the UK government’s development bank, has been accused of a series of abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo. @hrw say that Feronia has been dumping toxic waste in the Congo River, claims the company disputes.@cathkemi | @BBCJoeInwoodpic.twitter.com/ZE3YuVvNVl
Environmental NGOs in the Democratic Republic of Congo demand answers from UK government’s Department for International Development about its investment in palm oil company Feronia accused of landgrabbinghttps://t.co/KSiuN4UAd7pic.twitter.com/nefT40V27m
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.
Apart from conserving species, #wetlands help to control floods, replenish groundwater, stabilise shorelines, retain nutrients and purify water. The park will join Nigeria’s protected area of 445 forest reserves, 29 game reserves, 12 strict nature reserves, 11 Ramsar sites, 7 national parks and one biosphere reserve.
The Finima nature park, when finally gazetted, will be Nigeria’s 12th Ramsar site. Established by the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Company in 2001, the park covers about 1,000 hectares. It’s a mixture of tropical rain forest, mangrove swamps and freshwater ponds and is home to birds, crocodiles, snakes, alligators and the salt water hippopotamus.
These sites are designated under the Ramsar Convention, an intergovernmental environmental treaty established in 1971 by UNESCO. It aims to protect representative, rare or unique wetlands, or those important for conserving biological diversity.
Omo Forest, a home for elephants, in Ijebu East and North Local Government Areas, Ogun State, Nigeria Peter Martell/AFP via Getty Images
The protected area network is vital to protect and conserve the country’s biodiversity.
Protected areas provide habitat for the country’s endangered, rare and endemic plant and animal species. For instance, the White throated guenon (Cercopithecus erythrogaster) and Sclater’s guenon (Cercopithecus sclateri) are mostly found in Okomu National Park, Edo State. The drill or forest baboon (Papio leucophaeus) and the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes ellioti) survive only in Cross River (Cross River State) and Gashaka-Gumti (Taraba/Adamawa States) national parks, as well as some fragments of forests such as Ngel Nyaki forest reserve in Taraba State. The lowland or Cross River gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli) is endangered and restricted to three sites – Cross River National Park’s Okwangwo Division and Mbe Mountains in Nigeria, and the neighbouring Takamanda Forest Reserve in Cameroon.
Mountain Gorilla mum and baby
The constitution of forest reserves by authorities began in 1889 with Mamu Forest Reserve, created as a buffer between Ibadan and Ijebu territories. In 1956, the Yankari Forest Reserve in Bauchi province became the first game reserve in the country. Kainji Lake National Park, created in 1979, was the first national park. The protected areas are distributed across the various ecological zones of the country. Most of them are included in the World Database for Protected Areas.
The management of these areas is backed by specific legislation. The National Park Service, under the Federal Ministry of Environment, is responsible for the administration of the national parks. The game and forest reserves are controlled and managed by the states in which they are located.
But so far their achievements in conserving biodiversity have been quite fortuitous.
Challenges
Protected areas in Nigeria are generally hampered by limited funds and resources. Most face a dearth of protection staff and sound working equipment, especially patrol vehicles and modern weapons. Poachers and cattle herders who drive their livestock to graze inside protected areas are a threat.
In recent times, insecurity in and around protected areas has emerged as the greatest threat to their existence. For instance, the Kamuku National Park became a hideout for bandits, cattle rustlers and kidnappers. The Sambisa Game Reserve has long been taken over by Boko Haram. Sambisa forest was a huge vacuum and an ungoverned space that Boko Haram filled as a result of neglect. The situation is the same for many areas around the Lake Chad Basin.
Back from extinction: a world first effort to return threatened pangolins to the wildTemminck’s Pangolin Smutsia temminckii
Many of the protected areas in Nigeria are yet to be connected to the national power grid. They sometimes go for weeks without electricity where there is no alternative mode of power generation. This is the case in different sections of Chad Basin National Park, Kamuku National Park, Old Oyo National Park and others. The mobile network, too, is very poor in these areas.
Government has failed to formally gazette the protected area boundaries recommended by management plans. This hinders their management. And there are inadequate support zone programmes for local communities who share their natural frontier and destiny with the protected areas.
Because of these problems, the ecological integrity of the protected areas has been weakened. Valuable species have been lost. The black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis), West African giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis peralta) and cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) are no longer found anywhere in the country.
There is a need to revamp management activities in all protected areas across the country. Facilities and infrastructure must be rehabilitated for effective operation. Adequate funds should be allocated so that the sector can perform its duties and deal with criminals and insurgents. Aerial surveillance and monitoring should be carried out periodically for research and protection purposes.
Local communities around protected areas should also be actively involved in decision making and conservation efforts. This can mitigate conflicts between protected area managers and local communities. It can also reconcile the goals of biodiversity conservation with local people’s social and economic needs.
Despite decades of promises to end deforestation for palm oil PepsiCo (owner of crisp brands Frito-Lay, Cheetos and Doritos along with hundreds of other snack food brands) have continued sourcing palm oil that strongly linked to ecocide, indigenous landgrabbing, and the habitat destruction of the rarest animals on earth.
All of these animals are on a knife-edge of survival. It is for this reason, we boycott PepsiCo and its sub-brands. Find out about their forest destroying activities below and what you can do to stop them by using your wallet as a weapon. it’s the #Boycott4Wildlife
Report by Pusaka, Walhi, and Forest Peoples Programme finds that household names including Nestlé, PepsiCo, Wilmar and Unilever and associated global financial institutions and investors continue to ‘turn a blind eye’ to human rights abuses in their palm oil supply chains.
Despite these very serious, long term and well documented human rights abuses and environmental damage, on the ground, major downstream companies continue to invest in, or source products from these plantations.
A 2021 joint BBC/Gecko Project and Mongabay Investigation found that Nestlé, Kellogg’s, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, and PepsiCo have sourced palm oil from Indonesian companies linked to human rights abuses and have failed to pass on millions in profits to smallholder ‘plasma’ farmers.
Let’s keep the 2020 celebration going! PEPSICO: After more than 5 years of campaigning, PepsiCo has changed its palm oil sourcing policy, and agreed to use its influence with other companies to end rainforest destruction and human rights abuses! ⭐ pic.twitter.com/dPKMEBTkDk
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.
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.
The most important factor determining whether consumers avoid purchasing a product containing palm oil is not how they feel about orangutans, the environment, or anything else for that matter. It’s whether they know what’s in the product.
Research reveals that consumers’ ability to diagnose whether a product is made with palm oil is the leading driver of whether they choose a palm-oil free product over a similar product that is, or could be, made with palm oil.
Educate people about the risks to beautiful animals – they will go palm oil free
According to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), a consortium of stakeholders from various sectors of the palm oil industry, the last 20 years have witnessed a growth of 43% in the amount of land being used to cultivate palm oil.
The vast majority of this area – over 85% – is in Malaysia and Indonesia, in zones inhabited by wild orangutans. By some estimates, the deforestation resulting from palm oil production leads to the loss of as many as 2,500 orangutans a year.
Current FSANZ regulations do not require that palm oil be labeled as such on food product packaging, but instead may be included on the list of ingredients under the broader term “vegetable oil”. There is no way of knowing whether a product that is made with “vegetable oil” specifically contains palm oil.
Explicit palm oil labeling on product packaging could let consumers make an informed choice about how their purchases affect the welfare of orangutans and their environment.
Product labelling really does make a difference
In a series of experiments in 2010, visitors to the Melbourne Zoo were asked to select between various packets of chips that did not contain palm oil, and close alternatives that contained vegetable oil.
Participants were asked what they thought about ethical consumption, wildlife preservation, political activism, and human-like characteristics of primates to see if these affected which products were selected.
One group chose from products that had no labelling about palm oil.
The second group’s products included a packet of chips with a large sticker on it. The sticker had a baby orangutan’s face, along with the words “Orangutan-friendly – No Palm Oil”.
A third group had no stickers on their packaging, but did see an information sheet listing which foods (including potato chips) were made with and without palm oil.
Visitors who saw the sticker or the information sheet were significantly more likely to choose the palm-oil free chips.
Product packaging labeling or point-of-sale information can have a real influence on whether people purchase ethically-made foods.
A follow-up study found that giving people the feeling they could figure out if a product had palm oil also affected their choices.
There is an easy way to tell if a product likely has palm oil in it
When it’s not clearly labelled as #Palmoil you can identify it on product packaging with these ingredient prefixes:
There is no legislation to stop this vague product labelling of palm oil Despite the lobbying and activism of various environmental groups and those concerned with consumer rights, palm oil remains labelled in a vague unclear way. It’s hidden in plain sight, an ingredient in everything from ice-cream to lipstick, biscuits to toothpaste. Part of…
If we want people to choose ethically produced foods, there are two things we should do:
Give consumers the information they need about whether palm oil is in the product.
Raise awareness of the issues about palm oil.
Perhaps the most striking finding from the research was what factors aren’t relevant.
How consumers felt about whether ethically-produced goods should be purchased, or whether we should save the animals, or whether primates can love or feel hope just like we humans can, made no difference.
None of those things will save the orangutans nearly as much as whether we can spot and process what’s in what we eat.
From lemurs to orangutans, tarsiers to gorillas, primates are captivating and sometimes unnervingly similar to us. So it’s not surprising that this group of more than 500 species receives a great deal of research and conservation attention.
This extinction crisis makes effective conservation actions vital. There are many different possible conservation actions for primates, like anti-poaching patrols, relocating animals, publicising conservation issues and reintroducing primates into their habitats. But our new study shows that very little is known about what actually works to protect primates.
I’m part of a team of expert primatologists and conservationists from 21 countries who examined the evidence for 162 primate conservation actions to see if they actually work. We found there wasn’t any research published testing the effectiveness of more than half of the actions. This lack of evidence means it’s impossible to know whether these actions work or not.
Even when studies on the effectiveness of a conservation action have been published, we found it was still difficult to draw valid conclusions about whether the action worked, due to problems with the design of the studies. This was even true for some actions that have been studied 20 to 30 times.
These huge gaps in knowledge are worrying, because without adequate information, researchers can’t learn from experience and can’t prioritise efforts and funding to best protect our primate relatives. Indeed, without access to evidence, conservationists might apply actions that are ineffective or even damaging to the animals they seek to protect.
Missing species
The studies we reviewed only cover about 14% of the more than 500 primate species and just 12% of threatened primate species. And they mainly focus on the great apes and some of the larger monkey species.
Crested Capuchin Sapajus robustus
Worryingly, some whole families are completely left out of the studies we reviewed. There are, for example, no studies of the tarsiers of south-east Asia in our database, or of the night monkeys of Central and South America. This is a problem, because we can’t assume that an action that works for one primate species will work for another species, due to each species’ unique behaviour and ecology.
We also found that South America and Asia are underrepresented in current conservation research on primates. This is particularly worrying because both are home to a high number of threatened primate species.
Why is this happening?
Faced with limited budgets and time, competing priorities and the urgency of many conservation scenarios, it’s easy to understand why conservationists might not focus on evaluating their actions.
The question, “Does this conservation action improve the long-term future of a population?” may seem simple, but it’s particularly difficult to answer for many primates. This is because many primate species live in dense tropical forest, with poor visibility and difficult access, making it extremely tough to count them. If researchers can’t get a good idea of how many primates there are, they can’t find out if the numbers are decreasing, stable, or increasing. And without seeing the animals themselves, we can’t assess their wellbeing.
Without action, the number of endangered primates will grow and more species will disappear forever. Pexels/Nitin Sharma
Conservationists also need to monitor primates for a long time to measure the effect of any action taken, because they live a long time and reproduce very slowly. In a short study, for example, it might be easy to confuse the long life of the last few individuals with a persistent population. It’s also important to be confident that any effects seen are related to the specific conservation action taken, rather than coincidence.
Beyond these challenges, publishing a study is difficult. Worse, the pressure to publish in prestigious journals favours publication of success stories, rather than actions that didn’t work, meaning that published studies may give a biased picture of the real situation.
Improving the evidence
Now that the scale of the problem is known, the gaps need to be identified to ensure research focuses on threatened species and understudied regions, and that actions with insufficient evidence are evaluated.
Funding organisations should dedicate resources to evaluating conservation actions. Meanwhile, experts like the Primate Specialist Group can contribute by developing guidelines on how to test actions rigorously.
Academic scientists can also collaborate with conservationists to design appropriate studies. Evidence databases like the one we assessed provide easily-understood summaries of actions and their effectiveness, as well as a place to report findings – and partially address the problem of publication.
Conservationists also need to be cautious as it’s clear that in many instances it’s not yet known if an action is effective or not. This is important because primates and their habitats face ominous threats and urgent effective conservation measures are needed to protect them. But by adopting an evidence-based approach to the conservation of primates, we can ensure they continue to enchant us in the future.
Despite decades of promises to end deforestation for palm oil Procter & Gamble or (P&G as they are also known) have continued sourcing palm oil that causes ecocide, indigenous landgrabbing, and the habitat destruction of the rarest animals on earth.
All of these animals are on a knife-edge of survival. It is for this reason, we boycott Procter &Gamble. Find out about their forest destroying activities below and what you can do to stop them by using your wallet as a weapon.it’s the #Boycott4Wildlife
In 2014, Procter & Gamble were presented with an award for deforestation by Greenpeace at their AGM
Fast forward almost a decade: nothing has changed at all…
Activists in Cincinnati, Ohio shut down John A. Roebling Bridge on October 4th, 2023 in the lead-up to Procter & Gamble’s AGM.
The FMCG giant is strongly linked to deforestation and humanrights abuses for palmoil, despite being a member of the RSPO and using so-called “sustainable” palm oil. The RSPO does nothing but grease the way for greenwash. Read more
Indigenous & religious leaders urge Procter & Gamble to stop chopping down Canadian old-growth boreal foreststo make Charmin toilet paper, as well as tropical forests in Indonesia & Malaysia to grow palm oil for Head & Shoulders shampoo.#deforestationhttps://t.co/GJyR0WRtj5pic.twitter.com/7D1jvwZZMq
If the likes of Unilever, Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo charged slightly more for their products or dipped into the huge profits they make from palm oil to support smallholder farmers, the sector could almost eliminate deforestation @crresearch finds. https://t.co/FxtvUbBgRv
P&G refuses to acknowledge that sourcing its palm oil from an agribusiness linked to Indigenous land grabs makes complicit in the rights abuses. Call P&G today and tell them to #keepforestsstandinghttps://t.co/U8SvMIA79w
Evidence is mounting to show that consumer goods giant @ProcterGamble enables deforestation, Indigenous land theft & labor violations in Indonesia. P&G continues to source palm oil from Royal Golden Eagle, a notorious agribusiness company.
Sources palm oil from 22 Indonesian producers engaged in on-going peatland destruction, some under government indictment.
A September 2020 investigation by the Associated Press found that more than 100 current and former workers from two dozen palm oil companies had been cheated, threatened, held against their will or forced to work off insurmountable debts. Others said they were harassed by authorities and detained in government facilities.
In Malaysia, P&G’s palm oil suppliers like FGV and Sime Darby are linked to forced labor and human trafficking and U.S. Customs and Border Protection has blocked palm oil imports from them.
P&G has refused to meet with impacted communities in conditions that guarantee their security and anonymity, and arbitrarily picks the communities it consults with.
“In a massive failure of corporate leadership, P&G has eschewed its investor’s calls to meaningfully stem the devastating impact of its wood pulp and palm oil supply chains on forests, the climate, and human rights.
“Instead, the producer of Charmin toilet paper and other forest-destroying brands has provided a master class in industry spin, offering hollow announcements, disingenuous talking points, and even new forms of climate denial.
Tell P&G to stop destroying rainforests for palm oil
Procter & Gamble is destroying tropical rainforests to produce conflict palm oil and it’s harming the planet, surrounding communities, and endangered wildlife who call these intricate ecosystems home.
We must demand that Procter & Gamble prioritize our PLANET above PROFIT and STOP wiping out the world’s last standing forests.
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.
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.
With only 74 individuals left, the remarkable and beautiful Javan Rhino is on the brink of extinction and can be found on one of the most densely populated islands in the world – Java. Boycotting palm oil is how you can help them.
The Javan rhino was once found throughout many parts of Asia, but outside Indonesia its population has continued to dwindle. With the loss of the last individual in Vietnam, Indonesia remains the only country that has been successful in protecting the species.
Javan Rhinos are disappearing due to complex threats incl. #palmoil deforestation, Help their survival and use your wallet as a weapon in the supermarket #Boycottpalmoil#Boycott4Wildlife.
As its population has increased, is the animal now safe from extinction? Unfortunately, no. Javan rhinos are still classed as “critically endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
There are an estimated 74 individuals in existence – that’s not a large number for the global population of a species. To bring Javan rhino further away from the risk of extinction, conservation efforts must continue and even scaled up.
Javanese Rhinoceros sondaicus
Vulnerabilities
Because of its small number, the Javan rhino population is particularly vulnerable to stochastic or random natural events, which are difficult to foresee and control. These include demographic dynamics (such as changes in sex composition and age group), genetic processes, and disasters that may lead to their extinction.
For a small population living only in one area, a single catastrophic event might wipe out the entire species.
In a large population, the risk becomes lower. Even if such accidents occur, the chances are high that a number of individuals will survive and preserve the species.
Javan rhinos are also vulnerable to human threats and fragility of their habitat condition. Their habitat is prone to rising sea levels as a result of tsunamis or global warming.
Tsunami risk area due to earthquakes which can be either due to plate tectonic or volcanic related to activities of the nearby Mount Krakatoa.
Another issue is that most of the Ujung Kulon area, which directly borders the open waters of the Sunda Strait, is still relatively open access. Illegal activities could endanger rhinos and other wildlife in the vicinity.
A number of fishers use certain areas of the national park to hunt for fish or seek shelter from storms. Some sites in the area are also deemed sacred and serve as pilgrimage sites for people from all over the region.
Rhinos in Ujung Kulon are also quite vulnerable to the emergence and spread of disease outbreaks. This could come from visitors, livestock, or pets living in the area and its immediate vicinity.
Some diseases have been reported in the western part of Java that may infect rhinos, including Septicemia Epizootica (snoring sickness), anthrax (mad cow disease) and surra (blood infection). Some of these illnesses have even been found in the rhinos’ immediate environment.
Five key steps for conservation
A team of 105 volunteers from Ujung Kulon National Park departed from Peucang Island to conduct a census of the Javan rhino. Asep Fathulrahman/Antara
At the very least, there are at least five objectives that must be met to reach the goal of bringing Javan rhinos further away from the extinction risks. Officers and partners of the Ujung Kulon National Park have been working on some of these objectives in the field for a long time, and continue to do so. Others can be improved, while conservation efforts that appear to be inactive must be reenacted.
The first is ensuring stronger protection against poaching, whether they are targetting the rhino or other species in the rhino habitat.
Second, regularly monitor, prevent and cure diseases and other dangerous substances. Humans, livestock and other sources that might be the cause or intermediary of a disease must be contained and avoided.
Third, improve Javan rhino habitats to ensure conditions are favourable for their reproduction. One way is to monitor and control invasive or/and alien species, such as through programs that help contain the spread of Langkap plants (Arenga obtusifolia).
Although they are locals, langkap plants spread quickly and widely throughout Ujung Kulon and are believed tohave taken over habitat areas where plants favoured by rhinos – such as putat (Planchhonia valida), kijahe (Cronton auypelas) and kililin (Podocarpus amara) – are known to grow.
Better quality and more spacious habitat mean higher carrying capacity, allowing the increased in the birth rate and survival of calves.
Demographic balance and rhino genetic enhancement at the individual and population levels must also be maintained. These can be accomplished through science-based habitat management. Habitat management should be done hand-in-hand with other conservation efforts, such as individual-level monitoring.
The fourth task is to appropriately plan for habitat improvement and expansion in Ujung Kulon and other locations.
Several parties have considered developing improvement and extension of rhino habitats in additional areas such as Mount Honje, Gunung Payung, and Panaitan Island. The habitat expansion idea is worth considering. Because those areas are still within Ujung Kulon National Park, the decision-making process for this plan should be relatively easy.
Several places outside the park, such as the Cikepuh Wildlife Reserve in Sukabumi, West Java, have also been surveyed for the possibility of establishing a second Javan rhino habitat. This lengthy procedure, which began several years ago, must be continued and updated based on the most recent field experience and expert knowledge.
The fifth and final step is population monitoring through extensive, in-depth and integrated ecological and social studies. There are still many unanswered questions about the Javan rhino’s population and ecology, as well as its relationships with other animal species, as competitors or facilitators.
Studies and efforts to manage rhino populations, which are part of the animal community in the lowland rain forest ecosystem of Ujung Kulon, have so far paid little attention to interaction among species.
Another point to consider is habitat dynamics. This may include mature forest that naturally lead to climax condition, in which the vegetation in the forest tend to remain steady and relatively stable for a long time.
On one hand, such conditions are required for the general conservation of biodiversity. However, climax conditions could reduce the availability of rhino food in the lower stratum.
Intensive monitoring and management skills are required to balance various objectives of biodiversity conservation.
Boycott the brands sending the Javan Rhino and many other species towards extinction from palm oil deforestation
The rhino conservation efforts above are much more effective and measurable if supported by rigorous scientific processes, including robust methods and comprehensive data.
All relevant and best-available information and expert knowledge must be considered before taking a course of action.
For sure there will always be some unknown aspects of Javan rhino biology that need to be studied. For such situations, conservation managers and researchers may perform management actions with a framework of experiments and field trials, guided by precautionary and scientific principles.
Observation and documentation of these conservation processes, outcomes and impacts must be thorough. These notes will be used to evaluate management practices and improve future efforts.
The government as the lead agency need to actively engage the community and essential conservation partners.
The rhino is a species that has drawn considerable interest locally, in Indonesia, and around the world. However, it may not mean much if all that attention can’t be used as a driving force to strengthen conservation efforts.
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.
A movement of activists and legal scholars is seeking to make “ecocide” an international crime within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Stop Ecocide Foundation has put together a prestigious international panel of experts that has just proposed a new definition of the term. Protect all animals and go #Vegan#BoycottPalmOil#Boycott4Wildlife
If adopted by the ICC, the proposed definition would be a historic shift, paving the way for nature and other species to count legally as protected entities in their own right. However, it remains to be seen what forms of environmental destruction might still be justified if they yield sufficient social and economic benefits for humans.
The term ecocide was coined in 1970 by the American biologist, Arthur Galston, to designate the widespread harm caused by the US’s use of the toxic herbicide Agent Orange in the Vietnam War. Two years later, then Swedish prime minister Olof Palme described the “outrage of ecocide” in relation to the same war. But the first legal analysis and call to outlaw ecocide came from Richard Falk, a professor of international law, in 1973.
US soldiers spray Agent Orange in Vietnam. PJF Military Collection / Alamy
Yet ecocide has never been officially recognised. Indeed the Rome Statute, founding treaty of the International Criminal Court, mentions the environment just once, in relation to war crimes and only in situations legally qualifiable as armed conflicts. Beyond war crimes, the only other tool to protect the environment in the hands of the ICC is that of crimes against humanity. However, as the name suggests, this category remains deeply anthropocentric, requiring the environmental destruction to be “committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack” against a “civilian population”.
Even recent climate change litigation cases like the 2019 Urgenda case against the Dutch government frequently cite “human rights violations” in support. The movement behind the new definition, however, hopes to make ecocide its own thing – a crime of similar symbolic and normative force as genocide.
Environmental ethicist Philip Cafaro has referred to the human-induced sixth mass extinction as “interspecies genocide”. Legally, punishing genocide requires proving the perpetrator had the highest possible standard of special intent to destroy a protected human group. Ecocide, therefore, needs to be not just about protecting human groups, but protection of the biosphere.
Human-centred culture
Implementing ecocide as an international crime, therefore, would have to challenge longstanding particularly western attitudes of human separateness from, and superiority to, nature and nonhuman species, which continue to be seen as objects and resources.
Climate change protesters in London, 2018. Real Souls Photography / shutterstock
There are some promising developments. The groundbreaking Nonhuman Rights Project fights to secure the legal personhood and rights of nonhuman clients such as elephants, apes and dolphins across the US, while the UK government plans to introduce legislation which will recognise animals as legally sentient beings. And thanks to continued pressure from indigenous peoples, the “rights of nature” are enshrined in constitutions around the world – from India to New Zealand and Ecuador.
The newly-proposed definition needs further clarification, however. For instance, it says ecocide implies “unlawful or wanton acts” very likely to cause “severe and either widespread or long-term damage” to the environment.
While “unlawful” suggests that the conduct needs to be already illegal under domestic law, it is specified that “wanton” means “reckless disregard for damage which would be clearly excessive in relation to the social and economic benefits anticipated [emphases added]”.
This implies that it is OK to damage the environment as long as the damage is not “clearly excessive” in relation to the anticipated benefits for humans. In doing so, the section reinforces the anthropocentrism that the definition itself hoped to overcome.
These benefits also include not only those of “social” character but also “economic benefits”, without explicitly excluding private profits from the equation. Finally, the test for the “wanton acts” seems to require the perpetrator, rather than the court, to judge whether or not the environmental harm was clearly disproportionate.
Towards interspecies justice
The ICC was originally set up to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. If it adopts ecocide, could politicians and executives one day end up in the dock? Perhaps. The new ecocide definition refers to “widespread damage” not only in a geographic sense but also damage suffered by “an entire ecosystem, species or a large group of humans”.
PZ Cussons – Carex responsible for palm oil deforestation despite supposedly using “sustainable” palm oil. Image: Greenpeace
Prohibiting ecocide will require further mobilisations and global cooperation to ensure compliance from states not ratifying the relevant conventions, such as the US and China. Yet the movement marks a significant step towards stemming ecological and biological breakdown and establishing interspecies justice.
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.
2. 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.
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.
More and more palm oil free 🦧 products in Australia 🇦🇺. Customer awareness is increasing month by month. Of course Bart Van Assen will keep pushing "sustainable" palm oil with Orangutan Land Trust. Boycott palm oil to protect wildlife! There is not planet B #boycott4wildlifepic.twitter.com/rm7chub5Rb
If possible to get Ovomaltine, please promote it among your friends. It openly advertises with 0 palm oil. No RSPO no bullshit. For me it even tasts better than nuttela. It substantiates that chocolate spread can be made delicious without filthy palm oil. pic.twitter.com/cyV5Tm3tLd
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
Research by Erasmus zu Ermgassen and colleagues and published in Science Advances in May 2022 shows that between 15-90% of palm oil processed by global palm oil traders is unable to be adequately traced, due to opaque indirect sourcing.
When downstream companies (manufacturers, retailers) make sustainability commitments, they rely on the traders who supply them to implement these commitments.
This is the same for Due Diligence legislation, which bans the import of products linked to deforestation or human rights abuses.
Yet how much visibility do traders actually have over where their supplies come from?
In a new study in @ScienceAdvances, researchers checked how often traders buy directly from farmers vs how often do they buy *indirectly* from other kinds of middlemen – local traders, aggregators, and cooperatives.
This distinction – direct or indirect matters, because it’s inevitably harder to identify the source of products, and check for deforestation or forced labour when your suppliers are removed from the product’s origin.
Researchers used customs records, corporate disclosures, animal movements, farm production data to estimate direct/indirect volumes for 4 commodities where deforestation is a big issue: soy from South America, cocoa from Côte d’Ivoire, palm oil from Indonesia and cattle exports from Brazil
Three main insights
1. Indirect sourcing via local intermediaries is fundamental to commodity trading:
Soy: 12-44% Palm oil: 15-90% Live cattle: 94-99% Cocoa: 100%
Commodities often change hands several times before traders take ownership of them.
2. Lots of sustainability risks arise among indirect suppliers
Indirect sourcing poses substantial deforestation risk across all commodities, if nothing else because of its position of low oversight (compared with direct sourcing) and the sheer volumes sourced indirectly.
Deforestation & other reputational risks are often higher in precisely those parts of the supply chain over which companies have the least visibility. Pulling together the data/evidence is demanding, but we show this using new data for cocoa and cattle supply chains.
3. Indirect sourcing is a major blind spot for sustainable procurement efforts
Companies are waking up to the challenge of monitoring indirect suppliers (e.g. they were included in commitments made at the COP), but progress is far from certain!
In the soy sector: Bunge currently monitors only 30% of its indirect sourcing (vs 100% for direct).
In the cattle sector: meatpackers promise to monitor indirects in 2025 or 2030, but plans are still fuzzy.
The main sustainability initiative for cocoa, the Cocoa & Forests Initiative: sets targets for traceability of cocoa sourced via cooperatives (which they call ‘direct sourcing’), but is completely silent about other indirect sourcing, though its up to 70% each trader’s sourcing.
A definition of Greenwashing: companies putting an emphasis on ‘observable aspects and negligence of the unobservable aspects’.
The trade in agricultural commodities is a backbone of the global economy but is a major cause of negative social and environmental impacts, not least deforestation. Commodity traders are key actors in efforts to eliminate deforestation—they are active in the regions where commodities are produced and represent a “pinch point” in global trade that provides a powerful lever for change. However, the procurement strategies of traders remain opaque. Here, we catalog traders’ sourcing across four sectors with high rates of commodity-driven deforestation: South American soy, cocoa from Côte d’Ivoire, Indonesian palm oil, and Brazilian live cattle exports. We show that traders often source more than 40% of commodities “indirectly” via local intermediaries and that indirect sourcing is a major blind spot for sustainable sourcing initiatives. To eliminate deforestation, indirect sourcing must be included in sectoral initiatives, and landscape or jurisdictional approaches, which internalize indirect sourcing, must be scaled up.
Indonesian palm oil
Indonesia produces 60% of the world’s oil palm fruit, fueled through recent rapid expansion: Between 1995 and 2015, 450,000 ha of new plantations were established each year, driving more than 100,000 ha year−1 of deforestation (18). In 2018, four companies (Sinar Mas, Musim Mas, Wilmar, and Royal Golden Eagle) handled 64% of exports. Palm oil flows from plantations (which may be smallholder or industry-owned production) to local mills, refineries, and traders. Thirty-four percent of oil palm fruit in Indonesia is produced by smallholder farmers (19). Smallholders may contract their land to plantation companies, or they may produce palm fruits as part of a company scheme (also known as “plasma schemes”) selling to a specific company’s mills. Smallholders may operate independently or organize themselves into cooperatives. Independent smallholders can themselves sell to local mills, although most sell via local aggregators who then sell to mills (20). Traders may operate mills and refineries themselves, although most of the mills are independent—also known as “third-party” mills.
EK Zu Ermgassen et. al. ‘Addressing indirect sourcing in zero deforestation commodity supply chains’ SCIENCE ADVANCES • 29 Apr 2022 • Vol 8, Issue 17 • DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abn3132
Even the lead auditor for FSC and RSPO admits that the goal of certification is not to stop deforestation
Tweet from Bart Van Assen, former lead auditor for the RSPO and HCV admitting that the main goal of the RSPO, FSC and other certification initiatives is not to prevent deforestation. (Bart has formerly used @palmoiltruther on Twitter but now changes between @Forest4Apes or @Apes4Forests depending on times when he attempts to conceal his identity).
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.
2. 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.
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.
More and more palm oil free 🦧 products in Australia 🇦🇺. Customer awareness is increasing month by month. Of course Bart Van Assen will keep pushing "sustainable" palm oil with Orangutan Land Trust. Boycott palm oil to protect wildlife! There is not planet B #boycott4wildlifepic.twitter.com/rm7chub5Rb
If possible to get Ovomaltine, please promote it among your friends. It openly advertises with 0 palm oil. No RSPO no bullshit. For me it even tasts better than nuttela. It substantiates that chocolate spread can be made delicious without filthy palm oil. pic.twitter.com/cyV5Tm3tLd
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
Dr. Evan Allen, the author of Oversaturated, believes that a pervasive distortion of the truth ignores decades of established research and has led millions of people to embrace a diet high in saturated fat. Furthermore that this diet results in millions of people suffering the consequences of diabetes, dementia and heart disease each year.
Evan has been practicing medicine for over 25 years. During this time, he has opened two practices in Henderson, Nevada. He’s received board certification from the American board of obesity medicine. But more importantly, when he really started to pay attention to nutrition, the health of his patients improved dramatically.
He hopes to give healthcare providers what he never had, which is a guide to talking to your patients about a healthy diet that’s low in saturated fat and ultimately, genuinely improve the health of your patients.
Palm Oil Detectives is honoured to interview to Dr Evan Allen about his fascinating work, why his research into fats in the diet led him to becoming vegan.
Contrary to false health information – saturated fat from #palmoil#meat#pizza is unhealthy for you. Find out why from physician Dr Evan Allen MD @EAllen0417 author of ‘Oversaturated’ #Boycottpalmoil
“Reducing your intake of #palmoil and other saturated fats lowers your risk of blood cholesterol or vascular dilation ability: involved in heart disease, diabetes, fatty liver” ~ Dr Evan Allen MD author of Oversaturated #Boycottpalmoil
“In addition to destroying the habitat of magnificent wild animals, #palmoil is also bad for your health. It is a win-win to avoid it” Dr Evan Allen MD @EAllen0417 author of Oversaturated #Boycottpalmoil
A diet high in saturated fat is incredibly unhealthy for you
Saturated fats once were considered as bad for you as cigarettes. However over the past 15 years, an ocean of misinformation online created by the food industry has sought to ignore decades of established research about the health dangers of these fats in the diet.
Saturated fat causes millions of people to get diabetes, dementia, high cholesterol, and heart disease each year
Dr. Evan Allen’s new book Oversaturated: A Guide to Conversations about Fats with Your Patients assists Health Practitioners to clearly and confidently speak with their patients about the facts on saturated fat and how to adopt a regimen of preventative care involving diet and lifestyle changes, with surgery and medication as a last resort.
From my perspective, the weight of the scientific case against saturated fat was so strong that I felt it was necessary to have a book that distilled down that case into a readable, accessible format that someone could read quickly and understand fully in a short period of time.
An easy win for health: avoid top sources of saturated fat in the diet
Palm oil
Meat
Grain-based desserts
Cheese
Pizza
People who dramatically reduce their saturated fat intake will likely see remarkable benefits in their health.
The best part is, it’s easy to experience these benefits. Just cut out the top five sources — or at least drastically reduce how often you eat them — to cut your saturated fat intake way down.
Doing so is likely to reduce long-term risk factors like blood cholesterol or vascular dilation ability (involved in heart disease, diabetes, fatty liver, etc). Other benefits will accrue more quickly, like improvements in erectile dysfunction and chronic back pain due to less arterial plaque buildup.
Misinformation about palm oil is the same as misinformation about other industries
The food industry needed a fat to replace trans fats that is “inexpensive” (palm oil is actually very costly in ecological and biological diversity terms) so that all the common snack foods would go rancid less quickly.
The food industry needed this greenwashing, they needed to spruce up the image of palm oil and its environmental and biological cost. This was accomplished using the same mechanism that all industries have used over the past century to make a harmful product seem harmless or even beneficial: the media and now social media.
Examples of the greenwashing of “sustainable” palm oil from the RSPO/WWF
Greenwashing example – WWF’s guide for consumers about why they should not boycott palm oil is based around economic reasons only
Vegans should avoid palm oil and coconut oil
Primarily because they are saturated fats, the avoidance of which is one of the primary benefits of a plant-based diet. You can remove significant amounts of the benefits of PBD simply by adding in copious saturated fat.
Vegans should avoid palm oil and coconut oil primarily because they are saturated fats, the avoidance of which is one of the primary benefits of a plant-based diet. You can remove significant amounts of the benefits of PBD simply by adding in copious saturated fat.
In addition to destroying the habitat of magnificent animals, palm oil is also bad for your health, it is a win-win to avoid it
In addition to destroying the habitat of magnificent creatures like this, palm oil is also very bad for your health. So a win-win in avoiding it. https://t.co/htIcInmcvp
Both palm oil production and animal agriculture lead to significant habitat loss for our fellow creatures. Saturated fats of all types tend to push negative health and ecological outcomes. Avoiding them is a win-win.
Palm oil is bad. So is animal agriculture.
Both palm oil production and animal ag lead to significant habitat loss for our fellow creatures.
Saturated fats of all types tend to push negative health and ecological outcomes. Avoiding them is a win/win. https://t.co/UoCcRM0L6p
Scientists know that #biodiversity is declining across much of the world although less universally and dramatically than we feared. We also know that things are likely to get worse in the future, with a combination of #deforestation, #climatechange and overexploitation set to drive species and habitats ever closer to #extinction. Help them every time you…
Palm oil is a huge contributor to the saturated fat burden and is found in around 50% of all supermarket items
Agreed, and Palm Oil might be the worst:
"…palm oil is a huge contributor to the saturated fat burden. It's found in almost 50 percent of all grocery store products." – Evan Allen (@eallen0417)https://t.co/6oyzzqZyk2
When one’s diet is high in saturated fat from any source, the body has an enzyme that is switched on called Serine palmitoyltransferase (note the palm in the start of that second word). This makes a specific kind of ceramide, C-16:0 ceramide.
Ceramides with different attached fatty acids have differing physiological effects within the human body.
However, saturated fats that are 14-18 carbons long typically have negative metabolic and health impacts. C-16:0 ceramide worsens the symptoms of asthma, heart disease and heart muscle function, and increases the risk of death from heart failure.
A host of maladies arise from elevated cholesterol levels, including stroke, heart attack, spinal disc disease and erectile dysfunction.
Ceramide consumption comes from the consumption of saturated fat- whether from pigs, chickens, sheep, ducks or palm oil the body can’t tell the difference between the origin of one C-16:0 ceramide or another.
Cutting out meat from your diet means you get better overall blood flow to your organs. There will be less stress on the kidney and liver, along with reduced inflammatory markers. In addition, most people who eliminate those foods add in more unprocessed plant foods, which have specific health benefits.
The diet I propose is not fat-phobic, it is simply healthier
All cell membranes from all organisms are made of fat, so there’s no reason to have a phobia about fat in general. However, fat is definitely the most calorie dense of the main nutrients. Therefore, for people with obesity, there are good reasons to try to minimise calorie density in diets.
I became vegan to reverse my fatty liver
However after making diet change for health reasons, I realised that many people adopt veganism primarily for ethical, animal justice and environmental reasons.
Primatologist Dr Frans De Waal labeled people who believe that our fellow creatures are somehow cognitively different from us “neo-creationists.” I find his argument compelling, both scientifically and as a basis for veganism.
In my case, I needed to change how I ate for my health, before I would even consider the ethical and environmental cases against eating animals.
A fourth reason for avoiding meat and going vegan: The spread to Zoonoses, such as Covid-19
Halting deforestation means that we halt the spread of zoonoses. The vector-borne illnesses the jump from animals to humans due to the industrial-scale commodification of our fellow creatures.
Many pandemics originate from wildlife that jumps from animal to human. These leaps often happen at the edges of the world’s tropical forests, where #deforestation is increasingly bringing people into contact with animals’ natural habitats. Yellow fever, #malaria, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, #Ebola – all of these pathogens have spilled over from one species to another…
As the global population has doubled to 7.8 billion in about 50 years, industrial agriculture has increased the output from fields and farms to feed humanity. One of the negative outcomes of this transformation has been the extreme simplification of ecological systems, with complex multi-functional landscapes converted to vast swaths of monocultures that lack the…
My book is for fellow health practitioners to push back against the narrative of the food industry
When we determined asbestos was harmful and caused mesothelioma, we didn’t start looking for the very smallest, safe amount of asbestos. We just stopped using it and tried to get rid of it.
Each chapter of my book has a lengthy set of references that people can follow to learn more about the issue of saturated fat.
I hope that health practitioners find the book insightful and a supportive aid in having conversations with their patients about this critical health issue.
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.
2. 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.
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.
More and more palm oil free 🦧 products in Australia 🇦🇺. Customer awareness is increasing month by month. Of course Bart Van Assen will keep pushing "sustainable" palm oil with Orangutan Land Trust. Boycott palm oil to protect wildlife! There is not planet B #boycott4wildlifepic.twitter.com/rm7chub5Rb
If possible to get Ovomaltine, please promote it among your friends. It openly advertises with 0 palm oil. No RSPO no bullshit. For me it even tasts better than nuttela. It substantiates that chocolate spread can be made delicious without filthy palm oil. pic.twitter.com/cyV5Tm3tLd
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
From Roman classics to British tabloids, humans have long celebrated the curious and remarkable ability of #birds and other #animals to imitate the sounds of humans and other animals. A recent surge of research is revealing how and why birds use vocal mimicry to further their own interests. Far from being merely a biological curiosity, it appears that vocal mimicry plays a more central role in the lives of birds than we have given them credit for.
Most birds communicate using vocalisations unique to their own kind, but a diverse group of species from around the globe regularly imitate the sounds of other animals, including sounds we produce ourselves.
Even the Australian magpie – better known for swooping cyclists or pinching food from picnics – occasionally quietly imitates other species of bird.
What sounds do birds imitate?
Avian vocal mimics often imitate the songs and calls of other species of bird, but they can also imitate the sounds of mammals (such as growls of yellow-bellied gliders), the hiss of snakes, and the wing-beats of birds flying by.
A single species may change its mimicry depending on the context. When confronted with a taxidermy owl placed on the ground, brown thornbills mimic the alarm calls that other bird species make in response to predators on the ground (listen here).
However, when a fibreglass model of a sparrowhawk is thrown over the top of them, brown thornbills mimic the alarm calls that other bird species make in response to predators in the air (listen here).
This tiny mimic, therefore, can communicate about different types of danger in several different avian “languages”.
New Holland honeyeater aerial alarm call and mobbing alarm call. Brown thornbill imitates the aerial alarm call and mobbing alarm call. Data from Igic and Magrath, 2014, Behavioral Ecology. Lousie Docker/Wikimedia Commons (top); Patrick K9 /Flickr (bottom). Spectrograms, B. Igic.
Owl chicks that sound like rattlesnakes
Through vocal mimicry, an avian mimic can manipulate the behaviour of others for its own benefit. It seems that birds use vocal mimicry sometimes to deceive and sometimes to impress.
Deceptive vocal mimicry can allow birds to obtain food that they are not entitled to. The fork-tailed drongo of Africa mimics other species’ alarm calls to “cry wolf”, falsely signalling the impending attack of a predatory hawk. In the ensuing mayhem, the drongo steals food that has been abandoned by fleeing meerkats and pied babblers.
In Australia, the Horsfield’s bronze-cuckoo lays its eggs in the nests of superb fairy-wrens and other species, which then raise the cuckoo chick as one of their own. However, fairy-wrens have evolved a set of defences against cuckoos and may abandon a nest if they think something is amiss. The cuckoo chick ensures its survival by mimicking the begging calls of the fairy-wren’s own young.
Surprisingly, the cuckoo chick is a versatile mimic. If the chick hatches in the nest of a buff-rumped thornbill, then the cuckoo mimics the sound of buff-rumped thornbill nestlings. The cunning cuckoo tunes its mimetic begging call to the sound that elicits the most food from its host, allowing it to parasitise more than one species.
Other species seem to use vocal mimicry to deceive predators and so avoid being eaten themselves.
Burrowing owl chicks mimic the rattle of a rattle snake. Alan Vernon/Wikimedia Commons (left) ; Matthew P. Rowe (right)
In the Americas, the burrowing owl lays its eggs in tunnels in the ground where the young are vulnerable predators. However, when disturbed, burrowing owl chicks produce a distinctive call that is strangely similar to the rattle of a rattlesnake. Experiments have shown that this mimetic rattle deters other animals from entering burrows.
There are several other reports of incubating adults or nestling birds producing snake-like hiss calls when disturbed. It has also been suggested that nestlings of an American woodpecker, the northern flicker, imitate the buzz of a hive of bees in order to survive an encounter with a predator.
Seduction songs
Some of the most spectacular examples of avian vocal mimicry are of birds that imitate multiple species during sexual display. Such species include the two species of lyrebird of Australia, tooth-billed bowerbirds from Queensland, and the northern mockingbird of North America.
During the breeding season, the males of these species sing long, loud bouts of the imitations of the songs and calls of other birds, which they deliver from song perches or carefully constructed display platforms.
A male superb lyrebird on one of his display mounds mimicking the birds of his forest. Dalziell & Welbergen, Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia, June 2014.
Such mimicry can be extraordinary, both for the sheer number of different sounds mimicked and for its accuracy. The superb lyrebird, for example, can produce mimicry to a level of accuracy that even the bird it imitates is confused.
Currently, the best evidence that birds use vocal mimicry to entice mates comes from studies of satin bowerbirds, found in eastern Australia.
Satin bowerbirds attract females with an elaborate display involving a decorative bower and a performance that includes vocal mimicry. Females prefer to mate with males that can accurately mimic a large number of different species of bird. Perhaps female bowerbirds can assess the male’s genetic quality through his prowess in vocal mimicry.
Australia has many avian vocal mimics, leading the early 20th century writer Alec Chisholm to suggest that this continent might have more than its fair share.
The next time you go for a bushwalk, you might want to listen back to the birds you come across – are they honestly singing their own tune, or have they stolen someone else’s?
Ask anyone the identity of the world’s most famed turtles, and the answer is likely to be those legendary heroes in a half-shell, the Teenage Mutant Ninjas. Since first appearing in comic book form in 1984, the pizza-eating, nunchuk-wielding characters have shown the world the tougher side of turtles. Help them to survive every time you shop and Boycott Seafood, #BoycottPalmOil#Boycott4Wildlife
Leatherback Sea Turtle Dermochelys coriacea – Asia Papua – #Boycottpalmoil#Boycott4WildlifeAdult leatherback sea turtle nesting on the beach by Rawlinson Photography for Getty Images Leatherback Sea Turtle Dermochelys coriacea – Asia Papua – threatened by palm oil expansion in India Leatherback Sea Turtle Dermochelys coriacea – Asia Papua – threats
Part of the appeal of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is that, as animals, they seem to be playing against type. Turtles in the modern day are usually considered placid animals, an image exemplified by the easygoing surfer-turtle, Crush, in Finding Nemo.
To humans, the dawdling turtle is generally perceived as non-threatening. (An important exception here is made for the turtle with an accomplice. The Greek poet Aeschylus is said to have been killed by a tortoise dropped from the sky by an eagle). Indeed, the turtle’s “gentle” image may partially explain the animal’s enduring popularity with children.
Rather than being a recent anomaly, the image of the turtle warrior is common to many ancient and modern cultures. Indeed, the first known depiction of a turtle warrior is found in ancient Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq), in some of the world’s oldest known literature.
Dexterous flippers and shells as shields
The fictional ninja turtle draws on the creature’s many remarkable biological features. The sea turtle’s flippers are useful for propelling the animal through water, but recent research has revealed the surprising dexterity of its limbs.
Turtles can use their flippers for a variety of tasks, such as rolling a scallop across the sea floor, tossing their prey into the air to stun it, or even striking the prey in a chopping action. The discovery of the turtle’s ability to “karate chop” prey made international headlines, likely due to comparisons with their comic book avatars.
The word “turtle” generally describes all animals with a bony shell and a backbone, which may locally be referred to as turtles, tortoises, or terrapins. The term “tortoise” generally describes a land-based turtle, and “terrapin” refers to more aquatic species.
There are 360 known species of turtle, including seven species of sea turtle. Turtles have survived and thrived for many millions of years, colonising every continent except Antarctica, and inhabiting every ocean but the Arctic and Antarctic.
The turtle’s distinctive shell provides a kind of natural body-armour. As well as shielding the animals from predators, shells also provide protection from the natural elements. Shells are a living part of the turtle, and can offer a handy store of minerals such as calcium. For some tortoises, the defensive use of the shell is accompanied by an offensive one, used for battling rivals.
Shells are a living part of the turtle. Ricardo Braham/Unsplash
This combination of defensive and more aggressive elements in the turtle’s physiology has likely inspired the animal’s reception in human culture from the earliest time of civilisation.
An ancient attack turtle
The little-known Sumerian myth of Ninurta and the Turtle sees a warrior turtle fight against a legendary hero for the fate of the world. This Mesopotamian myth dates to early in the second millennium BCE.
The eponymous turtle in the narrative is created by the god of wisdom and fresh water, Enki, to retrieve a stolen tablet from the hero, Ninurta, and to teach him humility. The tablet holds special powers that control the path of fate for whomever holds it.
A turtle amulet from Egypt made of ivory or bone, c. 2150–1950 BCE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art
In the ancient story, Ninurta is sent to recover the tablet from a mythical beast, the Anzud Bird (sometimes called the “Thunderbird”). Ninurta is successful and the grateful deities tell him to name his reward. Ninurta feels the best reward is to simply hang on to the tablet and gain control over the whole world – in the style of an ancient super-villain.
So Enki builds an attack turtle from clay, which bites at Ninurta’s ankles. While he temporarily withstands the chomping chelid, the turtle then digs a deep “evil pit”, into which Ninurta falls. The magic tablet is retrieved, the world is saved, and the turtle continues its furious attack, tearing at Ninurta with its claws.
Turtles and Egyptian magic wands
In ancient Egypt, the turtle’s ability to submerge itself beneath the water saw it given the name “the mysterious one”. Turtles were viewed as powerful animals; their images were used for warding off evil.
Images of turtles were a common feature on the wooden and bronze rods used by Egyptian magicians. Often referred to in the modern day as “magic wands”, these rods were held in the left hand of a priest or a magician as they performed magic rites.
This Egyptian rod, c. 1878–1640 BC, is composed of four joining segments, with a turtle taking centre place. The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Images of powerful animals, such as baboons, crocodiles, and lions, and protective symbols such as the Eye of Horus, decorated the sides of the magic wand, while the figure of the turtle was attached to the top end of the rod.
Greek myth
The legendary Greek hero, Theseus, encounters a dangerous turtle on his mythical travels. Theseus is best known for entering the King of Minos’ labyrinth and slaying the monstrous Minotaur. When not wandering through island mazes, Theseus had many adventures involving other local rulers, including the bandit, Sciron.
Sciron lived high on the cliffs. When travellers passed by, he would make them kneel before him and wash his feet. Once they had crouched into a vulnerable posture, Sciron would kick the travellers into the sea, where they would be eaten by a monstrous turtle.
Theseus managed to defeat Sciron, casting him into the same sea patrolled by the giant turtle. This battle is preserved in ancient Greek art, with many works portraying the unhappy bandit’s fall from the cliffs, and the hungry turtle lurking below.
A bronze seal with knob in the shape of a turtle, from China c. 1st-2nd Century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Charlotte C. and John C. Weber Collection, Gift of Charlotte C. and John C. Weber, 1994.
In ancient China, depictions of the Taoist deity Zhenwu, whose name means “Perfected Warrior”, show the warrior with a tortoise and a snake. Zhenwu is found from the 3rd century BCE, he is considered capable of powerful magic.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
The hidden quality of the turtle, tucked up in its shell, creates a mysterious image that makes a good fit for the “ninja” aspect of the cartoon heroes Donatello, Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo. “Turtle power” is a key element of the team’s success, but their influence reaches beyond the purchase of comic books and action figures.
The popularity of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has drawn greater interest to the study and conservation of turtles and influenced herpetology. For some turtle specialists, the path to a career in the field began by following the adventures of the ninja turtle squad as children.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (henceforth TMNT) first appeared in a comic created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. It shows the four combatants fighting against their arch nemesis, the evil Shredder, and his army, the Foot (an homage to fellow superhero Daredevil’s enemy, The Hand). In the present day, the TMNT have appeared in countless incarnations, from movies to pizza cutters.
Turtles in human warfare
As well as influencing artists and storytellers, the physical qualities of turtles have provided inspiration for human combatants. In Mesoamerica, the Spanish conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo reported sailing along the coast of the New World in 1518 and seeing warriors holding shields made of carefully polished turtle shells.
The turtle’s physical form is referenced in the Roman battle formation, the testudo (“tortoise”), which involved aligning the soldiers’ shields to create a protective barrier.
The turtle’s shape and protective shell has also seen it used as a muse by designers of military crafts. The world’s first armoured boat, the Korean Geobukseon, was called the “Turtle Ship”. Built around 1540 CE, the ship featured cannons fired through the mouth of a dragon carved into bow, and a turtle’s tail, armed with gunports, attached to the stern of the craft.
Another pioneering sea vessel inspired by the turtle is the world’s first submarine. The first known submersible craft with documented use in combat is the American Turtle. This vessel was created by David Bushnell in 1775, for use in the American Revolutionary War.
On September 6 1776, American Turtle was deployed to covertly draw close to the British Navy anchored in New York Harbour, to affix mines to the fleet’s flagship. After several attempts, the mission was aborted, and the Turtle floated away downstream.
The American Turtle was a a one-man submarine, designed to attach bombs to British warships during the American revolutionary war. Library of Congress
The Turtle’s maiden combat mission was also her last, but the craft left a lasting impression on maritime history and the war’s participants. In a letter to Thomas Jefferson dated to 26 September 1785 — shortly before becoming the first president of the United States — George Washington described the turtle-like submarine as “an effort of genius”.
Turtles in Australian naval history
Turtles and submarines were successfully paired in Australian naval history. In 1996, the Defence Science and Technology Organisation developed an underwater, remote-controlled vehicle “Wayamba”. The vehicle’s name comes from the First Nations name for “sea turtle”.
Like the American turtle, the Wayamba is connected to underwater mines — but while the American turtle attempted to deploy mines, the Wayamba works to detect them.
Flippered gardeners of the sea
Given the turtle’s long-lasting cultural symbolism, it is perhaps not surprising to see the creature’s modern-day identification as a kind of ecowarrior among animals. The turtle’s charisma has been harnessed in campaigns to draw public awareness to important conservation issues, such as the impact of plastic and noise pollution in the ocean.
Turtles help maintain healthy reefs — the gardeners of the sea. Vladislav S/Unsplash
For over a hundred million years, turtles have played a crucial part in maintaining healthy marine ecosystems, through transporting nutrients from oceans to beach systems. Research has shown that by grazing on sea-grass and sponges, turtles maintain healthy reefs — like flippered gardeners of the sea.
Turtles have much at stake in the current climate crisis: they are among the most threatened groups of animals in the world.
A landmark 2018 study showed turtles were more threatened than birds, fish, mammals, and even the much besieged amphibians.
A fascinating history of warrior turtles: from ancient myths, warships and teenage mutants
The turtle is a fascinating animal whose famous lethargy belies an efficient and enduring creature, admirably adapted to its environment.
By building greater awareness of the cultural and environmental significance of turtles from prehistory to popular culture, we may help these remarkable animals to move (very slowly) towards a more secure and sustainable future.
Many pandemics originate from wildlife that jumps from animal to human. These leaps often happen at the edges of the world’s tropical forests, where #deforestation is increasingly bringing people into contact with animals’ natural habitats. Yellow fever, #malaria, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, #Ebola – all of these pathogens have spilled over from one species to another at the margins of forests. This has many scientists concerned. The next pandemic is likely to originate from either the rainforest, meat or dairy agriculture where humans have most contact with animals.
More than half of the world’s tropical deforestation is driven by four commodities: beef, soy, palm oil and wood products. They replace mature, biodiverse tropical forests with monocrop fields and pastures. As the forest is degraded piecemeal, animals still living in isolated fragments of natural vegetation struggle to exist. When human settlements encroach on these forests, human-wildlife contact can increase, and new opportunistic animals may also migrate in.
Elephant in the Room by Jo Frederiks
The resulting disease spread shows the interconnectedness of natural habitats, the animals that dwell within it, and humans.
Yellow fever: Monkeys, humans and hungry mosquitoes
Yellow fever, a viral infection transmitted by mosquitoes, famously halted progress on the Panama Canal in the 1900s and shaped the history of Atlantic coast cities from Philadelphia to Rio de Janeiro. Although a yellow fever vaccine has been available since the 1930s, the disease continues to afflict 200,000 people a year, a third of whom die, mostly in West Africa.
The virus that causes it lives in primates and is spread by mosquitoes that tend to dwell high in the canopy where these primates live.
Deforestation resulted in patches of forest that both concentrated the primate hosts and favored the mosquitoes that could transmit the virus to humans.
Malaria: Humans can also infect wildlife
Just as wildlife pathogens can jump to humans, humans can cross-infect wildlife.
Children in Ethiopia read under mosquito netting, used to protect people from mosquitoes that transmit malaria. Louise Gubb/Corbis via Getty Images
Another type of malaria, Plasmodium knowlesi, known to circulate among monkeys, became a concern to human health over a decade ago in Southeast Asia. Several studies have shown that areas sustaining higher rates of forest loss also had higher rates of human infections, and that the mosquito vectors and monkey hosts spanned a wide range of habitats including disturbed forest.
Venezuelan equine encephalitis: Rodents move in
Venezuelan equine encephalitis is another mosquito-borne virus that is estimated to cause tens to hundreds of thousands of humans to develop febrile illnesses every year. Severe infections can lead to encephalitis and even death.
In the Darien province of Panama, we found that two rodent species had particularly high rates of infection with Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, leading us to suspect that these species may be the wildlife hosts.
One of the species, Tome’s spiny rat, has also been implicated in other studies. The other, the short-tailed cane mouse, is also involved in the transmission of zoonotic diseases such as hantavirus and possibly Madariaga virus, an emergent encephalitis virus.
People have a cognitive dissonance when it comes to eating animals, given the health risks of zoonosis and pandemics
As deforestation in this region progresses, these two rodents can occupy forest fragments, cattle pastures and the regrowth that arises when fields lie fallow. Mosquitoes also occupy these areas and can bring the virus to humans and livestock.
Ebola: Disease at the forest’s edge
Vector-borne diseases are not the only zoonoses sensitive to deforestation. Ebola was first described in 1976, but outbreaks have become more common. The 2014-2016 outbreak killed more than 11,000 people in West Africa and drew attention to diseases that can spread from wildlife to humans.
The natural transmission cycle of the Ebola virus remains elusive. Bats have been implicated, with possible additional ground-dwelling animals maintaining “silent” transmission between human outbreaks.
While the exact nature of transmission is not yet known, several studies have shown that deforestation and forest fragmentation were associated with outbreaksbetween 2004 and 2014. In addition to possibly concentrating Ebola wildlife hosts, fragmentation may serve as a corridor for pathogen-carrying animals to spread the virus over large areas, and it may increase human contact with these animals along the forest edge.
The range of the Sunda pangolin – which is critically endangered – overlaps with the intermediate horseshoe bat in the forests of Southeast Asia, where it lives in mature tree hollows. As forest habitat shrinks, could pangolins also experience increased density and susceptibility to pathogens?
In fact, in small urban forest fragments in Malaysia, the Sunda pangolin was detected even though overall mammal diversity was much lower than a comparison tract of contiguous forest. This shows that this animal is able to persist in fragmented forests where it could increase contact with humans or other animals that can harbor potentially zoonotic viruses, such as bats. The Sunda pangolin is poached for its meat, skin and scales and imported illegally from Malaysia and Vietnam into China. A wet market in Wuhan that sells such animals has been suspected as a source of the current pandemic.
Preventing zoonotic spillover
There is still a lot that we don’t know about how viruses jump from wildlife to humans and what might drive that contact.
Given the evidence, it is clear humans need to balance the production of food, forest commodities and other goods with the protection of tropical forests. Conservation of wildlife may keep their pathogens in check, preventing zoonotic spillover, and ultimately benefiting humans, too.
One potential solution is to cultivate microalgae – microscopic aquatic organisms that are packed with nutrients. Microalgae are single-celled organisms that look like tiny pills and taste a bit like grass.
They are relatively easy to cultivate and have several advantages over animal and plant protein.
1. Less environmental impact
Algae don’t require pesticides to sustain their productivity. Algae can also be grown in wastewaters (water that has been used in the home or in some industrial process), taking up nutrients and other dissolved substances into their biomass. This results in fewer contaminants being released into the environment and less pollution in our waterways.
CSIRO
2. It can be grown year-round
High growth and reproduction rates mean microalgae can double their biomass in as little as one to three days, depending on the time of the year. While their growth rate is slower in winter, they are not limited to a growing season, such as plants, or a long maturation period, such as animals.
High growth rates also mean frequent harvesting. This makes microalgal cultures more resilient to sudden or extreme weather events, where production losses may be only several days of growth rather than the entire annual crop.
More protein and good for the planet: 9 reasons we should be eating microalgae
3. It has more protein
Algae produce more protein than plant-based foods, including soybean and pulse legumes. While algae produce 3.5-13 tonnes of protein per hectare per year, soybean and pulse legumes produce 0.5-1.8 tonnes of protein per hectare per year.
The higher growth rate of microalgae and ability to produce their own food from the sun, means microalgal protein yields are more than 100 times greater than animal-basedproteins, including beef, eggs and dairy (0.01 – 0.23 tonnes per hectare per year).
Microalgal protein yields are much greater than animal-based proteins such as eggs, beef and dairy. Dave Hunt/AAP
4. Farms can be built anywhere
Algae production systems don’t require arable land. They comprise either open ponds or closed vessels with a light source, known as photobioreactors. The systems can be built almost anywhere, including non-productive land or in the sea.
Open ponds are shallow (between 10 and 50 cm deep), and the algae culture is gently circulated by a paddlewheel. Closed photobioreactors consist of an array of tubes or flat panels, through which algae is circulated. Both types of production systems can be modified to suit the environment.
5. It doesn’t require fresh water
Thousands of marine and estuarine microalgal species grow best in seawater rather than freshwater. This would reduce our reliance on fresh water for food production.
Widespread adoption of microalgae as a food source would reduce pressure on freshwater systems. Dean Lewin/AAP
6. It’s nutritious
Algae have long been recognised for their nutritional properties, forming a vital food source in human diets since as early as 14,000 BC. Over the last few decades, microalgae have been used in vitamin supplements and health food products, including protein bars and powders, green smoothies and Omega-3 capsules.
Microalgae contain proteins, fats, carbohydrates and other nutritional components that have wide potential application in the food industry. For example, algae have a broad array of amino acids that support human growth and development; some are comparable with the levels in egg, soy and wheat protein.
To date, microalgae have successfully been incorporated into a range of edible products to increase their nutritional value, including yoghurts, biscuits, bread and pasta. Manufacturers have been able to swap plant for algal-protein by simply introducing it as a powder into production streams.
Apart from adding nutrients, microalgae have other properties that facilitate their incorporation into foods, including emulsifying, foaming, gelation, and absorption of fat and water.
Using microalgae in emulsions allows for a decrease in the percentage of oil, showing promise for their potential use in low-fat products. When added to desserts as colouring agents, the cell structure in microalgae protects pigments from thermal degradation during processing, enabling foods to maintain their vibrancy.
7. It’s cruelty-free
Algae can be harvested by sedimentation, flotation or filtration, with not an abattoir or live exporter in sight.
Microalgae as a food source would reduce demand for meat from livestock. TREVOR COLLENS/AAP
8. It can be used in sustainable products
Microalgae are increasingly being used as sustainable components of other products, including cosmetics, nutraceuticals, industrial enzymes and bioplastics, and as a biofuel to replace fossil fuels in niche markets.
Many microalgae have high levels of palmitic acid. This acid is also the principal component of palm oil – a widely used oil in food production which drives mass deforestation and loss of animal habitat. Replacing palm oil with microalgae would reduce reliance on this unsustainable industry.
9. An opportunity for developing regions
The low-tech, basic infrastructure needed for microalgal farming could provide economic opportunities for developing regions. For example, research has shown a number of African nations have suitable land, labor and climatic conditions to grow microalgae as a source of bioenergy.
Where to now?
Microalgae are being produced commercially in Australia, including at Hutt Lagoon in Western Australia, the world’s largest microalgae production plant. There, the alga Dunaliella salina is grown to produce beta-carotene, a food pigment and source of vitamin A.
Microalgae is commercially produced at Hutt Lagoon in Western Australia. Wikimedia Commons
Elsewhere in Australia, microalgae is grown to produce Spirulina, which is marketed as a health food. Researchers are developing the use of microalgae further, including as a feed supplement for beef cattle.
But the current range of microalgae products grown in Australia is limited. The nation has a suitable climate and the technology; now it needs growers and manufacturers.
Government support is required to enable the agricultural and manufacturing sectors to create algae-based products – current stimulus spending provides such an opportunity. This would not only create new jobs, but enable Australian businesses to become more resilient into the future.
People caught trafficking wildlife are typically tried in criminal law cases, in which courts impose fines or prison sentences that punish the responsible parties in order to deter would-be criminals. But in this recent case, rather than seek punishment against the Indonesian zoo, the activists brought a civil lawsuit ordering the zoo to remedy the harm it allegedly caused by exhibiting these species illegally.
This siamang has spent her whole life in this cage, a vision that was a true nightmare. Craig Jones Wildlife PhotographyA Sumatran tiger help in a tiny cage struggles to stay alive. Craig Jones Wildlife photography A captured Siamang and a captured tiger in Indonesia. Photos by Craig Jones Wildlife Photography
In the press release announcing the lawsuit, the North Sumatra Chapter of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi Sumut) and Medan Legal Aid Institute said they were suing to cover the costs of care for one Sumatran orangutan confiscated from the zoo, and to fund monitoring of orangutan habitat to aid the recovery of their wild population. The resulting bill exceeds US$70,000 (£49,438). The typical criminal sanction for wildlife crime in Indonesia is around US$3,500.
One of the orangutans in the zoo before it was confiscated in 2019. Walhi North Sumatra, Author provided
The activists are also asking the zoo to publicly apologise and to create educational exhibits that explain how the illegal trade and use of wildlife harms nature and society. Surprisingly, these types of legal strategies that aim to repair harm – rather than punish perpetrators – have been largely overlooked by conservationists in many countries. The Indonesian zoo lawsuit could demonstrate the value of a new legal approach for protecting threatened wildlife.
The zoo lawsuit parallels landmark pollution cases, such as the Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon oil spills, where the responsible parties (in these cases, oil companies) were sued by government agencies and citizens and required to clean up pollution, compensate victims and restore affected habitats. It is also similar to innovative climate change lawsuits that have argued for the world’s largest oil and gas companies to pay for building protective sea walls, and other measures which help mitigate the effects of global warming.
Similar legal approaches haven’t been a major part of enforcing conservation laws. But through our work in Conservation Litigation – a project led by conservationists and lawyers – colleagues and I are working to bring such lawsuits against offenders globally.
Many countries already have laws that would allow these lawsuits, including in biodiversity hotspots such as Mexico, Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia. The 1992 UN Rio Convention called on states to “develop national law[s] regarding liability compensation for the victims of pollution and other environmental damage”. Although laws that oblige offenders to remedy environmental harm have been established already, the Indonesian zoo case is unique as one of the first times such a law has been applied to address wildlife crime. https://player.vimeo.com/video/510514912
The case could serve to influence public views and policies around biodiversity. This has been an important benefit of litigation in other areas, such as in cases against tobacco companies and opioid manufacturers.
Over the years, these lawsuits have secured compensation for healthcare costs, public admissions of guilt from executives and corrective adversiting to clarify earlier misinformation. These cases have not only benefited individual victims, but helped shift attitudes and reform public health policies and company practices.
The zoo lawsuit could achieve something similar by holding the zoo liable for downstream harms caused by its involvement in the illegal wildlife trade. By requesting public apologies and support for educational programmes, the lawsuit would not only seek to remedy harm to individual animals and species, but to help shape public perceptions and policy.
It’s also significant that this case is being brought by a non-governmental organisation (NGO). Governments can bring criminal cases against offenders, while the NGOs cannot. But in many countries, citizens and civil society groups are permitted to launch civil lawsuits in response to environmental harm, expanding the potential for public conservation action.
These types of lawsuits are often hindered by difficulties paying lawyers, corruption in legal systems and the intimidation of activists. With more than one million species potentially facing extinction, it’s important to recognise and support these rare cases which are testing new ways to protect the planet’s most threatened forms of life.
2. 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.
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.
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 or to help pay for ongoing running costs.
Palm Oil is a vegetable oil found in many products It is responsible for destroying many millions acres of rain forests chasing species after species to extinction levels especially awesome Orangutan Demand full Palm Oil labeling and stop buying their products before too late pic.twitter.com/3gDSF25YnL
New research shows that for #bonobos, sex really is often a family affair. What’s more, rather than being an embarrassing hindrance, motherly presence greatly benefits bonobo sons during the deed.
Along with #chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), bonobos (Pan paniscus) are our closest living relatives. Restricted to a 500,000 km² thickly-forested zone of the #Congo Basin, these endangered great apes were only formally discovered in 1928, which until 2017 made them the most recently-described living great ape species.
They’re also perhaps the most promiscuous non-human species on the planet. While chimpanzee sex is tied closely to reproduction, up to 75% of bonobo sexual behaviour is purely for pleasure. From saucy greetings and social bonding to conflict resolution and post-conflict make-up sex, sex serves hugely important functions in most aspects of bonobo social behaviour. Even the mere discovery of a new food source or feeding ground is enough to spark a wave of communal sexual activity.
It seems that the number of reasons for a bonobo to have sex is surpassed only by the number of forms in which they do it. Indiscriminate of sex and age, the only combination strictly off limits in bonobo society is between a mother and her mature son.
In addition to standard penetrative encounters, they frequently engage in manual genital massage and oral sex. These positionally creative apes are also the only animal (other than us) to practice tongue-on-tongue kissing or face-to-face penetrative sex. The prominence of bonobos’ sexual behaviour in social life has led researchers to brand bonobos as the “make-love-not-war apes”.
Meddling mothers
Bonobo mother and baby
Bonobo mothers, however, seem to make a war out of seeing their sons successfully make love. They’ve frequently been observed to form coalitions with their sons to help them acquire and maintain high dominance rank, protect their sons’ mating attempts from interference by other males and even interfere in the mating attempts of other, unrelated males.
The new research, published in Current Biology, shows that these strategies pay off. Males who had a mother present in their social group engaging in these behaviours were about three times more likely to produce offspring than males whose mothers were no longer part of the group.
Mothers of successful bonobo fathers were present more than twice as frequently during conception than in chimpanzees, a species in which males are socially dominant, and in which maternal presence provided no benefit to sons. Thus, it appears that the dominance of females in bonobo social systems allows mothers to exert behavioural influence to boost the sexual fitness of their sons.
This elevated female social power doesn’t just let bonobo mums get involved in their families’ sex lives, but is likely responsible for a host of peaceful and progressive traits rarely seen in the mammal world. Females practice sex even when not ovulating, male-male competition is much reduced, and the species is remarkably tolerant to bonobos from outside of their social group. Perhaps us humans ought to take note of how positively society can change when females are in positions of influence. It’s probably better if we keep our sex lives parent-free, though.
2. 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.
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.
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 or to help pay for ongoing running costs.
Palm Oil is a vegetable oil found in many products It is responsible for destroying many millions acres of rain forests chasing species after species to extinction levels especially awesome Orangutan Demand full Palm Oil labeling and stop buying their products before too late pic.twitter.com/3gDSF25YnL
What we don’t know, is what to do about this. Partly this is because conservation is woefully underfunded. But it’s also because the underlying causes of biodiversity declines are getting stronger and stronger every year. Climate change rightly gets a huge amount of coverage, but for biodiversity, the biggest threat actually comes from the destruction of natural habitats to make way for agriculture. And as global populations grow, and people become wealthier and consume more, that need for new agricultural land is just going to increase, resulting in at least 2 million sq km of new farmland by 2050, and maybe as much as 10 million.
Ensuring that this coming wave of agricultural expansion doesn’t lead to widespread biodiversity losses is going to require a big increase in “conventional” conservation approaches (protected areas and the like), but it is probably going to require something more too. These existing approaches are similar to performing heart surgery: very effective for the targeted species and habitats, but also not feasible for every species.
Saolas are rare and considered Southeast Asia’s ‘unicorns’, this Critically Endangered antelope is facing imminent extinction due to hunting and deforestation
Ecuadorean Viscachas are plump and fluffy rodents with sage-like long whiskers, only a handful of them remain alive. Take action for them and boycott4wildlife!
The Sumatran tiger Panthera tigris sondaica is a critically endangered big cat, with less than 600 of their species alive in the wild today. Once living in…
The Glaucous #Macaw stands out not only for their vibrant coloration but also for their vocalisations, which led to its Guaraní name “guaa-obi.” As part of a…
Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus attenboroughi), known locally as “Payangko,” is one of the most evolutionarily distinct mammals and is native to the Cyclops Mountains in Papua, Indonesia.…
Encounter the Wondiwoi tree-kangaroo. Rediscovered in 2018, these rare marsupials from West Papua are a symbol of hope amidst threats from palm oil, hunting
The enchanting Groves Titi Monkey, also referred to as the Alta Floresta titi #monkey or Mato Grosso titi monkey went from being completely unknown to being one…
The Jerdon’s Courser is a rare and captivating nocturnal #songbird belonging to the pratincole and courser family Glareolidae. These #birds are endemic to #India in the Eastern…
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Instead, we need to tackle the underlying causes, or conservation is not going to be able to cope. What we set out to do in a study just published in Nature Sustainability is to work out exactly which landscapes and species are likely to be the most threatened by agriculture in the future, and which specific changes to the food system give us the best chance of safeguarding wild biodiversity in different parts of the world.
Biodiversity under business-as-usual
Madagascar is a hotspot for biodiversity – and deforestation. Dudarev Mikhail / shutterstock
To do this, we developed a method to forecast where agricultural land is likely to expand at very fine spatial scales (1.5km x 1.5km). We then overlaid these forecasts with habitat maps for almost 20,000 species of amphibians, birds and mammals, and observations of whether each species can exist in agricultural land. This allowed us to calculate the proportion of habitat each species would lose from 2010 to 2050.
Projected changes in total habitat (mean habitat loss in a cell multiplied by the number of species present) caused by agriculture expansion by 2050. Note the concentrations in East and West Africa. Williams & Clark et al 2020
Overall, we projected that almost 88% of species will lose habitat, with 1,280 losing over a quarter of their remaining habitat.
By looking at the impact on individual species in this way, and at such a fine spatial scale, we were able to identify specific regions, and even species, that are likely to be in serious need of conservation support in the coming decades.
Losses are likely to be particularly bad in Sub-saharan Africa, especially in the Rift Valley and equatorial West Africa, but there will also be serious declines in Latin America – particularly in the Atlantic Rainforest – and South-East Asia.
The fingernail-sized pumpkin toadlet is only found in Brazil’s Atlantic rainforest, and could lose almost all its remaining habitat to agricultural expansion. Pedro Bernardo/Shutterstock
Importantly, many of the species projected to lose a lot of habitat are not currently threatened, and so conservationists may not be concerned about them. We think this kind of species and location-specific forecasting is going to be increasingly important if we are to proactively work to prevent biodiversity losses.
Proactive changes to help save biodiversity
OK, so far so bleak. Fortunately, there are some things we could do to alleviate this habitat loss, including: raise yields, eat healthier plant based diets, reduce food waste, or even a take a global approach to land-use planning, which could direct food production away from the most at-risk regions. In our study, we found that a combination of all four actions could avoid the vast majority of habitat loss seen under business-as-usual. Doing so, however, will require concerted efforts from governments, companies, NGOs, and individual people.
Our approach allowed us to tease apart which approaches are likely to have the biggest impacts in different parts of the world. In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, our results suggest increasing yields is one of the biggest single things you can do to save biodiversity. It means you can produce the food you need from much smaller areas, and so massively reduce habitat clearance.
Palm oil creates ecological wastelands and species extinction
In contrast, yield increases will do very little in North America, where yields are already close to their maximum. Shifting to healthier diets, however, could have a massive impact in North America, reducing demand for animal products, and therefore demand for new agricultural land. Again, this contrasts with Sub-Saharan Africa, where healthier diets may actually involve increased consumption of both calories and animal products, and therefore will not bring great biodiversity benefits.
Saving biodiversity while feeding 10 billion
Importantly, we only looked at the impact of agricultural expansion on biodiversity. Other threats facing wild nature include climate change, pollution, habitat destruction for other reasons, or overharvesting resources like fish or valuable tropical hardwoods. Still, biodiversity is likely to decline massively, and conventional conservation is unlikely to be able to cope.
Nonetheless, our research at least provides some hope. With swift, ambitious and coordinated action, we can indeed provide a healthy and secure diet for the world’s population without further major loss of habitats. Many of these actions should be priorities anyway, at every level from individual actions to international policy. Healthier diets to combat perhaps the greatest public health crisis in the world; wasting less food; increasing agricultural yields to improve food security; these are all hugely important goals in their own right.
2. 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.
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.
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 or to help pay for ongoing running costs.
Palm Oil is a vegetable oil found in many products It is responsible for destroying many millions acres of rain forests chasing species after species to extinction levels especially awesome Orangutan Demand full Palm Oil labeling and stop buying their products before too late pic.twitter.com/3gDSF25YnL
Many people know that chimpanzees and orangutans have personalities, feel emotions and are “almost human”. However a recent paper has found that great apes also have a mid-life slump or a “midlife crisis”. Great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans) are just as socially, politically and cognitively complex as we are. Our “hairy” great ape relatives are like us in every respect. Help them to survive when you shop and be #Vegan#BoycottPalmOil#Boycott4Wildlife
Great apes feel and demonstrate fear, affection, laughter and compassion. They are also capable of gang-like killing and “warfare” between neighbouring communities, rape, “battering” females, infanticide and cannibalism.
Genome sequence projects have established the close genetic relationship between “naked” and “hairy” great apes. Cognitive studies show that chimpanzees are capable of deception and have the ability to remember past events and imagine or plan for future events (mental time travel).
But popular culture suggests that there is at least one developmental or lifestyle phenomenon unique to humans; namely, the “midlife crisis”.
What is a midlife crisis?
In affluent societies, there is a popular belief that as soon as men reach their mid-forties, they suddenly take up high-risk activities or buy a showy red sports car or powerful motorbike.
This time of apparent stress, confusion, dissatisfaction with life and display of “crazy” behaviour is popularly known as the “midlife crisis”.
In reality, around the world, irrespective of culture or wealth, both men and women seem to experience a midlife “slump” in happiness or well-being. This may be reflected in poor mental or physical health.
By middle age, wild apes are often exhausted or maimed (or dead)
Typically, studies of this phenomenon are conducted by economists or psychologists, but the approaches they take and questions they address may be different. Economic research may compare happiness of younger, middle aged and older adults, who fall into similar socio-economic categories (such as income, marital status, health). This provides a “snapshot” in time. Their findings tend to support the existence of a “U-curve” when age is plotted against happiness, with younger and older people feeling more positive or happy.
Psychologists, on the other hand, prefer longitudinal studies of people over their lifetime to look for changes in “subjective wellbeing”.
How do you measure an ape’s happiness?
Measuring happiness or wellbeing is typically done by asking participants to fill out a questionnaire or self-report inventory, which rates their feelings or experiences.
Over the last two decades, researchers have been adapting the human questionnaires and rating scales for use with our closest “hairy” relatives: chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans. They want to see whether personality and subjective wellbeing can be reliably measured in other species.
Not surprisingly, “hairy” apes also show individual differences in personality and subjective wellbeing or happiness. These can be reliably measured if a person who has known the “hairy” ape for a long time (generally more than two years) and very well (say, if they’re a zoo keeper or caregiver) rates the individual.
Why are we surprised that our ape relatives have midlife “issues”?
To ensure coverage in the popular press, good science communicators pick catchy titles. These authors did exactly this by including the words “midlife crisis”, “great apes” and “human well-being”. However, “midlife crisis” is an emotive phrase that may not accurately reflect the findings.
The research team included renowned psychologists/primatologists/geneticists and an economist. Following the data analysis used by economists for this type of research, the “U-curve” with its slump in well-being was evident for the 500+ chimpanzees and orangutans included in the analysis. The “hairy” apes were all housed in captive institutions (zoos, research centres and a sanctuary) in Japan, the United States, Canada, Singapore and Australia. The chimpanzees and orangutans ranged in age from less than 1 year old to 56 years old.
Humans tend to show a slump in well-being at about 45-50 years of age. For chimpanzees it was at 27-28 years of age and for orangutans about 35 years of age. Since this slump exists in chimpanzees and orangutans and isn’t unique to humans, the authors suggest evolutionary or biological explanations must be considered. The slump does not appear to be due to socio-economic or lifestyle factors.
Sadly, the authors missed the opportunity to mention that chimpanzees and orangutans are endangered in the wild and may not reach middle age, yet alone old age. In captivity, they may indeed live beyond the age of 50 with veterinarians and caregivers to attend to their needs and no threats from their only predators – humans.
A moment of thought (Gorilla mother and daughter) by Dalida Innes
However, these findings suggest that zoos and other captive institutions must be proactive in seeking ways to improve welfare for great apes showing a slump in well-being. They need to be vigilant as individuals approach their 30s. These practical welfare implications were also not mentioned by the authors.
In the wild, by middle age many chimpanzees and orangutans have witnessed the destruction of their forests and death of family members to poachers for food or illegal animal trade. Every day is a struggle for survival, and by middle age wild great apes may be physically exhausted or maimed. They do not have the benefit of relaxing and reflecting on their happiness. They certainly do not have the option of buying a sports car or seeking their lost youth.
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2. 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.
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.
More and more palm oil free 🦧 products in Australia 🇦🇺. Customer awareness is increasing month by month. Of course Bart Van Assen will keep pushing "sustainable" palm oil with Orangutan Land Trust. Boycott palm oil to protect wildlife! There is not planet B #boycott4wildlifepic.twitter.com/rm7chub5Rb
If possible to get Ovomaltine, please promote it among your friends. It openly advertises with 0 palm oil. No RSPO no bullshit. For me it even tasts better than nuttela. It substantiates that chocolate spread can be made delicious without filthy palm oil. pic.twitter.com/cyV5Tm3tLd
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Forests directly cool the planet, like natural evaporative air conditioners. So what happens when you cut them down? In tropical countries such as #Indonesia, #Brazil and the #Congo, rapid #deforestationmay have accounted for up to 75% of the observed surface #climatechange and warming between 1950 and 2010. Our new research took a closer look at this phenomenon.
Using satellite data over Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea, we found deforestation can heat a local area by as much as 4.5℃, and can even raise temperatures in undisturbed forests up to 6km away.
More than 40% of the world’s population live in the tropics and, under climate change, rising heat and humidity could push them into lethal conditions. Keeping forests intact is vital to protect those who live in and around them as the planet warms.
Deforestation hot spots
Deforestation in Borneo, Shutterstock
At the recent climate change summit in Glasgow, world leaders representing 85% of Earth’s remaining forests committed to ending, and reversing, deforestation by 2030.
This is a crucial measure in our fight to stop the planet warming beyond the internationally agreed limit of 1.5℃, because forests store vast amounts of carbon. Deforestation releases this carbon – approximately 5.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year – back into the atmosphere. This accounts for nearly 10% of the global emissions from 2009-2016.
Deforestation is particularly prevalent in Southeast Asia. We calculate that between 2000 and 2019, Indonesia lost 17% of its forested area (26.8 million hectares of land), and Malaysia 28% of its forest cover (8.12 million hectares). Others in the region, such as Papua New Guinea, are considered “deforestation hot spots”, as they’re at high risk of losing their forest cover in the coming decade.
Forests in this region are cut down for a variety of reasons, including for expanding palm oil and timber plantations, logging, mining and small-scale farms. And these new types of land uses produce different spatial patterns of forest loss, which we can see and measure using satellites.
What we found
We already know forests cool the climate directly, and losing forest causes local temperatures to rise. But we wanted to learn whether the different patterns of forest loss influenced how much temperatures increased by, and how far warming spread from the deforested site into neighbouring, unchanged areas.
To find out, we used satellite images that measure the temperature of the land surface. As the illustration below shows, we measured this by averaging forest loss in rings of different widths and radius, and looking at the average temperature change of the forest inside the ring.
How forest clearing near an unchanged area causes temperatures to rise.
For example, if you consider a circle of forest that’s 4km wide, and there’s a completely deforested, 2km-wide ring around it, the inner circle would warm on average by 1.2℃.
The closer the forest loss, the higher the warming. If the ring was 1-2km away, the circle would warm by 3.1℃, while at 4-6km away, it’s 0.75℃.
These might not sound like big increases in temperature, but global studies show for each 1℃ increase in temperature, yields of major crops would decline by around 3-7%. Retaining forest within 1km of agricultural land in Southeast Asia could therefore avoid crop losses of 10-20%.
These estimates are conservative, because we only measured the effect of forest loss on average yearly temperatures. But another important factor is that higher average temperatures usually create higher temperature extremes, like those during heatwaves. And those really high temperatures in heatwaves are what put people and crops at most risk.
Of course, forests aren’t normally cut down in rings. This analysis was designed to exclude other causes of temperature change, putting the effect of non-local forest loss in focus.
Why is this happening?
Forests cool the land because trees draw water from the soil to their leaves, where it then evaporates. The energy needed to evaporate the water comes from sunshine and heat in the air, the same reason you feel colder when you get out of a pool with water on your skin.
A single tree in a tropical forest can cause local surface cooling equivalent to 70 kilowatt hours for every 100 litres of water used from the soil — as much cooling as two household air conditioners.
Forests are particularly good at cooling the land because their canopies have large surface area, which can evaporate a lot of water. When forests in tropical regions are cut down, this evaporative cooling stops, and the land surface warms up.
This is not news to the people of Borneo. In 2018, researchers surveyed people in 477 villages, and found they’re well aware nearby forest loss has caused them to live with hotter temperatures. When asked why forests were important to their health and the health of their families, the ability for trees to regulate temperature was the most frequent response.
In many parts of the world, including the tropics and Australia, expanding farmland is a major reason for cutting down forest. But given hotter temperatures also reduce the productivity of farms, conserving forests might prove a better strategy for food security and for the livelihoods of farmers.
If forests must be removed, there may be ways to avoid the worst possible temperature increases. For example, we found that keeping at least 10% of forest cover helped reduce the associated warming by an average of 0.2℃.
Similarly, temperatures did not increase as much when the area of forest loss was smaller. This means if deforestation occurs in smaller, discontinuous blocks rather than uniformly, then the temperature impacts will be less severe.
To help share these findings, we’ve built a web mapping tool that lets users explore the effects of different patterns and areas of forest loss on local temperatures in maritime South East Asia. It helps show why protecting forests in the tropics offers a climate change double whammy – lowering carbon dioxide emissions and local temperatures together.
In October 2000, I was driving through downtown Boise, Idaho, and nearly careered off the road. Just in front of me was a giant inflatable Godzilla-like dinosaur, well over 30m tall. It was towering over the headquarters of Boise Cascade, one of North America’s biggest wood products corporations. For years, the firm had been tangling with environmental groups who blamed the company’s logging practices for declines in the extent of old-growth forests across the globe.
Brands aren’t your friends- Subverting London
The huge inflatable reptile was the inspired idea of the Rainforest Action Network, who used it to label Boise Cascade a dinosaur of the timber industry. The blow-up dinosaur was headline news across the United States and the label stuck. Although Boise Cascade tried to deny it was yielding to environmental pressure, it ultimately agreed to phase out all of its old-growth wood products.
Environmental campaigns such as this one have become an increasingly important arrow in the quiver of conservation groups, for a very good reason. The world has become hyper-corporatised and globalised, with the result that, as I reported in 2008, deforestation is now substantially driven by major industries rather than by the exploits of poor people trying to make a living off the land.
Ferrero and Nutella responsible for palm oil deforestation despite supposedly using “sustainable” palm oil. Image: Charlie Hebdo
Last-ditch tactics
Boycotts are typically a last resort. The Rainforest Action Network tried for years to nudge, cajole and finally pressure Boise Cascade to phase out old-growth products, without success. Its gentler tactics worked fine with other big corporations such as Home Depot and Lowe’s, but it took a gigantic dinosaur to get Boise Cascade’s attention.
PZ Cussons – Carex responsible for palm oil deforestation despite supposedly using “sustainable” palm oil. Image: Greenpeace
Among the worst of these was Asia Pulp & Paper, whose reputation had become so synonymous with rainforest destruction that the retailers selling its products began fleeing in droves. Today, the corporation has ostensibly turned over a new leaf and even thanked Greenpeace – one of its most persistent critics – for helping it to see the light.
Across the globe, boycotts have helped to rein in predatory behaviour by timber, oil palm, soy, seafood and other corporations. They have led to impressive environmental benefits.
Parliamentary agriculture secretary Richard Colbeck said the move would be aimed at “dishonest campaigns”, singling out the campaign against furniture retailer Harvey Norman, which activists accuse of logging native forests.
“They can say what they like, they can campaign about what they like, they can have a point of view, but they should not be able to run a specific business-focused or market-focused campaign, and they should not be able to say things that are not true,” Colbeck told Guardian Australia.
Hersheys is responsible for palm oil deforestation despite supposedly using “sustainable” palm oil.
At odds with free speech
Predictably, environmental groups are unimpressed. Reece Turner, a forests campaigner with Greenpeace-Australia, told me:
This policy is at odds with the Liberal party’s professed commitment to uninhibited free speech. The Coalition is going to remarkable extremes to protect big industry from campaigns that are essentially focused on greater transparency of business practices. These campaigns are designed to inform consumer choices – something the Liberal party should be supporting.
At this early stage, it’s difficult to say whether or not the proposed ban on environmental boycotts will solidify into firm Coalition policy or merely fade away, its proponents having realised this could be too polarising an idea. Let’s hope for the latter. This is a scheme that deserves to go the way of the dinosaurs.
2. 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.
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.
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 or to help pay for ongoing running costs.
Palm Oil is a vegetable oil found in many products It is responsible for destroying many millions acres of rain forests chasing species after species to extinction levels especially awesome Orangutan Demand full Palm Oil labeling and stop buying their products before too late pic.twitter.com/3gDSF25YnL
#Bonobos, sometimes called the “forgotten #ape” due to their recent discovery and small numbers, titillate the democrat’s imagination. Before the 1970s, certain primatologists thought bonobos were strange #chimpanzees because females govern in this primate society.Frans de Waal, the primatologist and popular writer, has done much to explain the fascinating lives of these “peace-loving #apes” and how they are changing the story of human evolution. Bonobos are unique among apes for how they settle day-to-day conflicts. Personalities and social standing are evident in their society. Squabbles are frequent within or between groups. Bonobos defuse the potentially violent tension in these conflicts through quick bursts of sex, mutual grooming, hugs and kisses, and mimicking the sounds each other makes. Help these remarkable intelligent beings survive when you #BoycottPalmOil#Boycott4Wildlife
We can see reflections of ourselves – the good, the bad and the ugly – in bonobos, and in other apes too.
The trick is to use intimate, gentle, genuine techniques to find common ground with one’s opponent. It’s the bonobos’ way to say “it’s alright” and to repair any emotional sores from the dispute. It doesn’t always happen this way, especially between rival groups, but violence is the exception to the rule.
Inspirations
We value peace today, so the discovery of the bonobo gives us hope that Homo sapiens aren’t naturally sadistic terrors kept in check only by the power of authority or the divine, the fear of the afterlife.
Baboons also offer a counter view to our supposed nasty and brutish inner nature. In a troop of hamadryas or olive baboons you’d soon be able to spot the stronger individuals. And you might assume they simply call the shots: only they don’t.
Baboons have a more delicate form of collective decision-making. This involves sitting in the right place and waiting to see where a majority develops. In this way, more than a few individuals share leadership.
Now we come to chimpanzees, the species that has been most influential in how we picture the earliest human behaviour. They are patriarchal, hierarchical, constantly scheming to get ahead in rank and sometimes shockingly violent. Yet, if the times are good (food’s abundant), they can be consensual, mellow and peaceful.
Like the bonobos, chimps try to repair emotional damage after a fight because the group has to work or else everyone’s survival is at risk.
That said, bonobos, gorillas, baboons and chimpanzees aren’t a reflection of our past. As Frans de Waal and science journalist Virginia Morell observe, these species have been evolving alongside us since we all split from our common ancestor. Looking at them isn’t the same as looking back.
However, we can relate to the behaviours in these species – we can see ourselves in them. Perhaps, we wonder, we’ve always had the capacity for peace and violence; we’ve always lived in the political spectrum between violent autocracy and peaceful democracy.
Our species is certainly trying to strengthen the latter now. Perhaps the bonobos, or the other apes, can help us do better by inspiring us to think differently.
Imagine if we could stop being violent to one another. The violence that democrats living in democracies commit online or in person, often in public among strangers, limits if not wastes our capacity to be peaceful in our everyday lives.
Let’s say a fight starts over a parking space. You saw it first, had your blinker on to “claim it”, when that omfg no-you-didn’t creature of a moron steals it. I’ve reason to believe that, when slighted in this way, most of us want to punch this stranger in the face or trash their car.
Trying to find common ground with them then and there seems bizarre. Stranger still is to entertain the thought that maybe you and the spot-thief might then give each other a hug or a smooch, mount each other for a while, run your fingers through one another’s hair and say: “You know what, it’s all right, have a nice day”.
I play to the absurd here because I’m not arguing that we should try to perfectly replicate the way bonobos avoid violence. Echoing a point that Laurence Whitehead once made, we shouldn’t confuse inspiration with replication.
We should rather try to draw inspiration from the bonobos to enrich our own practices, to enhance today’s human democracies. We might do equally well to dream about rhesus monkeys and their aversion to inequality, or spider monkeys and their patient if not wondrously just lives.
These primates place emphasis on avoiding violence and inequality because peace keeps them working together. It helps them survive.
And that’s important for us: peace and social cohesion are the legs our democracies strive to stand on.
The opposite, violence and social division, beckons to the Beetlejuice of regimes: benevolent authoritarianism, that hated but necessary stabiliser of states when times are bad.
It’s crucial to remember that avoiding violence builds trust and confidence in the group and between groups. It’s what the bonobos do so well. Yet in our societies we’re still struggling to use words and care instead of fists, guns, mines and bombs.
Political theorist John Keane once alluded: the future if not quality of democracy depends on our ability to exchange violence for peace. For the sake of our democracies, we need to be able to make this exchange, from those everyday moments in the carpark to those times in the lives of nations when diplomacy gives way to conflict.
Lessons
It’s not simply the normative visions of a democracy changed that the examples of non-human life offer. We can learn from the down-to-earth, concrete and special techniques that non-humans use to make decisions.
The process of evolution creates replicating systems – ones that work. It happens simply through the genes that survive millions of years of trial and error. As a result, the lives of many non-humans may offer more than a few masterclasses in social success.
In Honeybee Democracy, Thomas Seeley explains how bees decide as a group on the best site for a new hive. Princeton University Press
Take the European honeybee, for example. In his book, Honeybee Democracy, Thomas Seeley explains how bees make the life-or-death decision on where to build their next hive.
Once a hive reaches capacity – no room is left for making more bees or honey – the existing queen and most of the bees move out. They must start a new hive.
It’s down to the oldest forager bees, which usually account for 3% to 5% of the worker bees (talk about representation), to get more than half their family – potentially upwards of 30,000 individuals – out of the hive. Once this massive swarm is out, the elder bees direct it to cluster somewhere around the queen until they find a suitable site for the new hive.
At this point, the 1000 or so elder bees, who’ve swapped from food foragers to house scouts, travel several kilometres in all directions. They’re looking for that perfect site.
Bees are choosy. The hive site must satisfy several criteria. These include the location and diameter of the entrance (it’s important no rain can get in and that there is only one entrance); whether it faces the sun (this keeps the hive warmer in winter); the height above the ground (the higher the better to deter predators); if it’s in a tree (trees are preferred); and the available space. If it’s too big, the bees will freeze in winter. Too small, and they won’t have enough food to last through the cold months.
Choosing the wrong hive site might mean the human equivalent of a small town dying.
Honeybees evolved decision-making techniques because so much is riding on the decision elder bees make on behalf of the whole. Seeley thinks we should be studying and learning from these techniques.
Christian List and Thomas Seeley believe studying how honeybees make decisions together can help us make better decisions. flickr/US Department of Agriculture, CC BY-NC
When a scout bee returns to the swarm after finding a site that ticks all the boxes she lets the freak out in her waggle dance. Her dance tells other scout bees she’s on to something good.
However, rather than accepting the force of her presentation (charisma you might say), each scout flies off to the site that got the scout dancing with excitement to independently verify her claim.
If it really is the promised land, each scout returns to replicate the dance of the first. If not, the scouts will see who else is dancing, independently verify their claim, and potentially follow their dance.
Once around 70% of the scouts are broadcasting the same site, the other scouts stop advertising alternatives and join the majority.
So the decision’s made. It’s time to rouse the 30,000 into the air and for the scouts to direct the swarm to the agreed site.
The independent verification bees use to make high-quality decisions speaks directly to the problems we face in democratic assemblies. The ability of charismatic speech to sway others without proving the evidence in the speaker’s argument, the entrenchment of factions around shared values and not evidence, the capitulation of younger or less knowledgeable individuals confronted by older experts, and so on, all point to our difficulties in using evidence-based decision-making. https://www.youtube.com/embed/JnnjY823e-w?wmode=transparent&start=0 Tom Seeley explains how swarming honeybees choose a new home.
Obviously we’re not bees. We’re value-laden and sometimes irrational primates with our own host of problems specific to our species.
Even if we perfectly executed the bees’ independent verification technique, a person could very well say: “No, regardless of the evidence I’ve just verified which is contrary to my original position, I will maintain that wind mills sour cow’s milk, or that my kids don’t need vaccinating, or that climate change isn’t a threat.”
In fact, majority decision-making is, out of all the available democratic decision-making systems, the least preferable for many of us. People like reaching consensus and they like proportionality because it’s fair. And a lot of the decisions assemblies make aren’t questions of life or death, so we don’t really feel like there’s that much at stake.
That said, seeking to learn from bees, and to reflect on what they do so well and what we don’t do that well, generates space for tinkering with the “how”. It creates an opportunity to alter our democratic procedures for the better. We could do this, for example, by establishing a standard practice of independent verification – one that works for us – before an assembly makes a decision.
“Enrolling in nature’s masterclasses”, provided free to us by evolution, doesn’t put our human democracies to question. Rather, it gives us the chance to strengthen them, refine them, make them better.
Analogies
Lastly, by drawing comparisons between non-human and human life we can make analogies about democracy’s issues.
The strangleweed, Cuscuta pentagona, is a parasitic plant. From the moment its seed has sprouted, the seedling “feels” around for a different plant. It’s going to live off this plant.
Once in range, the strangleweed takes a gentle hold of its victim and pierces the host’s stem with a haustorium (effectively a pointy green syringe). It does this not only to drink the host’s sugars but also to swap genetic information (RNA) with it.
Researchers think that C. pentagona reads the host’s genetic information to gain an understanding of its victim’s condition. But the strangleweed also sends its own genetic information to the host, like a Trojan horse designed to keep the victim from realising it’s being used.
Remind you of anyone? The parasitic Cuscuta pentagona, or strangleweed (light green), in action. Phys.org
Since at least the times of usurious monarchs or the entrenchment of transnational capital, democrats have made the point about parasitic elites.
The transnational capitalist class roam this world looking for the best hosts to do their business with. They find their way past barriers to take information from sovereign states, send reassurances to them, and then begin the process of extracting wealth from them to maintain their status as this world’s first global oligarchs.
I think here in particular of the dealings between mining companies and small cash-poor states. Like the strangleweed’s initial wandering tentacle, the company sends its agents to find where it can get a grip on the host.
The company uses charm offensives, lobbyists and sometimes bribes to transfuse information between it and the host. The two become a hybridised one. The company releases public relations information to keep the host satiated if not to massage it into accepting that the company is here to stay – that is, until the sugars run out.
The relationship between a multinational company and a sovereign state can be, like the relationship between the strangleweed and its victim, asymmetrical. On both sides of the analogy the parasite lives at the expense of the host, which is left almost powerless to defend itself.
Now, we should recognise that this baldly polemical interpretation of multinational companies and their governors doesn’t mean they’re no different from a parasitic plant, nor do they function for the same reason as the strangleweed, whose aim is reproduction.
What we get from this analogy is, instead, a reflection from reality’s broken mirror. Looking at the strangleweed and then to the transnational capitalist class creates a snapshot perception, an imperfect but still handy image, for the democrat to use.
Extinction, the death of possibilities
As writer Elizabeth Kolbert says in her own way: with each extinction of a non-human species we see ourselves further ruined.
Earth is home to at least one million species, and likely more. Many species make collective decisions, solve problems together and survive as a group. Losing a living species to extinction also means, from a selfishly human perspective, losing a potential opportunity to improve today’s democracies by the inspirations, lessons and analogies that only the evolution of other life forms can impart to us.
Non-humans evolved their own techniques and behaviours – which we can make sense of using words from the vocabulary of democracy – because they work for them. It’s 100% pragmatic. Nature’s tool chest, you might say.
Admittedly, these tools may not be fit for our purposes. After all, we aren’t bonobos, bees or parasitic plants. But it’s also fair to say that we’d be rash not to try to find help in them, especially if enriching our democratic practices in this way could help solve some of the problems confronting us.
Here we can say that our destruction of non-humans is destroying a part of ourselves, of our democracies’ hope of reaching their fuller potential. Perhaps, out of respect for their existence and our own, it’s time to include non-humans in that all-too-human affair we call democracy.
Aviary Doert holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Biology and they have worked for a decade in medical and laboratory science. They are an amateur conservation scientist, with experience in field work and research. They are hoping to positively impact the environment and planet through education and increasing awareness of the consequences of people’s purchases and actions.
A Social, #Ethical Environmental #History of #Coffee by Aviary Doert/@SnowRiver66 who demystifies the origins and impact of the world’s most loved cup of liquid motivation #Boycott4Wildlife
‘Coffea’ is the genus name for the flowering, perennial, evergreens in the family Rubiaceae. ‘Coffea’ species are native to tropical and southern Africa and tropical Asia.
The coffee plant was first said to have been discovered in Ethiopia (known then as Abyssinia). Coffee then made its way north, across the red sea into Yemen in the 15th Century.
The major port used was in the city of “Mocha” – hence the term’s current association with coffee.
Coffee cultivation and trade flourished on the Arabian Peninsula, and by the 15th century coffee was being grown in the Yemeni district of Arabia.
By the 16th century it was known in Persia, Egypt, Syria, and Turkey. Then coffee spread East into India and Indonesia, and West into Italy (in 1570) and the rest of Europe.
It wasn’t until 1822 that coffee production started to boom in Brazil, and in 1852 the country became the largest producer of coffee and has remained such to this day. Hawaii (not part of America until 1959) was introduced to coffee in 1817 when coffee seedlings were brought by the Brazilians. In 1825, the first official coffee orchard was born, starting Kona’s legacy in the industry.
The Plant
Coffee is a plant in the Family Rubiaceae and Genus Coffea and grows from seed – the coffee bean. These plants range from small shrubs to up to 8 metres tall depending on the species and cultivar. Of all 100 species of the genus Coffea, only a few are commercially used. Coffea arabica and C. canephora (of which the main variety is Robusta), supply almost all of the world’s cofee consumption.
Arabica makes up around 70% of all coffee consumption. The species is a 3-4 metre tall bush with dark-green oval leaves and fruits (or cherries) that take around 7 to 9 months to mature. Arabica are able to self-pollinate and are considered more mild, flavourful and aromatic brew than Robusta, and have a lower caffeine content.
Getty Images
Robusta
Robusta makes up the remaining 30% of the world’s coffee production. The tree can grows to 10 metres tall and its fruits take around 11 months to mature. Robusta is hardier than Arabica and can flourish in hotter, harsher conditions. Western and Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and Brazil are major producers of Robusta coffee. This coffee is cheaper to produce and has twice the caffeine content of Arabica, which makes Robusta the bean of choice for inexpensive commercial coffee brands. You will recognise its flavour as being the stronger, more bitter brew than Arabica.
Which countries drink the most coffee?
The world’s 10 top coffee importing countries by dollar value in 2020 (listed below as US dollars):
The EU imports around 40% of the world’s coffee beans
The United States is the world’s second-largest importer of coffee beans.
United States: US$5.7 billion (18.3% of total coffee imports)
Germany: $3.5 billion (11.4%)
France: $2.9 billion (9.3%)
Italy: $1.5 billion (4.8%)
Canada: $1.21 billion (3.9%)
Netherlands: $1.19 billion (3.8%)
Japan: $1.18 billion (3.8%)
Belgium: $1.13 billion (3.6%)
Spain: $1.01 billion (3.3%)
United Kingdom: $1 billion (3.2%)
The world’s most caffeinated people
10 biggest coffee drinking countries in pounds/kilograms per capita (person) per year in 2020: Finland – 12.02kg (26.5 lbs) Norway – 9.89kg (21.8 lbs) Iceland – 8.98kg (19.8 lbs) Denmark – 8.70kg (19.18 lbs) Netherlands – 8.39kg (18.5 lbs) Sweden – 8.16kg (18 lbs) Switzerland – 7.89kg (17.4 lbs) Belgium – 6.76kg (14.9 lbs) Luxembourg – 6.35kg (14 lbs) Canada – 6.21kg (13.7 lbs)
More than 70 countries produce coffee, but the majority of global output – 74.3% – comes from just the top five producers: Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, Indonesia, and Ethiopia.
Statistical data from 2020:
Brazil – 3,804,000 metric tonnes (produces a third of the world’s coffee)
Vietnam – 1,740,000 metric tonnes
Colombia – 858,000 metric tonnes
Indonesia – 720,000 metric tonnes
Ethiopia – 438,000 metric tonnes
Honduras – 366,000 metric tonnes
India – 342,000 metric tonnes
Uganda – 336,000 metric tonnes
Mexico – 240,000 metric tonnes
Peru – 228,000 metric tonnes
Deforestation
Global forest loss is a huge problem around the world. An estimated 15 billion trees are cut down every year.
Nearly all – 95% – of this deforestation occurs in the tropics. 14% of deforestation is driven by consumers in the world’s richest countries – importing beef, vegetable oils, cocoa, coffee and paper that has been produced on deforested land. In 2019, 12.2 million hectares of tropical forests were lost.
Although the precise area is debated, each day at least 80,000 acres (32,300 ha) of forest disappear from Earth. At least another 80,000 acres (32,300 ha) of forest are degraded.
Forest loss in the Amazon jungle: the lungs of the planet
Tropical forests presently cover about 1.84 billion hectares or about 12% of Earth’s land surface (3.6% of Earth’s surface).
Why are forests lost?
Commodity-driven deforestation: The long-term, permanent conversion of forests to other land uses, typically agriculture (including coffee plantations, oil palm and cattle ranching), mining, or energy infrastructure.
Urbanisation: The long-term, permanent conversion of forests to towns, cities, roads and infrastructure.
Shifting agriculture: Small to mid-scale conversion of forest for farming, that is later abandoned so that forests regrow.
Forestry production: for timber, paper and pulp.
Wildfires: Short term disturbances to forests that are likely to regrow.
95% of the world’s deforestation occurs in the tropics
In Latin America and Southeast Asia in particular, commodity-driven deforestation – mainly the clearance of forests to grow crops and pasture for beef production – accounts for almost two-thirds of forest loss.
Coffee deforestation
The equatorial area between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer is ideal for growing coffee and is known as the “coffee bean belt”. All coffee-growing countries are very rich with biodiversity (rare and endemic plant and animal species).
Globally, coffee production increased by 24% between 2010 and 2018
This equates to around 2 million metric tons that is primarily destined for developed nations such as the UK (3%), the USA (16%), and the EU (44%). Asia is also a growing market. The demand for coffee is expected to grow between 50%-163% by 2050.
Coffee plantations, especially those using the sun-grown mass production method, have caused massive deforestation.
2.5 million acres of forest in Central America alone have been cleared so far for coffee plantations. Brazil has been the world’s largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years.
Over two million hectares of Brazilian land are currently dedicated to coffee, producing an average of 43 million bags of coffee a year.
In Vietnam, coffee is a growing industry The coffee growing area of Vietnam is at least 600,000 hectares. According to data from Global Forest Watch, Indonesia lost 9.75 million hectares of primary forest between 2002 and 2020. In 2016, a record 929,000 hectares of forest disappeared; by 2020, the annual loss decreased to 270,000 hectares.
Seven out of ten coffee-producing countries have some of the world’s highest rates of primary forest loss
This is occuring in tropical countries: Brazil, Indonesia, Peru, Colombia, India, Mexico and Vietnam.
Coffee plantations cause massive deforestation as the world’s demand for it has increased exponentially over the past few decades. 37 of the 50 countries in the world with the highest deforestation rates are also coffee producers.
Aside from coffee tropical countries clear forests and habitats for soy (for cow feed), cattle ranching, palm oil & coconut oil plantations and mining, to name a few.
Coffee deforestation and species loss
Tropical rainforests are incredibly rich ecosystems that play a fundamental role in the basic functioning of the planet.
Around 50% of the world’s terrestrial species live in rainforests: Our planet is losing untold numbers of species to extinction, the vast majority of which have never been documented by science.
Rainforests maintain the climate: By regulating atmospheric gases and stabilizing rainfall, protect against desertification, and provide numerous other ecological functions.
Species richness is lower in most coffee agroecosystems than in natural forests
Many research studies of mammals, insects and birds have shown these species are greatly reduced on coffee plantations. There are three kinds of coffee cultivation practices:
Fully rustic coffee: where coffee plants are grown interspersed with forest trees and understory – has the least impact non biodiversity.
Shade-grown monoculture: is a slightly more intensive technique, farming larger densities of coffee plants underneath the forest canopy. This impacts biodiversity more than rustic coffee.
Sun-grown coffee: Involves the clearance of the forest, removing epiphytic plants from the coffee trees, and applying chemical fertilizers. This has the greatest negative impact on biodiversity.
Across studies, mammal, bird and insect biodiversity declined in coffee plantations. The richness of migratory and foraging bird species was less affected by coffee production than that of resident, canopy and understory bird species. Loss of species also depended greatly on habitat specialisation and functional traits.
Endangered species impacted by coffee production in South America
The Scarlet Tanager, Gray Catbird, Eastern Wood Pewee, Wood Thrush Canada Warbler, Cerulean Warbler, Olive-sided Flycatcher and the near-threatened Golden-winged Warbler. These bird species are being affected by loss of both breeding and wintering grounds.
Research specifically on other species affected by coffee plantations, such as mammals, is less available. One can extrapolate and hypothesize, however, that the loss and degradation of habitat affects all species living there.
Moustached tamarin – South America
Coffee: Agriculture and Animal Exploitation
Certain coffee trends are associated with animal exploitation. This stems from the practice of feeding coffee beans to certain animals and then using the excreted beans for consumption.
“Civet coffee” or Kopi luwak
This involves the Asian palm civet, a small mammal found in the jungles of Asia. The Indonesian coffee is produced by feeding coffee beans to the civet and using the excreted beans. Producers claim the civet’s digestion process improves the beans’ flavor. It is the most expensive coffee in the world, selling for hundreds of dollars per pound. A single cup can cost up to US$80.00.
Asian Palm Civets – Wild and Caged
The popularity of so-called “civet coffee” has led to intensive farming of the animals, who are confined in cages and force-fed the beans.
Large-spotted Civet Viverra megaspila
Sign the petition to end civet coffee farming
sk the Indonesian government to place regulations on the treatment of wild Asian palm civets and ban the inhumane production of civet coffee!
The very popular and expensive Indonesian civet coffee is still being produced despite proof of inhumane conditions.
In order to harvest the coffee, farmers feed seeds of coffee berries to imprisoned Asian palm civets, a beautiful wild cat-like mammal, and gather the seeds again from their excrement. The civets are captured from the wild, torn from their families, held in tiny, sometimes dark, cages, and are often force-fed the berries. There are currently no regulations in place on how to treat these animals, and farmers will often feed them to death with no concern for their health or living conditions.
Demand that the Indonesian government acknowledge this catastrophe and vow to end the cruel production of civet coffee!
It has been documented that many of the civets in the coffee industry have no access to clean drinking water, no ability to interact with other civets, and live in urine- and feces-soaked cages. Many are forced to stand, sleep, and sit on wire floors, which causes sores and abrasions. Some civets also exhibit signs of zoochosis, “a neurotic condition among stressed animals in captivity. The signs include constant spinning, pacing and bobbing their heads.”
Black Ivory Coffee: Elephant exploitation for coffee
A similar process is used in the nascent practice of feeding coffee beans to elephants. Sadly, it’s being carried out at a “sanctuary” in Thailand, where around 30 elephants consume beans from nearby plantations. Branded as Black Ivory Coffee, this expensive brew (about US$50 per serving) doesn’t yet have the popularity of civet coffee, and producers argue the animals are in no way harmed, but it points to a disturbing trend in animal exploitation.
Coffee: Human Rights and Labour Abuses
As with many other industries in the developing world, there are rampant human rights abuses associated with coffee cultivation and production.
The coffee business is tied to a long history of colonialism and slavery.
Low Wages, Abusive Conditions and Child Slavery
Many times farmers and workers in the coffee industry are paid poverty wages, with the profits going to those higher up in the corporate hierarchy.
Coffee farmers typically earn only 7–10% of the retail price of coffee, while in Brazil, workers earn less than 2% of the retail price. To earn enough to survive, many parents pull their children from school to work on the coffee plantations. Child slavery is widespread in coffee cultivation. When the price of coffee rises, the incentive for struggling families to withdraw their children from school and send them to work increases; at the same time, a fall in coffee prices increases poverty in regions that depend on the crop, which can also prevent children from attending school.
Conditions on the farms are quite different from what is promised. Few of the lodgings had running water and in some cases, there were not even any beds or toilets. In their testimonies, workers describe conditions as like ‘living in a corral’, with poor sanitation, in precarious structures that were not enough to meet even the most basic needs for dignified survival.
A cycle of poverty
Since higher levels of education are tied to higher income over the long term, and children from poor families are those most likely to be sent to work rather than school, child labor maintains a cycle of poverty over generations.
A study in Brazil found that child labour rates were approximately 37% higher, and school enrollment 3% lower, than average in regions where coffee is produced.
Children as young as six years old often work eight to 10 hours a day and are exposed to the many health and safety hazards of coffee harvesting and processing, from dangerous levels of sun exposure and injuries, to poisoning from contact with agrochemicals.
During the coffee-harvesting season in Honduras, up to 40% of the workers are children. Children, and women, are hired as temporary workers and are therefore paid even less than adult male workers. In Kenya, for instance, these “casual” workers often only make about $12.00 a month. Even though there are family farms where children might participate in light labor for part of the day, regulations against child labor do exist in coffee-producing countries, but economic pressures make authorities in these regions reluctant to enforce the law.
“We went hungry, because they didn’t pay and they didn’t register us either. So we were stuck there. If those people hadn’t got us out we would have stayed there for ages.”
Additionally, in areas with sun-grown coffee, more chemical fertilisers, agricultural chemicals, and fungicides are required. Given the levels of poverty in the areas where coffee is grown, workers are often unable to afford protective equipment that would limit their exposure; in other cases, they simply choose not to use it or are not aware that it is necessary. Many workers complain of difficulty breathing, skin rashes, and birth defects.
Pesticides on a coffee plantation. Source Vox/Shutterstock
Indentured slavery
Many coffee workers are effectively enslaved through debt peonage, which is forced labor to repay debts. Landed elite in coffee-producing regions own large plantations where a permanent workforce is employed.
The workers are forced to buy from a plantation shop for their everyday needs that has over-inflated prices. Since they earn less than minimum wage, they become indebted to their employers. It is common for families who are part of the permanent labor force on a plantation to work and live there for generations, in order to pay back debts for renting their homes, land or health costs. In Brazil, hundreds of workers are rescued from slave-like conditions annually.
In 2016, two of the world’s largest coffee companies (accounting for 39% of the global coffee market), Nestlé and Jacobs Douwe Egberts, acknowledged that slave labor is a risk in their Brazilian supply of coffee. Nestlé admitted they purchase coffee from two plantations with known forced labor and they cannot “fully guarantee that it has completely removed forced labour practices or human rights abuses” from their supply chain.
Coffee: Environmental Certifications
There are a number of coffee certification schemes that encourage environmental farming practices and inform consumers about which companies and brands follow these practices.
Often the concept is very good. However the real life implementation and enforcement of the standard is severely lacking.
Research finds that certification schemes are merely greenwashing tools – they do not improve equity outcomes or prevent deforestation
It should be noted that many NGOs that work to analyse certification schemes such as Greenpeace, ECCHR Berlin and the Environmental Investigation Agency have found that certification standards are overall insufficient, weak and merely a consumer marketing tool rather than a tool for ameliorating human rights abuses or stopping deforestation.
Eco-labels and certifications for agricultural crops have yet to halt land use change. Sparse and uneven market uptake only partially explain this outcome. Loopholes in certification standards and enforcement mechanisms also play a role.
We find that, while sustainability standards can help improve the sustainability of production processes in certain situations, they are insufficient to ensure food system sustainability at scale, nor do they advance equity objectives in agrifood supply chains.
Instead of guaranteeing that deforestation and other harms are excluded from supply chains, certification with inadequate governance, standards and/or enforcement enables destructive businesses to continue operating as usual.
More broadly, by improving the image of forest and ecosystem risk commodities and so stimulating demand, certification risks actually increasing the harm caused by the expansion of commodity production.
Instead of being an effective forest protection tool, certification schemes thus end up greenwashing products linked to deforestation, ecosystem destruction and rights abuses.
Developed by ecologists at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center; has the strictest habitat requirements of any coffee certification.
Goals
Preserve critical habitat for birds and wildlife.
Fight climate change.
Protect biodiversity.
Support farmers committed to conserving bird and wildlife habitat by farming sustainably.
Overview
100% organic: no use of chemical pesticides.
Shade-grown coffee
requires much of the natural forest canopy to remain intact through a combination of foliage cover, tree heights and overall biodiversity that protects high quality habitat for birds and other wildlife.
Must maintain at least 15% of the native vegetation or a minimum canopy cover of 40% measured before pruning and during the rainy season when foliage is denser, and a minimum of 12 native species as shade in the coffee plantations, as well as comply with several infrastructural and management requirements.
Certification requires 100% of product to meet standards (other certifications allow a portion of non-certified product or permit product dilution).
Producers can earn more for their crops due to the gourmet market price premiums, and the timber and fruit trees on shade coffee farms provide farmers with additional income.
Farms are certified by third-party inspectors using criteria established by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center. The Center states that the criteria are based on years of research and are scientifically proven to provide bird habitat second only to undisturbed forest.
farms must submit to re-certification every three years – roasters pay a small fee to be able to use the seal on their products.
There are currently at least 5,100 Bird Friendly farmers in 11 countries growing 34 million pounds of coffee annually.
Problems
While the Bird-Friendly seal has farmers’ and community rights written into its overall goals, it is unclear if there are any defined and enforceable standards.
Deforestation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo: Wikipedia.
Fair Trade
Goals
To guarantee that workers are paid living wages and have safe working conditions.
To improve the lives of farmers and smallholders in developing countries who frequently lack alternative sources of income by promoting positive and long-term change through trade-based relationships that build self-sufficiency.
Overview
Fair Trade pays producers an above-market “fair trade” price provided they meet specific labor, environmental, and production standards.
The standard encompasses a wide variety of agricultural and handcrafted goods, including baskets, clothing, cotton, home and kitchen decor, jewellery, rice, soap, tea, toys, and wine.
Fair Trade handcrafts have been sold since 1946. The first agricultural product to be certified fair trade, coffee, was in 1988.
In 2021, FT worked with than 975,000 farmers and workers in 62 countries across Africa, Asia, Oceania, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
Standards
Fair Trade requires producing organisations to comply with a set of minimum standards designed to support the sustainable development of small-scale producers and agricultural workers in the poorest countries in the world.
These standards detail member farm size, electoral processes and democratic organization, contractual transparency and reporting, environmental standards etc.
Fair Trade members buy products directly from producers and provide advance payment or pre-harvest financing. Unlike many commercial importers who often wait 60-90 days before paying producers, FTF members ensure pre-payment so that producers have sufficient funds to cover raw materials and basic needs during production.
Fair Trade members also provide technical assistance and support such as market information, organizational development and training in financial management.
Unlike conventional importers, FTF members establish long term relationships with their producers and help them adapt production to changing trends.
Workers benefit from 100+ protections and quality of life assurances and receive regular training around health, safety and quality assurance.
Problems
The higher consumer price for Fair Trade coffee does not result in increased wages for farmers.
The quality of Fair Trade coffee is uneven.
Cost of Fair Trade certification: This costs coffee growers approximately $0.03 per pound of coffee. This doesn’t sound like much, but in some years it is greater than any smallholder/farmer profit from the sale of the coffee.
Fair trade certification does not bring economic benefits and equity to labourers and their children: A Harvard University study found the modest benefits generated from Fair Trade to be concentrated among the most skilled coffee growers. They find no positive impact on coffee laborers, no positive impact on children’s education, and negative impacts on the education of unskilled coffee workers’ children.
Poorer countries are not able to mobilise certification: Relatively little Fair Trade coffee originates from the poorest countries, like Ethiopia, and Tanzania.
Higher price for Fair Trade does not translate to higher quality coffee: This risks turning consumers away from FT produce, and further impeding its reach to mass markets, where it can truly make an important change to consumer habits.
Higher cost for Fair Trade means a lack of consumer access: The price premium on Fair Trade may make it prohibitively expensive for lower-income households to afford. This means that Fair Trade does not reach the mass market and instead remains as a token marketing gesture that helps to alleviate the guilt of middle class consumers.
Fair Trade engages with companies that are unethical:
Much like with the RSPO for palm oil, the Fair Trade certification does not guarantee that producer organizations will be able to sell all their certified goods under agreed conditions. There is a lack of transparency.
One primary factor is that it is large cooperatives that control the Fair Trade premium, rather than the farmers themselves. This means that rather than cutting out the middle man, and offering farmers a more direct compensation for their work, Fair Trade still facilitates a level of bureaucracy that supports an uneven distribution of revenue.
Rainforest Alliance
Goals
Wildlife protection
Climate-smart agriculture
Fair treatment and good working conditions for workers
Overview
Not required to be organic, but must implement the integrated pest management procedures, which have chemical pesticides only as a last resort and used in targeted, conscious methods.
Promotes best practices for protecting standing forests, preventing the expansion of cropland into forests; fostering the health of trees, soils, and waterways; and protecting native forests.
Promote responsible land management methods that increase carbon storage while avoiding deforestation.
The 2020 programme prohibits deforestation and destruction of natural ecosystems such as wetlands and peatlands and sets 2014 as the baseline year for the conversion of natural ecosystem.
Advances the rights of rural people.
Certified farms and supply chain actors must have a system to evaluate and address child labour, forced labour, discrimination and workplace violence and harassment.
Products do not have to contain 100% of ingredients meeting the standards in order to use the seal. **For the 2020 seal, all products – except herbal teas and palm oil – must contain at least 90% of the certified ingredient. Herbal teas must contain at least 40% of the certified ingredient(s) and palm oil products must contain at least 30% certified palm oil. Products that contain between 30 and 90 percent certified content can bear the seal with a qualifying statement that discloses the percentage of certified content.
Farms are audited every 3 years.
Problems
A weak due diligence approach: With the newest 2020 criteria, Rainforest Alliance takes a ‘due diligence’ rather than prohibition approach. This approach means that absolutely nothing will be outlawed under the new criteria. Even a company found to use violence against forced laborers could continue to bear the logo if it had the right processes in place.
A “due diligence” approach has had success in specific cases. For example, it has helped address the problem of child labour in the cocoa industry, which is almost entirely made up of smallholders.
However now Rainforest Alliance is using this approach to address four of the most difficult areas – child labour, forced labour, discrimination and (sexual) harassment – without providing any evidence for its success in addressing the last three of these issues. Red lines can still be maintained even if a due diligence framework is adopted, but the RA have not explained why they have shunned this option even as a last resort.
Price volatility: failure to protect workers and farms from the volatility of prices on international markets. While Rainforest Alliance says that it is considering the issue, it has no plans to address the problem of price volatility through its certification.
2020 Weak Deforestation criteria: The new certification contains some requirements to protect forest areas, yet, it has no definition of what ‘forest’ means, without which the criteria are largely unenforceable.
It also conflates ‘forests’ and ‘other natural ecosystems’ in several of the new criteria, which is vague.
2020 workers rights criteria: These requirements are weaker or more vague than previous requirements. Including those on overtime, payment in kind, maternity leave, and preference for organic fertilisers
2020 child labor criteria: RA’s definition of child labour allows work from 14 years of age and light work from 12 years where these ages are set by the country’s national laws. It therefore sets a lower standard than the International Labour Organization’s (ILO’s), which only allows these ages where developing country exemptions apply.
Vital information missing: including how RA intends to enforce its standards, how it will determine timeframes for improvement criteria, what the rules will be about the use of its logo on products, or how it plans to conduct audits.
Recommendation: Cut coffee consumption as much as possible
Coffee production has detrimental impacts on forests, habitats, species biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions and laborers.
Increasing demand for the product is fueling all of these crises. In order to alleviate this pressure, there must be an immense decrease in demand for coffee worldwide.
Consumers should choose to not purchase or to severely decrease their purchases of coffee and coffee-derived products.
If a person does want to purchase some coffee, it would seem most environmental and ethical to find a company that deals only with small-scale farmers, with whom they have a personal relationship, and avoid the huge, international corporations.
After investigation, it appears that the Smithsonian Bird-Friendly certification does a good job of protecting native forest and wildlife; however, it does not appear too guarantee workers’ rights. Consumers should also look for the FairTrade or similar certification that covers fair wages and labor practices.
It must be said, however, that neither certification is perfect. The best option would be to avoid coffee products entirely, as a consumer can never be 100% certain about the practices that took place along the entire production line.
Although the world is highly complex, every person can make a difference. That previous sentence almost sounds like a cliche right? Really it’s not. If every person on the planet made a few simple lifestyle changes, it would result in less demand on land and resources and soften the impact of deforestation on endangered species.…
Despite sustained and vigorous attempts by corporates and industry certification schemes like RSPO, MSC and FSC to downplay the impact and effectiveness of consumer boycotts, it turns out that boycotts are impactful and drive social change. They force profit-first and greedy corporations to change their ways and do better. They also create a tangible sense…
According to a 2021 survey by Nestle of 1001 people, 17% of millennial shoppers (25-45 years old) completely avoid palm oil in the supermarket. 25% said that they actively check to see if products contain palmoil. As a generation, we now have the opportunity to push our local communities and our children away from harmful…
Claiming a brand or commodity is green based on unreliable, ineffective endorsements or eco-labels such as the RSPO, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or FairTrade coffee and cocoa. Greenwashing: Fake Labels and fake certifications Ecolabels are designed to reassure consumers that they are purchasing green or sustainable products. In reality the environmental standards are no better…
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Hosonuma, N., Herold, M., De Sy, V., De Fries, R. S., Brockhaus, M., Verchot, L., … & Romijn, E. (2012). An assessment of deforestation and forest degradation drivers in developing countries. Environmental Research Letters, 7(4), 044009.
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Pendrill, F., Persson, U. M., Godar, J., & Kastner, T. (2019). Deforestation displaced: trade in forest-risk commodities and the prospects for a global forest transition. Environmental Research Letters, 14(5), 055003.
BBC Reality Check Team. (2021, Nov 19) Deforestation: Which countries are still cutting down trees? Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.com/news/59136545
Valerie E. Peters, Tomás A. Carlo, Marco A. R. Mello, Robert A. Rice, Doug W. Tallamy, S. Amanda Caudill, Theodore H. Fleming, Using Plant–Animal Interactions to Inform Tree Selection in Tree-Based Agroecosystems for Enhanced Biodiversity, BioScience, Volume 66, Issue 12, December 2016, Pages 1046–1056, https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biw140
Tscharntke,T.; Milder, J.C.; Schroth, G.; Clough, Y.; DeClerck, F.; Waldron, A.; Rice, RR.; Ghazoul, J. (2014). Conserving Biodiversity Through Certification of Tropical Agroforestry Crops at Local and Landscape Scales. Society for Conservation Biology – Conservation Letters. Vol 8, Issue 1. https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12110
González-Prieto, A. 2018. Conservation of Nearctic Neotropical migrants: the coffee connection revisited. Avian Conservation and Ecology 13(1):19. https://doi.org/10.5751/ACE-01223-130119
Take Action in Five Ways
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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.
More and more palm oil free 🦧 products in Australia 🇦🇺. Customer awareness is increasing month by month. Of course Bart Van Assen will keep pushing "sustainable" palm oil with Orangutan Land Trust. Boycott palm oil to protect wildlife! There is not planet B #boycott4wildlifepic.twitter.com/rm7chub5Rb
If possible to get Ovomaltine, please promote it among your friends. It openly advertises with 0 palm oil. No RSPO no bullshit. For me it even tasts better than nuttela. It substantiates that chocolate spread can be made delicious without filthy palm oil. pic.twitter.com/cyV5Tm3tLd
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At the 2021 U.N. conference on climate change in Glasgow, more than 100 world leaders pledged on Nov. 1 to halt deforestation by 2030. In the Declaration on Forests and Land Use, countries outlined their strategy, which focuses on supporting trade and development policies that promote sustainable production and consumption. Governments and private companies have pledged over US$19.2 billion to support these efforts.
From my research on social and environmental issues in Latin America, I know that four consumer goods are responsible for the majority of global deforestation: beef, soy, palm oil, and wood pulp and paper products. Together these commodities are responsible for the loss of nearly 12 million acres (5 million hectares) annually. There’s also a fifth, less publicized key driver: organized crime, including illegal drug trafficking.
Fires burn off forest cover and natural grasses to create cattle pasture in the Maya forest in Guatemala. Jennifer Devine, CC BY-ND
The dominant role of beef
Among major products that promote deforestation, beef is in a class by itself. Beef production is now estimated to be the biggest driver of deforestation worldwide, accounting for 41% of global forest losses. In the Amazon alone, cattle ranching accounts for 80% of deforestation. From 2000 to 2011, beef production emitted nearly 200 times more greenhouse gases than soy, and 60 times more than oil palm in tropical countries with high deforestation rates.
Beef is produced in many countries, but it mainly drives forest losses in Latin America. On the savannas of sub-Saharan Africa and the plains of the U.S. Midwest, cattle graze without directly contributing to deforestation.
Together, soy and palm oil drive nearly 10% of deforestation annually – almost 2.5 million acres (1 million hectares).
Clearing land for palm oil plantations fuels large-scale rainforest destruction in Indonesia and Malaysia, where most of the world’s palm oil is produced, destroying habitat for endangered and threatened species such as orangutans, elephants and tigers. More recently, palm oil production has expanded to other parts of Asia, Central and South America and Central and West Africa.
Palm oil is the most commonly produced, consumed and traded vegetable oil. Some 60% of the 66 million tons produced globally every year is used to produce energy in the form of biofuel, power and heat. About 40% is used for food, animal feed and chemical products. Palm oil is an ingredient in half of all products found at the supermarket, including margarine, shampoos, frozen pizza and detergents.
Soy production has doubled globally in the past 20 years. Nearly 80% of global soy is fed to cows, chickens, pigs and farmed fish. This demand reflects the tripling of global meat production over the past 50 years.
The remaining soy is largely used to produce vegetable oil and biodiesel. Humans directly consume just 6% in the form of tofu, soy milk, edamame and tempeh.
Wood products are responsible for about 5% of annual global deforestation, or about 1.2 million acres (500,000 hectares) yearly. Wood is widely used for home construction and furniture, and also as a pulp source for paper and fabric. And in low-income nations and rural areas, it’s an important fuel source for heating and cooking.
Making the supply chains for these four commodities more sustainable is an important strategy for reducing deforestation. But another industry plays an important role, especially in tropical forests: organized crime. Large, lucrative industries offer opportunities to move and launder money; as a result, in many parts of the world, deforestation is driven by the drug trade.
In South America and Central America, drug trafficking organizations are the vanguard of deforestation. Drug traffickers are illegally logging forests in the Amazon and hiding cocaine in timber shipments to Europe. In my research, I have analyzed how traffickers illegally log and raise cattle in protected areas in Central America to launder money and claim drug smuggling territory. Other scholars estimate that 30% to 60% of deforestation in the region is “narco-deforestation.”
Legal and illegal activities also interweave along the commodity chains for palm oil and soy. Forest Trends, a U.S. nonprofit that promotes market-based approaches to forest conservation, estimates that nearly half of deforestation for commercial products like cattle, soy, palm oil and wood products is illegal. According to the group’s analysis, exports tied to illegal deforestation are worth US$61 billion annually and are responsible for 25% of total global tropical deforestation.
Not all large-scale illegal deforestation is linked to drug trafficking organizations. But it is almost always tied to organized crime that depends upon corruption to operate.
Promoting sustainable production and consumption are critical to halting deforestation worldwide. But in my view, national and industry leaders also have to root organized crime and illicit markets out of these commodity chains. Until they do, global pledges to halt deforestation will have limited effect.
Research by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission found that although oil palm cultivation represents an important source of income for many tropical countries, its future expansion is a primary threat to tropical forests and biodiversity.
In this context, and especially in regions where industrial palm oil production is still emerging, identifying “areas of compromise,” that is, areas with high productivity and low biodiversity importance, could be a unique opportunity to reconcile conservation and economic growth. The team applied this approach to Africa, by combining data on oil palm suitability with primate distribution, diversity, and vulnerability.
“We found that such areas of compromise are very rare throughout the continent (0.13 Mha), and that large-scale expansion of oil palm cultivation in Africa will have unavoidable, negative effects on primates.”
“Despite growing awareness about its detrimental effects on tropical biodiversity, land conversion to palm oil continues to increase rapidly as a consequence of global demand, profitability, and the income opportunity it offers to producing countries.”
Although most industrial oil palm plantations are located in Southeast Asia, it is argued that much of their future expansion will occur in Africa. The team assessed how this could affect the continent’s primates by combining information on oil palm suitability and current land use with primate distribution, diversity, and vulnerability.
They also quantified the potential impact of large-scale oil palm cultivation on primates in terms of range loss under different expansion scenarios taking into account future demand, oil palm suitability, human accessibility, carbon stock, and primate vulnerability.
Mountain Gorilla mum and baby
They found a high overlap between areas of high oil palm suitability and areas of high conservation priority for primates. Overall, we found only a few small areas where oil palm could be cultivated in Africa with a low impact on primates (3.3 Mha, including all areas suitable for oil palm).
“These results warn that, consistent with the dramatic effects of palm oil cultivation on biodiversity in Southeast Asia, reconciling a large-scale development of oil palm in Africa with primate conservation will be a great challenge.”
Primatologist Dr Cleve Hicks warns about how palm oil is poised destroy primate populations in Africa and why he believes the #Boycottpalmoil#Boycott4Wildlife is the answer
Dr Cleve Hicks – Primatologist on palm oil and chimpanzee cultures
Dr Hicks speaks with Palm Oil Detectives about his chimpanzee research, veganism, deforestation, palm oil and what consumers can do to help the endangered animals of Africa.
Most of us have experienced the overwhelming urge to yawn in response to another person yawning – but we’re not the only species to do this. Research published in PeerJ shows that bonobos – our closest evolutionary cousins – also experience “yawn contagion”. Similarly to how yawning occurs in human beings, the effects of yawn contagion in bonobos is influenced by the quality of relationships shared between individuals.
The tendency for humans to mirror the behaviours and emotions of another – sometimes referred to as “emotional contagion” – is also thought to reflect our heightened capacity for empathy. Help all non-human primates to survive extinction and be #Vegan#BoycottPalmOil#Boycott4Wildlife.
Contagious yawns show social ties in humans and bonobos Image: PxFuel
This research challenges the view that emotional contagion is more pronounced in humans than in other species. It suggests that variation in empathy between humans and bonobos is influenced by the quality of relationships shared by individuals – but experts warn we must be careful to avoid anthropomorphising.
In the first cross-species study of its kind, Elisabetta Palagi, Ivan Norscia and Elisa Demuru from the Natural History Museum at the University of Pisa used levels of “yawn contagion” as a tool for measuring differences in empathy between humans and bonobos over a five-year period.
The ability of an individual to perceive and feel others’ emotions is hard to quantify, which has made measuring empathy in an objective way difficult.
“Empathy is extremely difficult to study,” said Dr Palagi. “The only possibility was to explore the most basal layer of empathy – emotional contagion – and ‘yawn contagion’ is a good candidate to measure emotional contagion.”
In humans and bonobos, the researchers compared levels of “yawn contagion” in weakly-bonded individuals with those occurring in strongly-bonded individuals, revealing important similarities and differences between the two species.
The strength of emotional bonding between individuals was found to be important in stimulating an empathic response only in close friends or kin, with strongly-bonded humans exhibiting a greater level of emotional contagion than strongly-bonded bonobos. A similar level of “yawn contagion” occurred between humans and bonobos in weakly-bonded subjects, reflecting shared empathic foundations between the two species.
Bonobo mother and baby
“We found that the two species differed in the level and latency of yawn response only when the subjects involved were good friends,” said Dr Palagi. “When the two subjects did not share a particular bonding the two species showed a strong similarity in the frequency of yawn contagion, thus suggesting that both species react in a very similar way to emotional contagion solicitation.”
According to Dr Palagi, monitoring bonobos was a lot easier than monitoring human subjects, as the “yawn contagion” effect is easily disturbed in humans if subjects are conscious of it. Because of this, all people involved in the study were unaware of being observed.
“We calculated how many times each perceived a yawn spontaneously emitted by a another individual and counted how many times he or she responded to that yawn,” she said.
A window into our social past
A yawning Pygmy Marmoset
Pygmy Marmoset Cebuella niveiventris and Cebuella pygmaea
Mark Elgar, professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Melbourne, said the cross-species approach of the study produced some interesting results.
But he said we should exercise caution in attributing “yawn contagion” to empathic behaviour, since the evolutionary function of yawning behaviour itself remains a mystery.
“My nagging concern is that we don’t really understand why yawn contagion exists, especially since it can be triggered by at least two ‘emotive’ states – boredom and embarrassment – and one physiological state – tiredness,” Professor Elgar said. “What is the evolutionary significance of yawning?”
Darren Curnoe, associate professor in human evolution from the University of New South Wales, said the research helps us to better understand the “gap” between humans and other species – what it is that makes us unique.
Contagious yawns show social ties in humans and bonobos Image: PxFuel
“This fascinating research demonstrates at once how similar, and yet, how different we are to our chimpanzee and bonobo cousins,” he said.
He said the study also sheds light on the origin of human social behaviour.
“The desire to yawn, when we see it in others, is a reflection of our emotional connection to them and our brain sharing what they do,” he said. “It’s a result of our strong empathy with people whom we share strong bonds, we can’t help but imitate them. It has a very deep evolutionary origin back to our ape ancestors from millions of years ago.
“What’s unique though about our human form of emotional empathy is its intensity – we show a deeper form of empathy and bonding than chimpanzees or bonobos do. This is something that changed during our evolution and must reflect a difference in the way our ancestors behaved and organised themselves socially compared to chimps and bonobos.”
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More and more palm oil free 🦧 products in Australia 🇦🇺. Customer awareness is increasing month by month. Of course Bart Van Assen will keep pushing "sustainable" palm oil with Orangutan Land Trust. Boycott palm oil to protect wildlife! There is not planet B #boycott4wildlifepic.twitter.com/rm7chub5Rb
If possible to get Ovomaltine, please promote it among your friends. It openly advertises with 0 palm oil. No RSPO no bullshit. For me it even tasts better than nuttela. It substantiates that chocolate spread can be made delicious without filthy palm oil. pic.twitter.com/cyV5Tm3tLd
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A major 2021 study in Frontiers in Veterinary Science examined whether global scale loss and gain of forest cover and the rise of oil palm plantations can promote outbreaks of vector-borne and zoonotic diseases.
The study took into account the human population growth and found that increases in outbreaks of zoonotic and vector-borne diseases from 1990 to 2016 were linked to deforestation, mostly in tropical countries, and with reforestation, mostly in temperate countries.
The study also found that outbreaks of vector-borne diseases were associated with the increase in areas of palm oil plantations.
Wilmar responsible for palm oil deforestation despite supposedly using “sustainable” palm oil. meat agriculture and deforestationHersheys is responsible for palm oil deforestation despite supposedly using “sustainable” palm oil.
The results are discussed in light of the importance of forests for biodiversity, livelihoods and human health and the need to urgently build an international governance framework to ensure the preservation of forests and the ecosystem services they provide, including the regulation of diseases.
The team from Montpellier University also provide recommendations to scientists, public health officers and policymakers who should reconcile the need to preserve biodiversity while taking into account the health risks posed by lack or mismanagement of forests.
African forest #elephants roam the dense rainforests of West and Central Africa where they subsist largely on a diet of fruit. They shape forests by dispersing fruit and seeds, browsing, and creating an extensive trail network.
But because it’s difficult to track animals in thick forest, little is known about the movements of the African forest #elephant. This is troubling as #poaching of forest elephants for their #ivory as well as habitat fragmentation have decimated their populations over the past two decades. Their numbers have reduced from 700,000 to fewer than 150,000. Help them to survive #BoycottPalmOil#Boycott4Wildlife
On top of this, climate change might be reducing the availability of fruit in the forest, potentially leading to elephant famine.
Knowing how they move can help us to better protect them. Gabon, holds 50% of Africa’s remaining forest elephants. In 2017, the Gabon Parks Agency initiated an elephant GPS collaring programme to improve the understanding of forest elephant movements and guide their management.
We supported the Gabon Parks Agency’s collaring programme, providing scientific advice on study design, analysing data, and reporting on elephant movements.
Over six missions in four years, Dr Pete Morkel and his field team from the Gabon Parks Agency darted and affixed satellite collars on over 96 forest elephants. This happened in and around seven national parks.
We used this dataset of forest elephant movements – the largest ever assembled – to assess the factors influencing elephant movement behaviour.
Specifically, we asked the questions: to what extent do characteristics – like sex, habitat quality and human activity – determine the distance they move, their home range size, their exploratory behaviour, and their daily activity.
We found that all of these characteristics affected elephant behaviour. We also found that individual elephants consistently moved in different ways from each other. This told us that they have personalities.
These insights can provide clues into how elephants can be better managed to conserve their populations and to reduce conflict with humans, particularly crop raiding by elephants.
We found that, on average, elephants moved nearly 2500 km a year.
In terms of intrinsic characteristics, sex was a key driver of elephant movement behaviour.
Male African Forest Elephants generally had larger home ranges and were slightly more active at night than females. They also spent less time in exploratory movements, these are long, persistent movements to new locations.
Food availability didn’t seem to affect movement behaviour. It might be that the rainforest habitat provided ample forage for elephants. However, we suspected that our measure of vegetation density was too coarse and didn’t capture availability of important diet items, like fruit and bark.
Water was key to elephant movements. Forest elephants, like savanna elephants, can lose up to 10% of the water in their bodies in a single hot day. We saw that forest elephants didn’t stray too far from water sources, such as rivers. During high rainfall, elephants moved longer distances and made more directed, exploratory movements.
Elephants also altered their movement behaviour in response to human activity. In areas of higher human disturbance, elephants moved less, had smaller home ranges, were less active during the day, and exhibited fewer exploratory movements. Like animals worldwide, elephants shortened their movements to avoid human-modified landscapes.
While environmental and human drivers explained some of the variation in elephant movements, much of the variation was explained by the individual identity of the elephant.
Exploring further, we found elephant personalities to vary between “idlers” to “explorers”. We identified individual differences in the relationships between movement behaviours, consistent with the concept of “behavioural syndromes”. In other words, an elephant that moved farther in a month also tended to have a larger home range and exhibited more exploratory behaviour.
Some forest elephants liked to explore, and others liked to stay put a bit more. And within these, there was enormous individual variation.
Forest elephant conservation
Our study offers some answers for elephant management, but also highlights complicating challenges.
For instance, the design of protected areas and habitat corridors must recognise that elephants may be reluctant to use habitat too far from perennial water sources or do so only in the wet season.
Unsurprisingly, elephant habitat should be protected from human disturbance, although further investigation into the types of human activities that most affect elephants is still necessary.
Variation in individual elephant behaviour – their personality – might complicate the development of general strategies for conservation if elephants respond in different ways to management.
Then again, it also accentuates the importance of conserving such a wide-ranging, intelligent and socially-complex species.
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