I apologise that this is not a 'New Forest' post, but it is definitely about 'nature and nurture.'
Palm oil is a hot subject at the moment, I think we have all watched (with a heavy heart) footage of orangutans trying to fight off bulldozers in their forests, but it worries me that the message being put out there is to go palm oil free. By doing this we are going to create a bigger problem. It is actually the most efficient and productive of all the vegetable oils and if we move away from it, we will be creating a demand for another oil that needs more agricultural land to produce which could potentially wipe out our rainforests even faster than we are doing right now.
As consumers, we need to be looking at buying products that use SUSTAINABLE palm oil and the companies that have committed to using RSPO (Roundtable of sustainable Palm Oil) suppliers. We can all look at the ingredients of a product to see if it has palm oil in it, but it doesn't always tell you if it is sustainable, this needs to change!
The WWF have produced a score card for companies that use sustainable palm oil to help us as the consumer make the right decision.
Even though I said it is nothing to do with the New Forest, deforestation of the rainforest effects us all through climate change and because of this change in our climate, we are losing some of our native species from our own forest. We can all make a difference by becoming conscious consumers.
http://palmoilscorecard.panda.org/check-the-scores/filter/country/uk
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