Success! Ferrero supports the palm oil moratorium

Posted by bex — 10 July 2008 at 2:30pm - Comments

Primary rainforest in Central Kalimantan in Indonesia
Primary rainforest, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. © Davison/Greenpeace

Regular visitors to our website might have noticed that a few days ago, we launched a cyber action against the Italian company Ferrero, a major user of palm oil and maker of Nutella and Ferrero Rocher.

Well, we’re delighted to report that, before we even had the chance to email our supporters about it, we’ve had another success in the protection of Indonesia’s rainforests and peatlands - and of the threatened species that live there and, of course, the climate.

The palm oil industry - and its ever expanding plantations - is one of the biggest threats to the rainforests of South East Asia.

Ferrero, a member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, wasn’t willing to support the Unilever-led moratorium on forest destruction in South East Asia.

So Greenpeace Italy sent in the orang-utans, and more than 10,000 of their supporters emailed Ferrero. Then hundreds of you sent emails too, critically piling international pressure onto the company, which has several international brands.

Yesterday, our campaigners in Italy received a email from Ferrero, which said they were now ready to support the moratorium on converting forest and peatland into oil palm plantations.

With both Unilever and Ferrero onside, we’re now on our way to building a coalition of businesses determined to reform the palm oil industry. Over the coming months, we'll be lobbying more companies to support the moratorium we need.

In the mean time, thank you for helping to make sure that no more forest is lost to palm oil plantations in South East Asia.

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