Tragically, our investigations exposed major global brands—including Procter and Gamble, Unilever, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Mondelēz, and Nissin Foods—sourcing illegal palm oil grown within the nationally protected Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve. In September 2022, we published the Carbon Bomb Scandals report, showing that the same brands were still sourcing illegal palm oil from the reserve.
Buyer beware: Illegal deforestation to make room for palm oil
plantations in Sumatra is destroying critical habitat for endangered
orangutans. The oil is used in 50 percent of all consumer goods,
from lipstick and packaged food to body lotion, biofuels, and snack
foods. (Photo: Laurel Sutherlin)
Introduction: The Leuser Ecosystem
Picture a rhinoceros in the rainforest. Add a herd of elephants,
families of orangutans swinging through the treetops, and tigers
prowling the understory, and there is only one place in the world
you could be.
Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem is one of Earth’s most ancient forest
ecosystems, a laboratory of life’s potential where the alchemy of
evolution has been allowed to experiment uninterrupted for
millennia. And the results are astounding. Green upon green, vines
hanging from towering old-growth trees, moss growing on ferns and
bromeliads… you get the picture.
It is the kind of place one imagines primeval nature to be: wild,
abundant, and impenetrable. The Leuser Ecosystem is considered the
heart of Southeast Asia’s rainforest region, which, alongside the
Amazon in South America and the Congo Basin in Africa, is one of
only three tropical forest regions on Earth.
The beating heart of the Leuser is the lowland forests and peat
swamps of the Singkil-Bengkung region. This area is part of western
Sumatra’s last healthy peat swamp ecosystem. This lush jungle
contains some of the world’s richest levels of biological diversity.
The lowland peat forests of the Leuser Ecosystem deserve the highest
levels of protection for multiple critical reasons. Dubbed the
“orangutan capital of the world,” this region has the highest
population density of critically endangered Sumatran orangutans
anywhere. This includes a unique, culturally distinct subpopulation
of a few thousand individuals in the Singkil-Bengkung region. These
subpopulations demonstrate social structures and tool-using
behaviors distinct from all other orangutan populations. These
forests are also home to some of the healthiest remaining breeding
populations of highly imperiled Sumatran elephants, rhinos, and
tigers.
Please read the ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE, including:
Bornean orangutan (Pongo_pygmaeus), Tanjung Putting National
Park