I had the honour of seeing Dr. Biruté Galdikas talk on Sunday April 28th about her experiences in Indonesia and with orangutans during her presentation Curious Orange in partnership with Kids Up Front. Not only is she part of the OFI (Orangutan Foundation International), but was also a part of Dr.Leaky’s ground breaking research program studying different apes alongside Jane Goodall and Diane Fossey.
Dr. Galdikas talked about her experiences in her 40 plus years in Indonesia. She is part of the organization OFI that helps take in orphan orangutans to teach them all the things their mothers would normally teach them.
The one subject she talked about that I feel is the most important to share, is about the devastation caused by the Palm Oil plantations being grown.
Palm Oil plantations can take over hectares and hectares of the orangutans habitat. The orangutans spend 95 percent of their lives up in the trees that are being burnt down to make these plantations. The higher paml oil is in demand the larger area of land they burn down. The OFI has been teaching the workers with a zero tolerance of harming or killing these orangutans but they are still being negatively impacted.
So the primary message from OFI is to try and stop using products with palm oil in them! Palm Oil is in pretty much anything including, cosmetics, food, cleaning ingredients, EVERYTHING! The sad truth is that it is close to impossible to stop using palm oil and impossible to close the plants for good. However that does not mean we cannot try to reduce our palm oil intake to try to cut down the demand for and size of these plants.
Although our individual choices are an important step, we cannot and should not just keep this to ourselves. If you believe in the importance of this innocent endangered species, that this is truly a matter to take a part in, tell others and spread the word!
Thank you very much for the tickets Kids Up Front and to the Epcor Centre for this opportunity! Also a huge thank you to Dr. Biruté Galdikas for coming to Calgary and the great presentation!
For more information about this problem and how you can participate visit:
