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Greenpeace Claims Sweet Victory Over Nestle
Environment group Greenpeace has claimed social media led to its success in a campaign that linked global food giant Nestle's chocolate bar KitKat to deforestation in Indonesian rainforests and the destruction of orang-utan habitats.
A Greenpeace activist dressed as an orang-utan protests outside the Nestle head office in Sydney April 22, 2010. The activists were protesting Nestle's use of palm oil from Indonesia in their products, destroying the habitats of orang-utans. (REUTERS/Greenpeace/Dean Sewell/Handout)
Today in Malaysia, Nestle announced a partnership with
not-for-profit organisation The Forest Trust (TFT), promising to adhere
to responsible sourcing guidelines for palm oil.
In a Greenpeace report titled Caught Red-handed, launched on March 17, Greenpeace exposed Nestle's use of Indonesian logging company Sinar Mas and subsidiaries including Asia Pulp and Paper to obtain palm oil.
Palm oil is used as an ingredient in Nestle chocolate products, including its well known KitKat chocolate bars.
Greenpeace said Sinar Mas was implicated in rainforest destruction and the destruction of orang-utan habitats as it planted plantations for palm oil and pulp.
An accompanying video posted on YouTube went on to record more than 1 million views - in part because Nestle had attempted to have it removed, Stephen Campbell, the head of campaigns for Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said today.
"[Social media] played an enormous role," Mr Campbell said. "Within 24 hours the campaign was global because of the web video."
By March 31, Nestle had agreed to stop dealing directly with Sinar Mas and its subsidiaries.
Today's announcement and the involvement of TFT marks a further step, in that it commits Nestle to no longer source Sinar Mas products indirectly through third-party suppliers.
Nestle said it would "focus on the systematic identification and exclusion of companies owning or managing high risk plantations or farms linked to deforestation".
Mr Campbell said Nestle had shown a misunderstanding of the role of social media.
"It's no longer about broadcasting, it's about interaction," he said.
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15 Comments so far
Show AllIf you purchase chocolate, I would suggest that you purchase only organic and fair traded chocolate. Besides being healthier for you, it supports small farmers around the world.
Once you've tasted organic, fair trade chocolate, the other stuff will never satisfy!
Nestle seems to be lacking something - remembering the boycott because of it's marketing of baby formula.
Chocolate's just about the worst chemical garbage people subject their bodies to, even in its "organic", sugar-free versions.
As for Greenpeace, good going, I'm already a contributor. How about Greenpeace now claiming a sweet victory over BP?
"Chocolate's just about the worst chemical garbage people subject their bodies to, even in its "organic", sugar-free versions."
How do you figure that?
I don't know where you get your information on chocolate. Cocoa in its pure form is not toxic.
Skip the palm oil. Period!
And replace it with what? Some other vegetable oil? Fine. But that other vegetable oil will require space and resources to be grown too.
What if that other vegetable oil takes more space, consumes more resources, to grow? Have you considered that palm oil is so popular, whether used in food, in soaps, etc, because it is very cheap compared to other vegetable oils?
You see the problem with simply screaming not to use palm oil of any kind?
i ate a kitkat once.............but i'm alright now.
As with any drug, (eg KitKat, opium, oil, cement, steel, money) that our world has become dependent on, it is not the producers that are the problem.
It is the users.
To pretend otherwise is a bad and destructive joke.
It is the addict's favourite joke.
Addicts blame the producers, or even the drug itself and accept no blame unless by doing so they get more of what they want. So they love to lay blame and noisily destroy while they buy from those who make it another way until the resultant harm forces another change. However it is made, it always is destructive, and they know and they don't care. It is a regression; a destruction of self as much at the expense of others as possible. That is why we call them addicts.
The addict in a culture is a sign of cultural decay; of corruption. Corruption always exists. It is the degree that matters.
Who eats KitKat, uses oil, heroin, cocaine, cement, steel in excess?
Find the monster of excess amongst them.
There is the one making the smell!
It is the USA.
Rubbish.
No "addicts" are forcing the producers not to use fair trade palm oil.
No "addicts" are forcing BP to rack up huge profits while resisting any moves to implement tighter safety regulations.
You are just regurgitating the propaganda of the mega corporations.
By the way the great clipper ships such as the Cutty Sark, that started 'international trade' were opium traders intent on stealing China's wealth. Just read and see that the the entire 'Capitalist' system is structured on the like; is pure unadulterated piracy.
PS Capitalism is like Terrorism, an ism that asserts ownership. Only Capitalism is says it owns the good, and that its enemy terrorism owns the bad. If you disagree it will kill you.
The truth is Capitalism makes Terrorism to justify the use of violence to gain more of the drug.
Indonesia has been cutting rain forest to plant Palm and rubber trees for many years. In the last couple of decades; more Palm than rubber.
In 1997 I was deep in the Sumatra forests trying to buy partially burned hard wood trees.
To my chagrin I discovered it was the BIG BOSSES Chinese and Indonesian Military/Suharto behind starting the huge Forest fires.
The smoke was awful and was even suffocating Singapore 500 miles away.
I read at the time that Indonesia still had about 20% of its rain forest left.
Now because of the world demand for Palm oil and Ethanal: I would guess they have about 10%.
As Peter, Paul and Mary used to sing "When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn"
what about the ugly side of chocolate
nestle and child slave labor in West Africa?
thank you
Nestle also made promises about Fair-trade cocoa in West Africa harvested by child labour, even going as far as marketing a Kit.Kat as a Fairtrade chocolate in the UK, but not much sticks with these people. They live by their false image and the ignorance of their customers most of whom couldn’t care less.
Quoting from BBC’s Panorama program:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_8583000/8583499.stm
“In Ivory Coast, Panorama met a farmer who relies on his eight-year-old brother and 11-year-old son to help harvest the cocoa that goes to the co-operative supplying Nestle as part of its recent Fairtrade initiative. In January, the company began selling Fairtrade four-finger Kit Kats in the UK.
Neither of the young boys goes to school and figures compiled by the US State Department show that they are among an estimated 100,000 Ivorian children put to work in the cocoa industry.
Although Nestle does buy from the cooperative that the farmer sells his crop to, the company said in a statement: "Panorama has been unable to provide us with any evidence whatsoever of child labour being used to produce cocoa beans purchased by Nestlé." ”
Same old bla, bla. But hey, I don’t have to buy their lies or the s..t they sell to enrich their multibillion corporation at the expense of the lives of exploited children in Africa and endangered wild life in Indonesia or Malaysia!