Saving Planet Earth

Sweet! In March 2007 Nick traveled to Borneo to witness, first hand, the tragic deforestation that is orphaning baby Orang-utans and threatening the future of the species. This was to make a film for BBC 1's Saving Planet Earth series that aired in July.

Travelling to Kallimantan to see the Orangutan orphanage was an extraordinary experience. The centre run by the amazing Lona was built to house only one hundred rescued animals but is currently home to around six hundred and fifty. The reason there are so many there is because of deforestation of the rainforest in order to plant palm oil crops. Palm oil is used a great deal in this country in cakes, biscuits, shampoo, cosmetics etc. Now there is nothing wrong with the oil in itself, in fact it's quite a healthy oil and often appears on the list of ingredients as just vegetable oil. What's interesting is that enough land has already been cleared to produce all the oil we need. So some pressure needs to be applied to the places selling goods made of this. Why? Well there are between 20 and 40,000 orangutans left in Borneo and Sumatra - it's very difficult to tell. What we do know is that five thousand a year are dying as their habitat is cleared. So even at a generous projection we are looking at no orangutans in the wild in under ten years at this rate. They are quite extra-ordinary creatures and the work being done at the centre - reintroducing them over a seven year period into the wild, may be one of our last hopes of future generations seeing them in their natural habitat.

Here's what you can do - give funds to help the orphanage or - when you buy shopping, read the list of ingredients and if it says "vegetable oil" ask the manager if that oil is palm oil and if it is - is it Orangutan friendly palm oil. He will undoubtedly pass this question up the line and then it's a matter of how many people ask whether they insist that future products are made with orangutan friendly oil. Simple eh!

One final note - palm oil can be used to make biofuel. Rainforests should not be cleared to plant palm oil plants. It's not nearly so effective at turning co2 into oxygen and there is some research showing that burning biofuel produces ozone which at ground level is detrimental to our health and the atmosphere (see New Scientist) we all want a cleaner planet but with several environmental trains leaving the station lets do the research to make sure we are all getting on the right one.

For more information on the charity helping to save these lovable creatures please visit: www.savetheorangutan.co.uk.