Sunday 15 April 2012

A beautiful lacewing

Lacewing (Chrysoperla canea)

Monday 2 April 2012

Orangutans killed in forest fires

I use Twitter, but not for saying what I'm doing every minute of everyday, I use it to find out what's happening in the environment around the world. I only link up to environmental bodies and post about environmental issues.

One Tweeter this morning has posted a news article which some of you may find distressing, I know I did! The first sentence hits home: "Wildlife experts warn that in as little as just a few weeks, the rare Sumatran Orangutans could become extinct." 

There's only one species to blame here and that's us! 

I have 'blogged many times about palm oil, but it's something I believe we should all know about. You may think there's nothing we can do about it, but there is....if we all change our lifestyles, the products we buy from the supermarkets, there may be a chance that we can help this threatened species. 

To recap on the effects of palm oil; thousands of hectares of land are destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations, thus leaving orangutans and other species, trapped and dead. 

Palm oil factories are being accused of intentionally setting the forests on fire. The orangutans are then being forced into moving to less suitable forests, but the palm oil factory workers are apparently chasing the orangutans back into the fires when they're trying to move to safer grounds away from the fire. The bad news doesn't stop here unfortunately, factory workers are also being accused of paying poachers to kill the orangutans because they are destroying the young palm trees.

If this is the case what on earth has this world come to? Whether the palm oil factory workers are definitely doing this, they are still causing the orangutans habitat to diminish. What are your opinions on this? 

(*This blog article was written in reference to the following news article: http://www.nodeju.com/20617/hundreds-of-orangutans-killed-in-forest-fire.html*) 

There are ways we can help to protect this magnificent species, and that is to look at the products we buy on the shelves. There are numerous websites that provide lists of products that do not contain palm oil so why not try these:


Palm oil alternatives 02 (You can download a palm oil free shopping list from here too!)