Sorry but the Tim Tams have to go

Puttering down the rivers through the rainforests of Central Kalimantan with my daughter, I think of Tim Tams.

No, it is not the cravings of a homesick traveller. It is the thought of rainforests felled for palm oil plantations and their inhabitants, our gentle neighbours, the orangutan, orphaned, kidnapped, homeless, massacred.

Tim Tams, like chips, Twisties, toothpaste, soap and shampoo – indeed around half of all packaged products that fill our supermarket shelves – contain palm oil. And it is partly our insatiable appetite for these products behind the tragedy.

Often you won’t know if a product contains palm oil – it falls under the umbrella label of vegetable oil, but there are ways to detect if a product contains palm oil. You can find them here.

It is estimated that 1,000 orangutan die each year due to forest clearing in the Indonesian heartlands of Kalimantan (Borneo) and Sumatra. The Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme predicts the local species could be extinct in the wild within 20 years.

Orangutan are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.

‘People of the forest’. This is the direct translation from Indonesian orang hutan – our nearest relatives who share 97% of our DNA, according to recent scientific studies.

Back on board the traditional wooden klotok riverboat, our hotel for the next few days, we approach the Camp Leakey Orangutan Foundation International in the Tanjung Puting Reserve. Here the first orangutan, Percy, appears on the wharf to greet us.

We stay a night at an ecolodge near the township of Sekonyer on the river ferrying around 1,000 eco tourists on the environmental pilgrimage each year.

Here the manager complains that the plantations are displacing the rainforest. The water has been fouled. People have been ill.

In the village placards attack loggers and the palm oil company PT BLP.

“Welcome Sei Sekonyer – Stop! Destroying our Land” the sign screams from the jetty . “The forest are being felled by PT BLP, the orangutan habitat is being destroyed… the villagers rights looted ….”, another cries from the roadside.

Two days ago a two year moratorium on deforestation – part of Indonesia’s carbon emission pledge – came to an end. And the battle between environmentalists, villagers, miners, loggers and palm oil producers as to whether it will be renewed is in full swing.

Aceh’s Government plans to open 1.2 million hectares of protected rainforest for the development of mines, plantations, roads, logging and palm oil expansion, the Jakarta Post reports.

Indonesia has the world’s third largest expanse of tropical forest after Brazil and the countries of the Congo basin, spanning 64.2 million hectares of primary forests and 24.5 million hectares of peat lands, Antara newsagency reports. But according to a UN report, it could all be gone in just 10 years.

Who will win the battle for the rainforests?

Graft is rampant.

The Jakarta Post reports a Corruption Eradication Commission finding that illegal logging and mining involves at least 12 ministries and/or non-ministry governmental institutions.

In Aceh, Sumatra, forests have been set on fire in breach of the moratorium. Back in Jakarta, I read a Tempo magazine report on two companies taken to court as the peat lands burn and orangutan numbers dwindle from 1,000 in 1990 to just 250.

Further south in Lampung, palm oil plantation security guards allegedly massacre orangutan and villagers alike.

Grisly images of the beheaded are posted on YouTube.

Now Borneo’s Dayaks, once warriors and fierce headhunters, are fighting to defend the rainforest and orangutan from encroaching developers and have their heads on the chopping block.

Indonesia and Malaysia produce 80% of the worlds $40 billion palm oil supply. And Australia imports 130,000 tonnes annually.

Here, however, the battle is being fought in the supermarkets. The campaign is working.

Zoos Victoria has launched Zoopermarket, which lists which palm oil products to avoid, and which companies to write to.

Meanwhile Arnott’s has posted a company statement on Facebook vowing to reduce palm oil in Tim Tams and its other products, and says that by 2015 it will switch to using 100 percent sustainable palm oil farmed in established plantations far from the rainforests.

Want to get involved? Here’s how:

• Melbourne Zoo’s “Don’t Palm Us Off” campaign and petition.

• Orangutan Foundation International (Camp Leakey) Kalimantan (Borneo) takes in baby orangutan orphans. Foster an orangutan or donate.

• Dr Ian Singleton, SOCP (Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program) – donate, adopt, petition.

• DeforestACTION A global learning project enabled the students to monitor Borneo’s rainforest from drones and satellite images helping to protect it from illegal loggers. Australian students raised over $5,000 for the locals in Borneo.

Rain Forest Action Network, WWF, Greenpeace and Endoftheicons.

(First published on Hoopla Magazine website)