Forest Action against Nestle UK
Greenpeace's controversial video slamming Nestle's Kit Kat for using palm oil and contributing to the destruction of the Indonesian rainforests (and the Orangutans that live there) is beginning to make waves. So far the video has been described as ‘gory’ by the media, but eye-opening nevertheless.
It's bloody, but it's bloody right.
Nestle and Youtube pulled down the video yesterday claiming a ‘breach of copyright’ but, that has just made matters worse. For them, of course. The video has been posted and re-posted in many different languages in YouTube and in online newspapers such as Blick (Switzerland biggest tabloid).
Photo credit: © Jiri Rezac / Greenpeace
Greenpeace activists sent open letter to Nestle headquarters in Beijing
Photo credit: © Greenpeace / Simon Lim
In the UK there was a protest in the Nestle offices at York and Croydon and another one has been staged in Beijing today with activists dressed up as orangutans demanding Kit Kat to "give them a break".
Rich Claxton, of Greenpeace, said: "Nestle products like KitKats contain palm oil from suppliers who are trashing rainforests and driving orangutans to extinction. Other big companies are acting to stop this, but Nestle is turning a blind eye to it and continuing to trade with a company that has done more than any other to wipe out the rainforests of Indonesia. Nestle must stop destroying rainforests for palm oil."
Greenpeace spokesman Stephen Campbell claimed Nestle had doubled its use of palm oil in the past year, worsening the problem of unsustainable palm oil farming.
Nestle responds:
Nestle has replied by cutting its contract with palm oil giant Sinar Mass, but it will continue to use palm oil from other sources.
"We will continue to pressure our suppliers to eliminate any sources of palm oil which are related to rainforest destruction and to provide valid guarantees of traceability as quickly as possible," the company said in a statement on its website.
"We will not portray palm oil as free of such oils unless such guarantees are clear and reliable."
Sinar Mas responds:
PT Sinar Mas Agro Resources and Technology, Sinar Mas’s palm oil unit, is "committed in applying a responsible land clearing and the best practice of farming management in all of our plantations," President Director Jo Daud Dharsono said by phone today. "We always maintain communication with Greenpeace and we will soon arrange a meeting and have a dialogue with them," he said.
As The Sun (UK) nicely puts it, this is a "Kitkatastrophe".