2018- Time to Take this Elephant Killing Substance OUT of Your Life!
After taking a blog break through the glorious craziness that is our holiday season at Arte for Elephants. I finally had a chance to sit down and think of some things everyone (myself included) can do this year that will really help elephants.
We all know by now that we, as amazing humans, have the power to exert a tremendous amount of pressure on businesses that are not doing right by elephants.
Just look at what we’ve done in recent years:
Limiting the use of exotic animals in many circuses around the world.
Pressuring many substandard zoos into releasing their elephants to sanctuaries.
The proliferation of non-riding/trekking elephant tourism.
The shuttering of many of the worlds ivory markets.
These are real gains and they wouldn’t have come about had not all of us used our voices, and our wallets to force companies to mend their ways.
But if I could name one of the top things I’d like to see in 2018, it would have to be the complete and utter collapse of the market for the most elephant killing substance on earth.
I am talking of course, about Palm Oil.
Few things on the planet pose a bigger threat to elephants than palm oil, and sadly it’s in just about every single item we use. Shampoo, facial creams, snack foods, peanut butter (even organic) vegan butters, candy bars, detergents. It’s often disguised as “palm fruit oil” or something even less identifiable.
50% of all products have palm oil in them, think about that! HALF of everything! The demand is sky high, to the tune of tens of billions of tons per year. To meet this demand, countries around the world are clear cutting and burning ancient & irreplaceable rainforests and planting palm oil trees, to the extent that the U.N has deemed deforestation from palm oil a “conservation disaster”. 1,000 orangutans are killed every year and 90% of the habitat for pygmy elephants and other animals of the rainforests have been wiped off of the earth.
If it seems a bit overwhelming, there are a few great resources for finding palm oil free things. The website “SayNotoPalmOil” (www.saynotopalmoil.com) has a whole action plan for getting involved. I encourage everyone to take a few simple, easy steps to rid your life of this elephant killing substance.
Some really simple steps:
READ- Read ingredients, some items are particularly annoying as there is no need for palm oil at all (peanut butter, I am talkin’ to you!)
SIGN- Continue signing petitions calling on big companies to clear their product line of palm oil items.
EDUCATE- Be sure to tell people WHY you don’t eat things like Nutella (big palm oil user there) and spread awareness.
A few simple things we can all do together that will help both ourselves and our lovely elephants enjoy a truly wonderful New Year!
Arte for Elephants is a for profit business that raises money for non-profit elephant sanctuaries through the sale of arts and crafts. Check out our Etsy shop and buy something amazing, help us help them! www.etsy.com/shop/arteforelephants
