Palm Oil Perambulations and Soya Search

Why aren't we doing more to save the rainforests and other species rich habitats?


According to a Friends of the Earth report written two years ago, at CURRENT RATES of Forest destruction in Indonesia, the orangutan will have become extinct in the wild within twelve years from then (- so that's ten years from now). Forest is being burned to grow huge monoculture oil palm plantations.

Fact: 10% of the food you buy in a supermarket has palm oil in it.

If you were to stand in the food department in Tescos or ASDA or the Coop and throw a cucumber up in the air there is a one in ten chance it would land on a food with palm oil in it. Usually it is just labelled vegetable oil or hydrogenated vegetable oil.

Try it. Go round your supermarket and look at the labels. Often it is only the high quality food that actually labels it as palm oil - the cheaper brands just label it simply as vegetable oil.
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Another crop that is replacing the rainforest is Soya. A chemical called soya lecithin is used as an emulsifying agent (helps water and oil to mix together) in many food products. It has other uses too.

It is also exported to the UK in vast quantities to feed cattle.

Meanwhile have a look at this site.

http://www.regenwald.org/international/englisch/news.php?id=857


So tomorrow, why don't you go for a walk round your supermarket or grocer's shop and see if it is true that 10%of the food contains palm oil?

Finally to my delight I found the following:.... Patersons olive oil oatcakes:



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How to organise a presentation evening

Friday 8th Feb- Presentation Evening

A further £65 was donated at the Presentation Evening, bringing the total raised so far to: £295

The presentation evening went well.


In writing up this blog I am torn between:

1. Making it sound like a ravingly successful project (when in fact there is sometimes an awful lot of work for a small return..)
2. Writing this in a rivetting blog style (still learning) rivett, rivett
   
3. Giving useful advice for others who may want to do a similar project
   
4. Just making a true diary of what happened.. It is hard enough finding time to write things up while I can still remember.

Who came?

1. Our team of five organisers: Myself - the speaker, David Briggs the chairman , digital projector provider and operator, and Hilary, Lesley and Richard making the coffee and scones.
2. Two people came from our church
3. A couple came as a result of my handing out leaflets for the coffee morning
   
4. Six people came as a result of my sending out emails to Craven Conservation Group and others.

I wrote out a detailed programme and emailed it to the chairman and we both forgot to bring printed copies. However the preparation did mean we were able to pack a lot into the session.

At the beginning I asked people to work in pairs and find from their partner: their name, where they lived and anything else the partner wanted to say. They then had to introduce their partner to the group. This created a good buzz.

I gave a 15 minute talk on the importance or rainforests, and how they are being lost- e.g., Just one urgent example is that at current rates of forest destruction in Borneo the Orang-utan will become extinct in the wild withing 10 years according to a FOE report.

Main threats throughout the world include:

• To Palm oil
• To soya
• To cattle ranching
  
• To mining such as "coltan" rare metals for mobile phones in the Congo Basin
• To logging, especially illegal logging

I showed how much of this is linked to things we buy

Palm oil - soap, hydrogenated vegetable oil in food, etc
Soya- soya lecithins (emulsifiers) in processed food
Soya - to cattle food in this country
Cattle - Corned beef, leather
Coltan - Mobile phones
Logging - Garden furniture in Garden stores.



Then we showed extracts from two videos of the World land Trust: One on Belize, made in 1994, and one on the Philippines made more recently. The Philippines video is about an island - where as well as forest there is mangrove swamps and also an important marine reserve. Fishing is a key source of income for the people there but overfishing by big trawler ships and also local over fishing had reduced fish numbers. By having certain parts of the coral sea protected from all fishing, fish numbers were beginning to pick up.

There was then coffee and scones and lots of opportunity for questions and discussion.

Work before the meeting involved:
Sending off to World Land Trust for the videos and more leaflets
Having support of local group at church who voluntered to get projector tea coffee etc
Preparing display used at coffee morning.
Producing posters for local shops and sending a short item to the local paper.
Sending out an email to my contacts list.

How to get more people to your coffee morning..

On Tuesday 5th February we had planned a coffee morning at Richard's flat.

1. We changed the location and held it at the Church - so that it became "The First Coffee Morning of the Season in the Church" - The church has coffee mornings on Tuesday (market day) mornings - but there is a break over winter. This was good because more people know where the church is than Richard's flat, and a good number of the "Regulars" came
2. This regular Coffee Morning has two big signs we put up outside the church. These signs drew two sets of people.
   
3. I had put up a few posters round town.
   
4. I spent half an hour just before we opened going round Settle with A6 size leaflets giving them to peopleI knew and I called in at several shops and Age concern. This resulted in three sets of people who would not have come otherwise, and who also were very generous.
   

People could see the big writing on the display I had made without having to go too close.

Everyone enjoyed the freshly ground fair trade coffee.

About 30 people came including ourselves, and we raised £80. That was £50 to buy and acre with World Land Trust and £30 to A Rocha ghana.
Thanks to all who supported it!

Speakers Club, Amazon, and "Don't Eat Beef"

"You can save the Rainforest" was the title of my ten minute speech at Craven Speakers Club on Monday 28th Jan 2009, it went well. The tips I have learned at Speakers Club are helpful. I'm not giving the text here - You'll have to come and listen to it sometime!! I wore a brand new t-shirt that a friend had given me two years earlier with pictures of useful fruits of the Amazon. and would you believe it - whilst I was practicing the speech two hours before the talk, she skyped (phoned) me from Brazil! "What should I tell them in my speech?" I asked "Tell them not to eat beef" she said. "They are cutting down the forest for soya and then the soya is exported as cattle food to Britain."

Sean McDonagh's Talk at Bradford

On Tuesday 29 January I attended Sean McDonagh's two talks at Bradford University. I used the opportunity to tell people about the St John's Methodist Church Rainforest Project.

Fr Sean McDonagh (on the left) is a Columban priest who worked in the Philippines and has written many books on Christianity and Care of the Earth. His talks today were on Climate Change, Environment and Faith. I had taken a display of Christian Ecology Link Resources.
At the beginning of the first talk members of the audience were invited to say a little about their organisations and upcoming events - WHICH IS AN EXCELLENT IDEA. (In the Centre is the Bishop of Bradford and on the right the organiser)

I told people about Christian Ecology Link and I told them about the St John's Methodist Church Settle Rainforest Project. You can see my report of the day here:

Sean McDonagh has written a book about species extinctions, which is very good in spite of the morbid cover. I give some of the VERY USEFUL quotes and facts from his book here. You can print it as a leaflet here.

Our crops replace the forest

On Monday 28th January I was scheduled to give a speech at Craven Speakers Club in Skipton. At Speakers clubs we practice giving speeches and are evaluated by other members of the club - and everyone learns and has fun from the performances. I had chosen to give one entitled "You can help save the rainforest".

I spent much of Monday preparing for this. I took for part of the theme the fact that according to a Friends of the Earth Report, in ten years time at current rates of forest destruction in Borneo there will be no orang-utans left in the wild.

I wanted to show some of the main reasons why the forest is disappearing and how it is linked to our lifestyle. I needed visual aids. First I found my eight year old mobile phone -coltan.

Coltan - rare metals from quarries in Zaire. Then I toddled down to the Coop.

Palm Oil: Brown bread rolls with vegetable oil (palm) and soya four.
Peanut butter - well that has palm oil from the outside of the nut. - It gives peanut butter its special taste..
If you were to throw a stick of celery in the air in the food section of a supermarket it would have a 10% chance of landing on something containing palm oil - usually labelled simply as vegetable oil.

Soya: White Fair trade white chocolate with soya emulsifier (soya lecithin - I had learned a new word).
Soy sauce
And the bread rolls above.
And really I should add ordinary British beef -- since our cattle are fed on soya.

Corned beef- from Brazil. Hmm interesting that one variety bothered to state that it was made from cattle not from newly cleared land.

Whilst there I met David and Hilary Briggs (Our minister and his wife).

Later that evening he skyped (phoned) me to suggest we have the first coffee morning at the Church rather than at a house to make it a bigger event and also to start of the "Coffee Morning Season in the Church"

I'll write about how the talk went shortly
Meanwhile I need to prepare display material to be used at the talk to be given by Sean McDonagh at Bradford on Tuesday 29th.

Donate Online

The following pages have just been created and are awaiting your donations! :)
www.justgiving.com/settle-WLT
www.justgiving.com/settle-arocha-ghana

I have put Facebook Links to them from my profile in Facebook.

A Rocha UK is dealing with the money we send in for A Rocha Ghana.

So now I hope the money will pour in.. ???
Please consider donating to one of these charities.

Thank you - Judith Allinson

And the News on BBC as I write this -
BBC webpage 24 Jan 2008: Brazil Amazon deforestation soars - rising commodity prices are encouraging farmers to clear more land to plant crops such as soya

Charities we are supporting

So, I wrote something for the coming Sunday's Church Newsheet:

The St John’s Methodist Church (Settle) Rainforest Fund Project:

We will be supporting mainly two charities: World Land Trust and A Rocha Ghana

World Land Trust

says: “You can do incredible things: For just £25 you can buy Half an Acre of critically endangered habitat that will save some of the rarest animals and plants on earth. Working with local. people we create reserves to save precious habitats and species. Already we have rescued over 350,000 acres of wilderness in Belize, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Patagonia and the Philippines. David Attenborough is one of WLT's patrons.”

A Rocha Ghana

This is a Christian organisation which is why I have chosen it as one of our lead charities. The Ghana project (formerly called the Eden Conservation Society) works with sustainable projects with two communities who live next to Mole National Park in northern Ghana.

Make a note in your diary of two meetings for the project: (More details of these next week)

Tue 5^th Feb: 10am-12. Coffee Morning Richard Pike invites you to Flat 7, Dawsons Court, Settle

Fri 8^th Feb: 7.30pm. Rainforest Fund Presentation at St John’s Methodist Church Hall

First Planning Meeting and First Event Planned

I have now visited 31 different people in the congregation over the past seven weeks. Almost half the congregation. Most are sympathetic, some keen, some have ideas (which I'll mention later) - and a second person gave a donation! Great.

Monday evening of 22 Jan saw the first official planning meeting: - Four of us - the minister, his wife, myself and Richard, a member of the congregation who nobly offered his flat for the evening.

Richard also offered to host a coffee morning Tuesday 5th February at his flat. We have an event planned! Hurray.

The second event is to be a presentation by myself about the project and two main charities we will be supporting - This is on Friday 8th February in our church hall at 7.30pm..

The minister agreed to include the project in the agenda of the next Church Council Meeting on March 5th.

Although I had initially planned to support three charities - World Land Trust, Cool Earth and A Rocha, the committee decided it would be much better if I just concentrated on two, so we chose World land Trust and A Rocha.

It was suggested I write a paragraph for the upcoming notice sheet due to go to press on Wednesday... That's my next task.

Display in the Church Hall

We are fortunate in having a good church hall. It is used by many different groups during the week.

I made a display about the Rainforest Fund Project. On Tue 8 January I put it on the other half of the board used by Rumpus, the After School Club.

It shows how much has been donated. £50 so far! By one generous lady.

Before Christmas I had started visiting members of our congregation, asking for ideas and ensuring that there would be support for the project. I visited about 15 people - but it was really encouraging when one of the first people donated some money.

I realise now that I need to put the word Settle, and maybe even North Yorkshire on the title above the display. I am hoping that a few of the groups who use the hall will join in and contribute.

The project is born

On 1st January 2008, in Settle, North Yorkshire, UK, the St John's Methodist Church Settle Rainforest Fund Project was born.
The primary aim is to raise money towards protecting rainforest (and other irreplaceable habitats).

We are supporting three projects - two are secular projects of the type "Buy an acre of Rainforest" and the third supports a Ghanaian Christian group that is running projects to encourage a villagers on land adjacent to a nature reserve to use the land sustainably.

Please note that whilst I (Judith Allinson) am Web Editor for Christian Ecology Link (CEL) and for St John's Methodist Church Settle , the views expressed are personal, and do not necessarily reflect those of CEL or St John's Methodist Church.
Feedback and comments are welcomed.

In future postings I will say how the project started, and how it is proceeding.

Come back next week! See how much money we have raised. See what we have decided to do.

We hope you will support the project too.