Hello Human, it’s me

Hi, I am Cory and I’m 2 years old. In my species, a 2-year-old is older a human 2-year-old. Oh, wait! did I forget to mention that I’m an orangutan? Yes, the big strong red ape. I love swinging through branches and eating fruits and playing all day long. Mother says I should eat a lot so that I can get big and strong and in just 12 more years I will grow up to be like her. She says that she ate a lot and that is how she managed to grow so strong. But there is something different about her these days. She is not as strong as before. When I ask her, she says that I feel so because I’m growing strong. But I know that just is not true. Truth is, even though I grow old I’m not getting to eat enough.

This is all because there simply isn’t enough food left. I love eating fruits, insects and sometimes leaves which I find on trees all over my home. But my home is getting smaller. A few days ago there was this big creature that came with its huge jaws to pick up an entire tree and the ground beneath it. It did not even eat it but just threw it away and I really wonder why. It went on and on and uprooted almost a hundred more trees. It even uprooted my favourite Durian tree.

Mother calls it a bulldozer. Every day the bulldozer comes in with its friends and digs out many trees and eats none of them. While doing so it does not care for our friends and families that have been living on those trees for years, I really wished that it understood how much our homes mean to us. Mother has seen her own sister fall to her death because of these bulldozers who don’t even give us time to flee.

But things weren’t always bad, there was a time when food was ample, my home was bigger and safer. Now, most of the big trees which were once my home have been replaced with a strange shorter tree which is guarded by humans. I heard the birds who have travelled the world speaking last night about a certain human food that is made from these trees, but it’s funny I have never seen humans eating the fruits themselves and there are so few humans and so many fruits, can’t they spare some place for us?

Sincerely Hungry,

Cory.

Every year nearly 877,000 acres of forest are lost due to the increase in palm oil plantation. Palm oil is used in nearly every product because cheaper than other vegetable oils. The palm oil industry and big corporations that use palm oil for their products even after receiving criticism from every part of the world and continue to destroy forests at an unprecedented rate. The situation seems dire and hopeless for the orangutans and the other inhabitants of these forests. But there is something you can do! Research about the products that you use. Check the ingredients of the products you regularly buy. Try to reduce or totally stop the use of palm oil products, find alternatives and switch to palm oil-free products and reduce the overall usage of such products.

The products that are likely to contain palm oil are:

Cosmetics, Pizzas, Soaps and Shampoos, packaged food, ice cream, chocolate, biodiesel, cookies.

These are a few names that indicate palm oil:

Vegetable Oil, Vegetable Fat, Palm Kernel, Palm Kernel Oil, Palm Fruit Oil, Palmate, Palmitate, Palmolein, Glyceryl, Stearate, Stearic Acid, Elaeis Guineensis, Palmitic Acid, Palm Stearine, Palmitoyl Oxostearamide, Palmitoyl Tetrapeptide-3, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Sodium Kernelate, Sodium Palm Kernelate, Sodium Lauryl Lactylate/Sulphate, Hyrated Palm Glycerides, Etyl Palmitate, Octyl Palmitate, Palmityl Alcohol

Kayden Anthony

Programme Assistant