Scientists fear the great apes' habitat could be gone by 2010 as Asianforests are cleared to grow the product.

25/09/05 (The Des Moines Register.com)- Former Peace Corps volunteerLinda Appelgate of Des Moines hasn't been reading food labels to see ifher grocery purchases contribute to the near-extinction of orangutans inIndonesia.

She's going to start.

Appelgate learned last week that palm oil produced in Sumatra and Borneocomes from plantations built on land cleared of the towering figs andother trees orangutans call home. Many scientists predict that orangutans- found in the wild only on those two islands south of the Phillipines andThailand - will be gone in less than a decade if something doesn't change.

"Up to this point, I haven't checked packages for palm oil," saidAppelgate, who shops at the Beaverdale Dahl's store, at farmers marketsand local co-ops. "I will now."

"Many of us are contributing to the demise of the great apes," saidAppelgate. "It's tragic. It's really important that we be aware of what weare eating."

Palm oil " once spurned as an artery-clogger " is back in vogue because ithas no trans fat, now considered an even bigger risk for heart disease.The United States is a one of the world's five-biggest customers for palmoil. Starting in January, food labels must disclose trans fat content.

Many products have used partially hydrogenized soy oil, which does havetrans fat, although new varieties are coming out that are low in thatcomponent.

Palm oil is cheaper than soybean oil. It is semi-solid at roomtemperature, giving cookies, crackers and pastries the texture, orchewiness, people want.

Iowa is 9,600 miles away from the orangutans' natural homes. Still, Iowansare linked to the orangutans' plight both because of what they eat andbecause their state is home to one of the premier orangutan research andconservation centers, Great Ape Trust of Iowa , located in southeast DesMoines. That facility conducts cognitive and language research on greatapes, including orangutans Azy and Knobi. Center scientists are directlyinvolved in conservation efforts abroad, and say that the more peoplelearn of the apes' intelligence, the less likely they are to kill theprimates.

The trust also is paying $5,000 to have five orangutans threatened bydeforestation relocated to better habitat before the apes are killed byclear-cutters, said Benjamin Beck, conservation director at the trust.

Iowa's ag industry also is likely to be affected by food company decisionsto swap palm oil for soybean oil. Iowa is annually one of the top twoproducers of soybeans in the country.

A coalition of environmental groups, including the Borneo OrangutanSurvival Foundation and the Sumatran Orangutan Society, reported Fridaythat 90 percent of the orangutan habitat is gone. The land was cleared inlogging operations and for oil palm plantations. The oil palms are 30 to50 feet tall, planted in rows like corn. Orangutans inhabit trees that aremore than 100 feet tall.

The islands now have an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 orangutans, which ishalf as many as 15 years ago.

According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the area ofIndonesia planted in oil palms has grown 30-fold since the 1960s, tonearly 12,000 square miles. That's an area the size of Maryland.

Worldwide demand for palm oil is expected to double by 2020, making it thetop edible oil. To meet that demand, Indonesia has eyed another 26,300square miles for oil palms, an area slightly larger than West Virginia.

More than 80 percent of the oil comes from Indonesia and Malaysia. Sumatrais in Indonesia. Parts of Borneo are in Indonesia, the rest is inMalaysia.

"The rate of loss of orangutan has never been greater than in the lastthree years, and oil-palm plantations are mostly to blame," said WillieSmits, founder of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation. Smits notedthat companies like to clear forest rather than use the many acres alreadyabandoned because then they can sell the rain-forest wood before plantingthe palms.

Indonesia's government recently announced the world's largest palm oilplantation along Borneo's Malaysia-Indonesia border, covering an expansemore than four times as big as the four-county metropolitan Des Moinesarea. The $560 million development would create an estimated 100,000 jobs.

"We must stop the habitat destruction practices where it matters the most,in Indonesia, if we do not wish to see the days when we can only see theorangutans in zoos," said Sally Tirtadihardja, spokeswoman for the BorneoOrangutan Survival Foundation. She suggests pressuring the Indonesiangovernment to protect the orangutan habitat.

Anna Galovich of Des Moines finds the situation shocking.

"Like a lot of consumers, I generally just look at the grams of fat" on alabel, rather than the source of the fat, Galovich said.

Galovich tries to be an environmentally conscious consumer. For example,she buys coffee from a supplier that uses environmentally friendly growingtechniques in Chiapas, Mexico. Now she says she will read the fine printon palm-oil content.

Industry groups such as the Indonesian Palm Oil Producers TradeAssociation have signed a number of agreements in recent years designed tosave the critical forest on the islands while keeping the important oilbusiness booming.

Datuk Haron Sirah, head of the Malaysian Palm Oil Promotion Council, wroteon the council's Web site that the palm oil industry takes a small amountof land considering what it produces. Malaysia last year produced half theworld's palm oil using 9 million acres of land. Soy and other oil seedstook 546 million acres around the world.

Derom Bangun, chairman of the Indonesia Palm Oil Producers TradeAssociation, told the Associated Press that the industry wants "high-valueforests" protected and often plants on previously logged forest.

"Investment should be encouraged provided the environmental considerationsare taken fully into consideration," Bangun said. "We're not onlyinterested in the economic aspects of the business."

Robert Shumaker, who directs orangutan research at Great Ape Trust ofIowa, said orangutans live in tall trees in biologically diverse areasthat offer a lot of food. They can't survive in oil palm farms. If theycome near the plantations, farmers will shoot them or slash them withmachetes.

The residents of Borneo and Sumatra need the cash from the palm oilindustry, Shumaker said. The goal is to preserve key habitat and theremaining orangutans.

Shumaker recalled seeing the conversion of the Malaysian Borneo landscapefive years ago. "We were driving down a good, paved road at 50 miles perhour and we drove for three and a half hours," Shumaker said. "The wholetime, on both sides of the road, as far as the eye could see, all we couldsee was oil palms. All of that used to be orangutan habitat."

Rita Arora, an Iowa City real-estate agent, said she reads labels andavoids buying food with palm oil because of dietary concerns. She usesolive oil or canola, or no oil at all.

Arora was faintly aware of the habitat destruction half a world away."Anymore, progress is done at a cost that we don't realize until it's toolate, and things are really suffering."