2/8/06 (Friend of The Earth)  -  The supermarket chain Morrisons today (Wednesday 2 August) announced it will join international efforts to tackle the problems caused by palm oil, following a campaign to highlight the threat to orang-utans posed by the crop.  Palm oil is found in one in ten UK supermarket products but conservation experts say that without urgent intervention the palm oil trade could cause the extinction of Asia's only great ape within 12 years.

Morrisons is the last of the major UK supermarkets to join the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil - the only global initiative to source sustainable palm oil. The decision is a major victory for campaigners who had been calling on UK supermarkets to clean up their palm oil supplies [2]. Demand for the crop is fuelling the destruction of virgin rainforest in South East Asia, home to the orang-utan, as well as resulting in land disputes and the exploitation of local communities.

Friends of the Earth's Corporate Accountability Campaigner Ed Matthew said:

"It is great news that Morrisons has finally recognised that it can play a role in cleaning up the trade in palm oil. Palm oil production in South East Asia not only threatens the survival of the orang-utan, it is also affecting millions of people who depend on the rainforest for their way of life. By joining the Roundtable, Morrisons is supporting the only process committed to developing sustainably produced palm oil for the international market. The true test of Morrisons commitment will be how fast this can be achieved."

But he added that it was disappointing that the UK Government had not yet taken more action to tackle the problem.

"It has taken two years of campaigning to get UK supermarkets to agree to look at sustainable sourcing for palm oil. A supermarket has over 10,000 product lines. It would take several hundred years for us to campaign on every destructive product. If the Government faced up to its legislative responsibilities, it could ensure that supplies chains did not damage our environment. To start with, it should strengthen the provisions in the Company Law Reform Bill now going through Parliament. All large and medium sized public and private companies should be required to fully report on the environmental and social impacts of their supply chains."