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- Posted October 29, 2012 by
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Palm oil and the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo’s self deception
I remember when I was young, and living with my parents. I thought the cost of living in my parents’ home was too high. Looking back, I laugh at how ridiculous it was to complain. My parents never charged me a cent for living at home. The only “cost” was obedience. I simply had to obey rules like clean up after myself, be polite, tell the truth, and show some respect. The rules weren’t difficult, but I still had trouble obeying them. My parents didn’t kick me out for my disobedience, however. They just kept reminding me that the rules were to protect me, not harm me, and sometimes they made the rules stricter to protect me from myself.
However, when I contemplate on the actions of the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo on palm oil, rather than being paternalistic is in fact motivated by bad faith, greed and sell-out! Professing to have the interests of the friendly apes, the orangutan at heart, which is ironical considering that the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is probably the most brazen exploiters of the animal in the world, the zoo has mounted itinerant anti-palm oil campaigns, designed so they say, to draw attention to the plight of the apes. In our view, rather than subject the poor tropical animals to the harsh winter of Colorado Springs, they should set the orange haired tropical beasts back into their natural habitat in the Borneo jungles of Indonesia!
However, the real motive for the zoos sudden interest in palm olil and orangutans can be evinced with a cursory study of their 2011/2012 Annual Audit Report. Interestingly, the intensity of the zoos anti-palm oil drive coincided with a sudden influx of funds parked under its “Cash contributions restricted for long-term purposes” column to the tune of US$ 5,553,990 in 2012 from US$2,934,429 in 2011!
This may not appear alarming until you juxtapose this against the startling revelations of Italian civil libertarian group, Libertiamo on this sordid palm oil affair. In a study called “Taxpayer Funding, NGO Collusion and Manufactured Crises: A Case Study of Malaysia and Palm Oil, Libertiamo finally blew wide open the moral porosity afflicting the European Commission (EC) when they revealed that these palm oil campaigns are "funded by the Office of the Environment Directorate of the EC, ostensibly to improve environmental practices in developing countries". In reality, the millions poured into these palm oil campaigns, noted Libertiamo, were designed to protect the EU's indigenous edible oilseed industries like rapeseed and sunflower which are hapless and unable to compete with the hyper yielding palm oil! To make matters worse, the EC is aware that the anti-palm oil campaigns, conducted by surrogate green groups, are based on "manufactured and false evidence"!
Now the dirty fingerprints of the EC are all over the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo plus other zoos around Europe such as the Association of European Zoos) and Australasian zoos such as the Melbourne Zoo and Auckland Zoo. These zoos appear not to have minded acting as a surrogate for the EC to carry out the EC’s dirt war on palm oil!
If the zoo administrators have any conscience at all, they should take into account the fact that a staggering 40% of global palm oil production is produced by smallholders, most of whom had come into palm oil cultivation by participating in government funded rural poverty eradication programs such as FELDA!
These smallholders have nothing to do with deforestation and orangutans. In fact, the orangutan did not even exist in Peninsula Malaysia where most of these smallholders are located. Palm oil raises incomes for small farmers in Africa and Asia; and it lowers prices for consumers all over the world in view of its inherent hyper yielding nature.
Perhaps this single fact alone should clue in the objective observer that something’s not quite kosher with these palm oil campaigns, including that of the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo!
Note: About Inc Society of PalmHugger: We are made up of professionals and individuals with a great passion for the truth.
We are biologists, creative designers, engineers, business men and women, professional tennis players, stay-at-home moms, retirees, college students, filmmakers, journalists, communication experts. You name it!
Our goals are all the same – to advance the cause of truth through better and wider dissemination of true palm oil environmental news and views, assisting in CSR initiatives, or developing programmes for advocacy and lobbying of palm oil environmental matters, always with an emphasis on truth.
Who we are not: We are not politically linked to any political parties. We are also not donor nor profit driven. Every single cent raised through our initiatives are channeled back to fund Palmhugger programmes that require financial assistance. www.Palmhugger.org
However, when I contemplate on the actions of the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo on palm oil, rather than being paternalistic is in fact motivated by bad faith, greed and sell-out! Professing to have the interests of the friendly apes, the orangutan at heart, which is ironical considering that the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is probably the most brazen exploiters of the animal in the world, the zoo has mounted itinerant anti-palm oil campaigns, designed so they say, to draw attention to the plight of the apes. In our view, rather than subject the poor tropical animals to the harsh winter of Colorado Springs, they should set the orange haired tropical beasts back into their natural habitat in the Borneo jungles of Indonesia!
However, the real motive for the zoos sudden interest in palm olil and orangutans can be evinced with a cursory study of their 2011/2012 Annual Audit Report. Interestingly, the intensity of the zoos anti-palm oil drive coincided with a sudden influx of funds parked under its “Cash contributions restricted for long-term purposes” column to the tune of US$ 5,553,990 in 2012 from US$2,934,429 in 2011!
This may not appear alarming until you juxtapose this against the startling revelations of Italian civil libertarian group, Libertiamo on this sordid palm oil affair. In a study called “Taxpayer Funding, NGO Collusion and Manufactured Crises: A Case Study of Malaysia and Palm Oil, Libertiamo finally blew wide open the moral porosity afflicting the European Commission (EC) when they revealed that these palm oil campaigns are "funded by the Office of the Environment Directorate of the EC, ostensibly to improve environmental practices in developing countries". In reality, the millions poured into these palm oil campaigns, noted Libertiamo, were designed to protect the EU's indigenous edible oilseed industries like rapeseed and sunflower which are hapless and unable to compete with the hyper yielding palm oil! To make matters worse, the EC is aware that the anti-palm oil campaigns, conducted by surrogate green groups, are based on "manufactured and false evidence"!
Now the dirty fingerprints of the EC are all over the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo plus other zoos around Europe such as the Association of European Zoos) and Australasian zoos such as the Melbourne Zoo and Auckland Zoo. These zoos appear not to have minded acting as a surrogate for the EC to carry out the EC’s dirt war on palm oil!
If the zoo administrators have any conscience at all, they should take into account the fact that a staggering 40% of global palm oil production is produced by smallholders, most of whom had come into palm oil cultivation by participating in government funded rural poverty eradication programs such as FELDA!
These smallholders have nothing to do with deforestation and orangutans. In fact, the orangutan did not even exist in Peninsula Malaysia where most of these smallholders are located. Palm oil raises incomes for small farmers in Africa and Asia; and it lowers prices for consumers all over the world in view of its inherent hyper yielding nature.
Perhaps this single fact alone should clue in the objective observer that something’s not quite kosher with these palm oil campaigns, including that of the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo!
Note: About Inc Society of PalmHugger: We are made up of professionals and individuals with a great passion for the truth.
We are biologists, creative designers, engineers, business men and women, professional tennis players, stay-at-home moms, retirees, college students, filmmakers, journalists, communication experts. You name it!
Our goals are all the same – to advance the cause of truth through better and wider dissemination of true palm oil environmental news and views, assisting in CSR initiatives, or developing programmes for advocacy and lobbying of palm oil environmental matters, always with an emphasis on truth.
Who we are not: We are not politically linked to any political parties. We are also not donor nor profit driven. Every single cent raised through our initiatives are channeled back to fund Palmhugger programmes that require financial assistance. www.Palmhugger.org
- TAGS:
- oil,
- hugger,
- palmhugger,
- palm
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