How your daily routine can help the rainforest. Palm oil is an ingredient used in thousands of products from chocolate to shampoo. But the mass production of palm oil is devastating the world’s rainforests. During the 90s, expansion of palm oil resulted in the deforestation of 2.7 million acres in Malaysia and 4 million acres in Indonesia. And now developers have turned their attention to the rainforests in the Congo Basin. Multi-national palm oil companies are lining up to open up a new front-line in industrial palm oil production which threatens to liquidate vast areas of the Congo's rainforest, threatening indigenous people and endangered wildlife including forest elephants and lowland gorillas.

An investigation by the Rainforest Foundation identified over 1 million acres of palm oil exploitation projects already underway, and a colossal 284 million acres of soil suitable for palm plantations in the region. Already an area of rainforest the size of Yorkshire has been destroyed and it is feared that two thirds of the Congo rainforest could be lost to palm oil plantations. 

The list of products that use palm oil is almost endless.   Click here to read more and find how the Ethical Consumer rate companies in their use of palm oil