That’s the Way the Cookie Crumbles: Girl Scouts, Palm Oil, and Rainforest Destruction
Posted under: Last fall, these girls – Madison Vorva and Rhiannon Tomtishen contacted the Union of Concerned Scientists for help with their campaign to make Girl Scout cookies deforestation-free. They started the campaign 4 years ago – all while completing some research as part of a project to earn a Girl Scout award. As they were researching orangutans, they learned a sad truth - orangutans are facing extinction because their home, the tropical forest, is being cleared. In Indonesia and Malaysia, where orangutans live, much of that deforestation is occurring to make room for palm oil plantations. And, as you may have guessed already, palm oil is an ingredient in Girl Scout cookies.
Credit : Marit & Toomas Hinnosaar/Flickr Creative Commons – Pictured, the Girl Scout Cookies you Know and Love. Rhiannon and Madison, 2 brave and persistent Girl Scouts and activists have been working to make sure that you can enjoy these cookies, which we all know and love, with the assurance that the palm oil in them is not associated with Deforestation! They're saying NO palm oil unless it's Certified as Sustainable!
Thanks to the pressure from activists like you, the Girls Scouts of the USA has agreed to meet with Madison and Rhiannon next week. We need to keep the pressure on during the time leading up to the meeting so that the Girl Scouts organization knows that Madison, Rhiannon, and all of us are serious about seeing deforestation-free Girl Scout cookies! Join the Union of Concerned Scientists, Rhiannon, and Madi and send a note to the Girl Scouts letting them know how you feel – www.ucsusa.org/girlscouts.
