The Girl Scouts of America have made headlines due to the recent discovery of palm oil usage in their cookies. The use of palm oil is threatening the survival of humankind’s closest relative, orangutans.
Five years ago, two eleven year old Girl Scouts Madison Vorva and Rhiannon Tomtishen completed their research for their Girl Scout Bronze Award. They discovered the alarming affects that palm oil has on the environment. Palm oil causes the destruction of irreplaceable rainforests and threatens the survival of orangutans.
Over the past years, the girls have tried to influence Girl Scouts USA to remove palm oil from the ingredients for their cookies, but GSUSA has not budged.
The girls then turned to team up with the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) in the fall of 2010 for some help. Working with this ally, the collaboration began to break out into more conventional media outlets. “The Last Stand of the Orangutans” is a RAN project that aims towards the Snack Food 20-companies that control some of the best-known snack food brands in the world-to stop using palm oil in their foods.
The troop here at West has not yet been informed of the palm oil being used in the cookies they are selling, but they do want to bring it to the attention of their troop.
“I think it is bad that our troop is not trying to save the orangutans, and we should try to start doing something about it,” sophomore Girl Scout Sarah Booth said.
The Girl Scouts have no current plans on making changes to eliminate the use of palm oil.
“It is necessary to use palm oil in our cookies to ensure shelf life, to offer customers the highest quality, and to serve as an alternative to trans fats,” girlscouts.org said.
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