What is palm oil and how am I connected it?

Palm oil is a highly efficient, multi-use renewable resource that can be found in more than 50% of the products at your local grocery store, appearing on ingredient labels under more than 200 different names. It thrives in humid equatorial environments, making Indonesia—including the Leuser Ecosystem—an ideal habitat for commercial agriculture of palm oil. While native to West Africa, Indonesia produces around 60% of the world’s palm oil. Combined with Malaysia, Southeast Asia controls 90% of the global palm oil market—a $70 billion dollar industry that few people have ever heard of. Conflict palm oil is leading to rapid deforestation, putting wildlife and Indigenous communities across Indonesia at risk while speeding up the worst impacts of climate change.

If palm oil is so bad, why not use a more sustainable product?

Palm oil is actually the world’s most efficient plant oil. Acre for acre, palm oil plants produce significantly more oil than alternatives like soy, sunflower, and coconut oils. It is so robust, cost-effective, and shelf-stable that boycotting palm oil out of the market would be both implausible and likely misguided (because there would be inevitable ecological impacts of replacing it with other natural products). But too much of a good thing can devastate ecosystems, and unchecked palm oil is destroying one of Earth’s most vital biodiversity hotspots. The palm oil industry needs a revolution—a coordinated effort amongst consumers, corporations, governments, and local communities to strengthen sustainable production and push conflict palm oil out of the global market.

Is anyone producing palm oil the “right” way?

While there is always room for improvement, there are corporations and NGOs leading the way on sustainable palm oil. Palm oil is grown in remote regions of Indonesia, meaning oversight of the supply chain is notoriously difficult to manage. However, some corporations have taken steps to improve supply chain accountability, including industry giants like PepsiCo, Unilever, Mars, Mondelēz, and Nestlé who—alongside the government of Aceh province in northern Sumatra—formed the Aceh Sustainable Palm Oil Working Group, the first initiative of its kind in Indonesia. This reflects increased consumer awareness and expectations, and it’s imperative that corporations now feel pressured to actually deliver on the promises they’ve made about palm oil sustainability.

What can I do to combat conflict palm oil?

Saving the Leuser Ecosystem will require coordinated, sustained action across multiple levels of international organizing. THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH film partnered with inspiring front-line organizers working within Indonesia and in international sectors. Explore their organizations, and how to support them, in our CAST & ORGS section of the film’s landing page. Sign up below to join the movement, and stay in touch as the film’s impact campaign grows and offers new ways to take action.

Looking for more? Here are other ways to combat conflict palm oil! 

→ Sign the petition at Rainforest Action Network

→ Learn more about how the international community can support front-line efforts in Leuser

→ Choose ecotourism that directly supports Leuser conservation and employs local communities

→ Tell corporations like PepsiCo and Unilever that you care about sustainable palm oil