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**How can we help the Orangutang?** Deforestation for palm oil plantations is destroying their habitat. What can we do? PALM US OFF FACTS **DID YOU KNOW?** Over 85% of the worlds palm oil comes from Malaysia and Indonesia.

Today, the most common cause of deforestation and fragmentation in Indonesia is related to palm oil development. An estimated 10% of supermarket ingredients contain Palm Oil. However without adequate labeling, it is difficult to be sure and many assume that the figure is much higher. In SE Asia alone, the equivalent of 300 football fields are deforested every hour for palm oil production Palm Oil typically costs the lives of up to 50 Orang-utans each week. Australians unknowingly consume on average 10 kilograms of palm oil each year because we do not currently have the ability to exercise consumer choice. Sustainable Palm Oil Plantations are a possibility however we need you to tell FSANZ you want palm oil labeling if they are to become a reality We share 97% of our DNA with Orang-utans. You could say they are our wild cousins. Narrated by Hugh Jackman and featuring Al Gore and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, [|the Burning Season] is a film about climate change that offers inspiration and hope. The film follows Dorjee Sun, a young entrepreneur not afraid to single-handedly confront the biggest challenge of our time. Visit [|tenthingsyoucando.com]. The website has been launched to coincide with the Australian release of Cathy Henkel's documentary, The Burning Season. SEE ALSO ** [|Palm Oil Action Group Australia] **    [|http://www.palmoilaction.org.au]  ** [|Round Table for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)] **    [|http://www.rspo.org] ** [|Australian Orang-utan Project] ** [] Want to save a gorilla? It's your call **Janae Houghton** January 4, 2009 The old mobile you're about to throw away could help save the lives of endangered gorillas. HOW many mobile phones does it take to save the life of an endangered gorilla? You would be surprised to know how few. Recycling just 500 mobile phones could pay the wages of an anti-poaching ranger for a whole year, and a ranger can save the lives of dozens of gorillas — maybe even help save the species from extinction. And if the 9 million mobiles sold in Australia each year were eventually recycled, that would, at $2 a phone, provide $4.5 million for gorilla conservation efforts in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The opportunity, and the problem, for the survival of the eastern lowland gorilla is the mining of coltan. A small amount of minerals derived from coltan ore is used in every mobile phone made. But with about 1 billion phones sold globally each year, that makes for a lot of mining. And the mines are in the habitat of the endangered gorilla. So far, Victorians have done pretty well. Since celebrated conservationist Jane Goodall launched the //They're Calling on You// mobile phone recycling campaign at Melbourne Zoo last October, about $2500 has been raised by the program. "We have received about 1000 mobile phones a month," Zoos Victoria community conservation manager Rachel Lowry says. "But we know many people were given mobile phones over the Christmas period, so we are urging them to give the old handsets to us."Phones can be dropped in at the Melbourne Zoo, Werribee Open Range Zoo or Healesville Sanctuary, or a free reply-paid postage label can be downloaded at zoo.org.au.. coltan ore - what/ where/how/ who/why
 * The Burning Season**