We have a problem.
The problem is palm oil.
Palm oil is a wonderfully versatile product. It is used in at least 50% of all packaged foods: in biscuits, cereals, cream cheese, chocolates, oven crisps and margarine etc.
It also goes into the making toothpaste, soap, shampoo and cosmetics. It is in animal feed, lubricants, paint, ink, and used for making biodiesel.
The demand for it is leaping ahead. Consumption of palm oil is expected to double by 2030, and to triple by 2050.
The trouble is that in order to grow the oil palm, huge tracts of primary rainforest are being felled.
Rainforests are much more than stretches of timber. They are vital storehouses of carbon. Their destruction releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which has a direct impact on world climate conditions.
Rainforests are also the home and habitat of countless thousands of wildlife species: some 300,000 of them in the forest of Borneo and Sumatra.
As a result of the logging to make way for monoculture plantations of oil palms, the lives and livelihood of people and wildlife are under threat.
The Sumatra tiger could become extinct in 3 years.
The most iconic creature of all, the orangutan, might cease to exist in the wild in 5 to 10 years. These sensitive and intelligent animals are being ruthlessly slaughtered. Their young are captured and sold as pets for human entertainment.
The same story is being repeated in South America and on the continent of Africa.
The demand for palm oil is threatening the Northern Amazon region of Peru. There is now huge pressure on the great rainforests of the Congo region.
China, one of the biggest users of palm oil. Is also exploiting the resources of rainforests in Asia and Africa.
We have to act to stop this destructive folly.
That requires international agreement. The last chance to get that will be at the Climate Change negotiations in Paris in December.
Meanwhile organisations such as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSCO) are helping to focus minds. More and more manufactures in this country and across Europe are agreeing to take only palm oil that has not come from plantations on previous primary rainforest land.
There is very little time left before the last remaining rainforests are lost.
To save them - and without any exaggeration – to save the planet requires an act of enormous political will and determination. We should all be calling for that – now!