Africa's Forests Menaced by Palm Oil Rush
Africa's tropical forests are threatened by a palm oil bonanza that has already razed millions of old-growth hectares in Southeast Asia, Greenpeace France warned Tuesday.
The NGO called on European palm and rubber plantation giant Socfin, which controls vast tracts of tropical land in more than half-a-dozen African nations, to join other multinationals in adopted so-called "zero deforestation" policies.
Dozens of global companies -- GAR, Cargill, and Agropalma among commodity producers, and Nestle, Unilever and L'Oreal among makers of consumer products -- have made pledges, though some are more stringent than others.
International Institute of Tropical Agriculture