Child labor, orangutans and Thin Mints: Two renegade Girl Scouts raise questions about palm oil use

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.annarbor.com/news/slave-labor-and-thin-mints-two-renegade-girl-scouts-are-asking-the-question/

By Juliana Keeping

Two renegade Girl Scouts are raising questions about whether iconic treats like Thin Mints are linked via palm oil to slave and child labor in Southeast Asia.

Rhiannon Tomtishen and Madison Vorva, who are sophomores at Greenhills School in Ann Arbor, stopped selling Girl Scout cookies in 2007 after they began working on public service project to bring attention to the plight of endangered orangutans in Borneo. The animals live in the rainforests that the cultivation of palm oil destroys.

Vorva says the U.S. Department of Labor’s List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor in 2010 linked palm oil produced in Indonesia with child labor, and within Malaysia, with forced labor. The majority of world's palm oil comes from these countries.



Girl Scouts Rhiannon Tomtishen, left, and Madison Vorva, both of Ann Arbor, have been campaigning to raise awareness of the human and environmental impact of the organization's famous cookies.


“Kids should not have to choose between selling cookies and getting to camp or choosing rainforest deforestation and orangutan extinction. There are links to slave labor as well,” Vorva said. “There should be no human rights abuses occurring in Girl Scout cookies either.”

The use of palm oil in the majority of cookie recipes is out of sync with the organization’s mission to make the world a better place, Tomtishen said.

Employing lessons about confidence and standing up for yourself learned at troop meetings growing up, the two 15-year-olds have vowed to carry on the fight against palm oil until Girl Scouts of the USA makes a change.

The pair won a Girl Scout Bronze Award for their work in 2007, but the campaign against palm oil has continued since then. It’s taken on a more mature, insistent and darker tone, buoyed by the new partnership with the environmental activism group Rainforest Action Network.

FULL story at link.

[cliffordu]

1. You had me at renegade girl scouts......

[Sherman A1]

2. Excellent!

Girls who took the time to do their homework and not blindly follow.

[snagglepuss]

3. I used the online form to contact Girl Guide's CEO Kathy Cloninger to lend my support

snip

Still, their campaign has picked up steam.

The Rainforest Action Network set up an online form that makes it easy for those interested to send a letter to Girl Scouts of the USA CEO Kathy Cloninger to pressure the organization to stop using palm oil.

http://act.ran.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=3708




:kick:

[eShirl]

4. good for them

<--- former Girl Scout