Girl Scouts USA Censors Comments on Rainforest-Killing Palm Oil

Two 15-year-old Girl Scouts — Madison Vorva and Rhiannon Tomtishen — have been working tirelessly to protect rainforests in Indonesia. While tens of thousands of people have expressed their support for the two Scouts' work, one group surprisingly refuses to join the girls — Girl Scouts of the USA, the national Girl Scouts organization.

Yesterday, Madison and Rhiannon partnered with Rainforest Action Network and Change.org in a social media day of action. The task at hand? Push Girl Scouts' CEO, Kathy Cloninger, to eliminate rainforest-destroying palm oil from all Girl Scout cookies. More than 56,000 Change.org members had already requested that Cloninger ditch palm oil, and the social media day of action was intended to turn up the pressure.

Hundreds of concerned citizens — including current and former Girl Scouts — participated in the day of action, tweeting at the Girl Scouts USA and writing on the organization's Facebook wall. But in a surprising act of censorship, Girl Scouts USA deleted palm oil-related comments from its wall shortly after the messages started rolling in. They also shut off users' abilities to post on the official Girl Scouts USA Facebook page, limiting subsequent palm oil comments to a single thread on the Facebook page.

But wait, it gets worse.

In addition to the shocking act of censorship, Girl Scouts USA posted the following message on the organization's Facebook wall: "This morning, Girl Scouts was the focus of an article regarding Palm Oil in our cookies. Our bakers exclusively source palm oil from members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. The Girl Scout Cookie Program is the most successful entrepreneurship program for girls—and only girls—in the world. Follow the link for more information. Please use this thread for all comments relating to palm oil."

Not only did Girl Scouts USA censor concerned citizens and its own Girl Scouts, the organization misled folks with its message of "sustainable palm oil." To become a member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), food companies merely pay an annual membership fee. No one ensures that these companies actually use palm oil that didn't contribute to deforestation of the rainforest. Without any kind of accountability or third-party certification, RSPO membership can hardly be considered a sustainable choice.

Here's what's really at stake: Most of the world's palm oil comes from Indonesia. In order to produce palm oil, though, plantation owners oftentimes clear-cut pristine rainforest and bulldoze peatlands to plant row after row of oil palm trees. All that deforestation contributes to climate change and threatens the species that call Indonesian rainforests home, like endangered orangutans and Sumatran tigers.

Censoring Facebook comments may have thrown a wrench in our social media day of action, but Girl Scouts USA's actions showed us one encouraging fact: Our overwhelming support for palm oil-free cookies is intimidating the organization. After all, more than 56,000 Change.org members have signed Madison and Rhiannon's petition to Cloninger, and the single Facebook thread on the Girl Scouts USA's Facebook wall has more than 330 comments, most of which are in opposition to palm oil. Hundreds of folks also tweeted at the Girl Scouts USA yesterday, so you can bet that Cloninger is feeling the pressure.

Let's not stop until we get CEO Cloninger to meet with Madison and Rhiannon and commit to ditching rainforest-destroying palm oil. To find out how you can use social media to help move this campaign forward, check out our blog post here. And if you haven't already signed Madi and Rhiannon's petition, you can take action here.

Photo credit: DrLianPinKoh via Flickr