Want Some Deforestation with that Girl Scout Cookie?

A few years back, Madison Vorva and Rhiannon Tomtishen were doing research to earn Girl Scout Bronze Awards. The two scouts had decided to research endangered orangutans and found that a major cause of the creatures' demise was habitat loss from palm oil plantations. You can imagine the girls' dismay, then, when they found out that Girl Scout cookies are chock full of palm oil.

Rather than continue to hawk habitat-destroying desserts, the girls, now 15 years old, are campaigning to get the destructive palm oil out of Girl Scout cookies. The teens are taking on this campaign with a little help from Rainforest Action Network and Change.org.

Palm oil plantations are often produced by clear-cutting rainforest and peatlands in Southeast Asia. Not only does this deforestation destroy the habitat of orangutans, Sumatran tigers, and other endangered species, it also leads to conflicts between animals and people. "We've seen pictures of orangutans set afire and beaten," Vorva told the Ann Arbor News. "You really just want to reach out and do all that you can to help save them."

Palm oil production is also terrible for the environment. Deforestation is the source of about 20 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, and because peatlands act as carbon sinks, destroying them releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

After learning that the very cookies they were selling were contributing to these serious, global problems, Madison and Rhiannon wrote to Girl Scouts USA, but got nowhere. So they started Project ORANGS (Orangutans Really Need and Appreciate Girl Scouts) and enlisted the help of the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Center for Biological Diversity, Cultural Survival, Orangutan Foundation International, and Rainforest Action Network to get the Girl Scouts to pull unsustainable palm oil from all of their cookies. Girl Scouts USA still refuses to listen.

One would think that with a mission to build "girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place," the Girl Scouts USA would applaud Madison and Rhiannon in their effort to address a serious issue and create some positive change. Instead, the two young activists have been largely ignored.

You, however, can help the girls' out. Sign Rainforest Action Network's petition to Kathy Cloninger, the CEO of Girl Scouts USA, and tell her that destructive palm oil has no place in Girl Scout cookies.

Photo Credit: Marit & Toomas Hinnosaar via Flickr