Emma Rae Lierley is a senior communications manager at Rainforest Action Network. A lifelong writer and environmentalist, she works to harness the power of storytelling for social change.
Emma Rae Lierley is a senior communications manager at Rainforest Action Network. A lifelong writer and environmentalist, she works to harness the power of storytelling for social change. A long-time freelance journalist and poet, Lierley’s writing has appeared in numerous publications.
She has also worked with youth in environmental justice organizations, in sustainable agriculture as an apprentice farmer, and as a trail crew lead and wild land firefighter with the United States Forest Service. Originally from Seattle, Washington, Lierley is currently based in Oakland, California.
International NGOs have condemned an announcement by the Malaysian palm oil giant IOI Group (IOI) that it intends to sell its stake in a controversial palm oil plantation that has been at the center of a longstanding conflict with communities in Sarawak, Malaysia.
The Leuser Ecosystem on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia thrums with life. It is an ancient, 6.5 million acres of lush rainforest and steamy peat swamps, and because of its rich biodiversity, is one of the most important rainforests still standing today.
Its clear rivers provide drinking water for millions of people and its lowland and mountainous rainforests are literally the last place on Earth where Sumatran elephants, orangutans, tigers, rhinos and sunbears still coexist in the wild. Globally, we all depend on it for the climate regulating effects such a large carbon-sink can have.
And yet, the Leuser Ecosystem is being actively destroyed for palm oil and other industries.
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A new report released today by Rainforest Action Network (RAN) calls out ten multinational brands and seven major banks that represent some of the most influential companies fueling the destruction of rainforests and the violation of human rights. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said that reducing deforestation and the degradation of natural ecosystems is one of the most effective ways to mitigate climate change globally.
Yet the report, titled Keep Forests Standing: Exposing Brands and Banks Driving Deforestation, outlines how the business practices of these brands and banks are continuing to drive the destruction of critical tropical rainforests, and in some cases, are failing to uphold their own commitments to end deforestation and respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights by 2020.