Palm Oil Labelling - It Shouldn't Be A Marathon

Unmask Palm Oil is the Australasian campaign for mandatory labelling of palm oil. Palm Oil is the ingredient in our food that, when produced unsustainably, causes large scale deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia. Under Australia and New Zealand labelling legislation palm oil doesn't even have to be labelled in the ingredients list. Unmask Palm Oil is out to change that.

Now in our fourth year, we would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who has supported us and offered us encouragement so far. Each year we have been building in momentum and the next twelve months are set to be our biggest yet.

As some of you may be aware, in June 2015, ten ministers from every state, territorial and federal government of Australia and New Zealand will be meeting to decide whether mandatory labelling of palm oil goes to the next stage of policy development. We believe that it is a consumer right to know what is in our products so in the build up to this we are going to be heavily lobbying all ten of these ministers to ensure they vote for transparency in 2015.

With our Trans-Tasman efforts come some running costs. It takes funds to put the best policy research in front of Ministers, to keep our team out on the road and in the corridors of power and in public raising awareness of this issue.

So, here's the point where we ask you if you would consider donating to Unmask Palm Oil. If this is an issue that you would like to support then we would be extremely grateful.

We are a fully not for profit organisation that is only made possible by generous donations from people like you.

Here's what we we've been able to achieve over the last 12 months through donations:

-High level meetings with Australian government ministers and key Australian retailers Coles and Woolworths

-Successfully lobbying for the support of the Maori Party, Green Party and New Zealand First in New Zealand

-Public workshops in Sydney, Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.

-Delivering the campaign presentation to nearly 4000 people

-Presenting our petition of 7500 people and our select committee presentation at New Zealand Parliament

-A doubling of our 2012 social media hits and an increase of our media exposure through magazines, TV and radio.

Your funds would enable us to continue this and to extend further as we head into a decisive year for palm oil in 2015.

So, to fundraise this year we’re going all out. Our multi-talented creative director Matt Dowdle will be pounding the pavement racing in the Auckland Marathon (42.km). It will indeed be a marathon for Matt on the first Sunday morning in November, but palm oil labeling doesn’t have to be the same. Your donations will help us lobby for this change and get labeling to the finish line.

If the target of $5000 is reached, campaign director Ben Dowdle will be facing his phobia of heights and bungy jumping off the Harbour Bridge – in a gorilla suit for good measure.

Once again, we sincerely thank you for getting us this far. We'd love for you to join us in this fundraising campaign to help us get labeling over the line.

Thanks from the team at Unmask Palm Oil