Peru has just made the commendable promise to ban palm oil deforestation by 2021, according to new reports.
In what the National Wildlife Federation are hailing as a "momentous win" for sustainable agriculture, they're becoming the second South American country after Colombia to produce the oil without destroying any more rainforest.
It's taken two years to achieve the result, with The NWF, Sociedad Peruana de Ecodesarrollo, Peru's palm oil Producers' Association and the government all working closely together.
"This commitment is a momentous development for the people of Peru and the global effort to confront climate change," said Kiryssa Kasprzyk, who led the National Wildlife Federation's work, said in a statement to Live Kindly.
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"It underscores that we can feed the world without hurting biodiversity or clear-cutting tropical forests."
The move will make a huge difference considering palm oil can be found in half of all packaged goods in UK supermarkets - think bread, cereal, chocolate, wine, yoghurt, shampoo and conditioner, to name just a few...
To produce the oil, vast areas of forests are currently being burnt down to make plantations, and it goes without saying that this is horrendous for global warming, with 10 per cent of all global emissions coming from the carbon dioxide released by deforested trees.
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But it doesn't stop there - the deforestation has also caused orangutans to be classified as critically endangered, with Bornean orangutan populations more than halving between 1999 and 2015.
According to Global Forest Watch, 140,000 hectares of forest were chopped down last year in Peru, making it the country with the seventh highest forest loss.
The new bold move comes as both Norway and Germany have also signed the Joint Declaration of Intent, expressing their intent to stop deforestation by 2021.
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Well done, Peru. Who's next?
Featured Image Credit: PixabayTopics: Environment, News