Tropical Forests Program RAN's Tropical Forests Program focuses on stopping rainforest deforestation and degradation and the oppression of forest peoples in
Indonesia. As a result of
deforestation and the destruction of
peatland for the
agribusiness and
pulp and paper industries, Indonesia is now the third largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world.
Rainforest Agribusiness: palm oil RAN's Rainforest Agribusiness campaign, The Problem With Palm Oil, centers around the
social and environmental impact of palm oil plantations in the rainforests of
Indonesia and
Malaysia.
Palm oil plantations in these areas result in the clearcutting of tropical hardwoods, the killing of local wildlife, the displacement of local communities and a significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions. The campaign's main target has been
Cargill, a privately owned agribusiness company and the largest supplier of palm oil to the United States. While still applying pressure to Cargill, in 2010 RAN began campaigning for responsible use of palm oil by food production giant
General Mills through direct action tactics, negotiation and membership engagement; eight months later General Mills issued a strong palm oil policy and committed to getting all of its palm oil from responsible sources by 2015. The campaign simultaneously collaborated with teenagers Madison Vorva and Rhiannon Tomtishen to help them in their campaign to make Girl Scout Cookies palm-oil free. The two young women were awarded the prestigious
Brower Youth Award for their work.
Energy and Finance program The Energy and Finance campaign targets financial institutions involved in the financing of destructive forestry and fossil fuels projects. Historically, the campaign has succeeded in obtaining strong environmental policies from banks such as
Citi,
Bank of America,
JP Morgan Chase, and others. Currently, the campaign focuses on discouraging banks' financing of coal projects, and especially
mountaintop removal mining (MTR), principally within the United States. This form of
surface mining uses millions of tons of explosives to blow apart mountain peaks in order to access the coal seam below. According to Rainforest Action Network, eight of nine banks that previously funded MTR have now established policies and criteria to restrict their funding of this devastating form of coal mining. Beginning in the Fall of 2011, the Energy and Finance Program has been campaigning to move Bank of America, whom they name as the leading US financier of the coal industry, to divest from their coal investments and invest in renewable energy sources.
We Can Change Chevron: toxic waste oil Launched in December 2009, the We Can Change Chevron campaign targets the California-based oil corporation for their subsidiary Texaco's dumping of of
waste oil into the
Amazon rainforest in
Ecuador. We Can Change Chevron aims to pressure Chevron into paying for the cleanup of the waste oil pits abandoned by their subsidiary, and to develop an environmental and human rights policy that will prevent future scenarios like this from occurring in the future. Chevron acquired Texaco in 2001, and asserts that Texaco completed its agreement to clean up its share of the waste generated by the joint venture between Texaco and Petroecuador, the state run oil company. The company claims it cleaned up one third of the waste, more than its share of the agreement with Petroecuador, and the rest of the responsibility lies with the state who has had sole ownership of the oil fields since 1992. The case resulted in a historic ruling against the oil giant, who was ordered to pay $18 billion in damages to the plaintiffs. After an appeal by Chevron, the judgement was upheld by an Ecuadorian court in January 2012. ==Controversies==