Talk to Dove before they destroy Paradise Forests

Unilever, the makers of Dove beauty products, are buying palm oil from suppliers who destroy Indonesia's rainforests. They're causing forest destruction, species extinction and climate change.

Together we can make the company stop destroying forests for palm oil.

Join the international Dove campaign today - sign the open letter below.

Why this step is so important:

Unilever invests heavily in brands like Dove soap, Flora (Becel) margarine, OMO and Persil laundry detergent, Pot Noodle and Unox soups so people will trust them. Branding makes products personal. That's why for this step in the campaign we need you to do it alone -- to write in your own words, person-to-person.

Show the top managers at Unilever that you care, that you can see what the palm oil business is doing to Indonesia's forests, and that they have to change immediately.

How this works:

Please use your own email program (like Outlook or Hotmail or Gmail) to write a new mail. You can use our list of points below to help write the message.

Send your email to these addresses:

patrick.cescau@unilever.com, kees.vandergraaf@unilever.com, ralph.kugler@unilever.com, lettemieke.mulder@unilever.com, jan-kees.vis@unilever.com, doveaction@greenpeace.org

Feel free to write about your own experiences and thoughts too. Please remember that you are writing to people who also have hopes and feelings for the Earth.

Your message will be sent to these people at Unilever: Patrick Cescau (Group CEO), Kees van der Graaf (President Europe), Ralph Kugler (President Home and Personal Care), Lettemieke Mulder (Director Corporate Responsibility), Jan Kees Vis (Sustainable Agriculture Director and Chairman of RSPO). The email will also go to a special Greenpeace address for the online campaign.

Points you could make:

1. Indonesia is losing its forest faster then anywhere else on Earth, driving species like orang-utans to extinction.
2. Due to the destruction of rainforests and peatlands, Indonesia is currently the 3rd biggest greenhouse gas polluter in the world (behind only USA and China). And palm oil plantations are causing much of the deforestation.
3. Unilever is one of the world's biggest users of Indonesian palm oil for many of its products. About half of Unilever's palm oil supply comes from Indonesia. As recently as 2005, Unilever purchased 1 in every 20 tonnes of palm oil produced in the country.
4. Indonesian palm oil is used in products like Dove, Knorr, Walls, Ola, Persil, Omo, Surf, Flora and Becel.
5. Demand for palm oil is forecast to grow quickly. According to the UN 98 percent of Indonesia's lowland forest will be destroyed by 2022 if trends continue.
6. Unilever has failed to take any effective action to ensure its palm oil is sourced from sustainable sources. It also heads the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) which has overseen the situation continue to get worse.
7. Unilever, as a major buyer of palm oil, and leader of the RSPO, is in a unique position to help save Indonesia's rainforests.
8. At the moment the RSPO is little more than a greenwashing operation because RSPO members continue to be involved in the destruction of Indonesia's rainforests
9. Greenpeace investigations show that it is Unilever's own palm oil traders and producers (themselves RSPO members) who are leading 'aggressive expansion' of the sector that results in the devastation of the last remaining orang-utan rainforest and peatland habitat in Borneo.

You know you did a good thing.

A big hug from the Whale of a Time Team

Whale of a Time Review of Blue Planet Live! @ Wembley Arena

Blue Planet Live! Tour in the UK

London Wembley Arena – 5th April

Cardiff St David’s Hall – 12th & 13th April

Nottingham Arena – 19th April

Manchester Central (formerly GMEX) – 20th April

Blue Planet Education Day @ University of Manchester - 21st April

Birmingham Symphony Hall – 24th & 25th April

...weird and wonderful creatures of the deep, the spinning dolphins and the killer whales

Imagine that on a simply massive scale; one of the biggest screens ever in the UK in fact...

Imagine a full 76 piece orchestra pounding out the dramatic and emotional music conducted by the very man who wrote the music and you can probably imagine exactly what we're talking about here. Whale of a Time was present at Wembley Arena. We've put our experience into words for you to feel the magic that we felt from the ocean dream world.

Whale of a Time Review of Blue Planet Live! @ Wembley Arena

I open my eyes and I believe I can see my dream unfolding billions of years in one second when all life began. I’m on the blue planet with the largest habitable ecosystem that we know of – the ocean. I’m diving deep down in the darkest space on Earth where life exists amongst hot volcanic sources. I can feel the Earth breathing slowly in and out as I see the carbondioxide bubbles dancing in spiral form to the surface into the atmosphere providing vitality to all chlorophyle cells of the Earth. Deep down in the darkest shadow of the living kosmos are the smallest micro organisms, weaving translucent patterns, a net of life support for all organisms that depend on it. Tiny multi-cellular alien creatures come in thousands of different forms and sizes with each being as unique as each other.

This is an alien world where creatures evolved with the most peculiar astonishing imaginative looks, shapes and effects so beautiful that one could not find anywhere else in the universe. Aliens using the most perfect colourful glowing phosphorescence moving light patterns programmed and produced over millions of years of research and development by nature’s multifaceted evolutionary system. It’s beauty and perfect design touched my spirit right through my bones like hypnotised I would follow the light in the darkness. Its presence brings warmth and the most beautiful moonshine into the darkest realm of the ocean. It all makes perfect sense seeing these transparent alien creatures in the crystal clear water.

The ocean is giving birth to all life on this planet. This fantastic world under-water is painted with such magical beauty that it transforms me as my dream manifests itself. I follow the sound of the orchestra rolling, twisting, and turning while diving in and out of the dark blue colour of the ocean alongside a pod of dolphins. I feel the water splashes on my skin, I can hear their songs, I see their curiosity and playfulness in their faces, their happiness and joy comes from the freedom in the never-ending ocean playground. Their perfectly dynamic body is formed by the waves of the ocean over billions of years of evolution. Chasing fish swarms going round in circles these patterns of colour and movement reflect the sunlight onto the ocean ground.

In the moving landscapes of the ocean live giant turtles. As I come out of the depth to fill my lungs with air I travel like a bird in the sky. As I’m flying through the arctic sky I notice polar bears playing, rolling down a snow hill while their mother is watching her young with care and a big smile on the face. It’s her kingdom of ice. Snow foxes and snow rabbits chasing through the sugar landscape of their homeland.

From the distance, thousands of kilometres above the ocean I can see a mountain, like a lonely island in the middle of a dessert surrounded by water. As I come closer the island transforms into two floating rocks, a grey whale mother and her baby on their journey cruising around the water world. I can hear the baby whale making some high pitched squeaking noises to her mother when she responds with some deep bubbling sounds like a clarinet under water. The whales are being chased by a pod of Orcas. The Orcas come closer. The baby is crying for help and the sound is broken by the sound of a flute as the Orcas break a piece off the mountain island, which is washed away by a wave into a sea of red. The big lonely island continues the journey leaving a part of its love behind, filling the ocean with tears.

The wind beats the ocean waves high above into the sky and a storm takes my heart to the sunrise where penguins are getting ready in their diving suits for an expedition in the sea of ice. Ready in line patiently they queue and march towards the diving station. The crystal clear water bubbles as they shoot with the highest speed off the ground passing the blue ice landscape underwater. The penguins are shooting straight like an arrow out of the water each landing on a different space on the top of the ice platform. I’m diving out of the water flying in the sky as I spot an island in the ocean.

As I dive closer I can recognise the great blue whale cruising in the ultramarine blue ocean. As I’m getting closer to the blue island, it makes an elegant majestic dive into the depth of the ocean, a waterfall is pouring from its fluke taking my dream with a rainbow into the depth of the ocean while filling the orchestra with the life of the sea where my dream becomes alive as I hear the sound of the music.

My experience of the Blue Planet fills my mind with the spirit of the true beauty of nature - a dream in reality.

End.

Cyberstarlet, Whale of a Time April 2008