Greenpeace

Ren Ostry is a Greenpeace Semester alum from the fall 2010 class and a  current campus coordinator at Ithaca College with the Greenpeace Student Network.  Read her story below! 

The second largest palm oil company in the world has finally heeded to a global Greenpeace campaign that included Greenpeace youth, and I’m happy to announce that the palm oil branch of Sinar Mas, Golden Agri-Resources (GAR), has agreed to stop deforestation in the Indonesian rainforest!

This win is not only huge for Indonesia, for our planet, and for our future, but for the youth activists at Greenpeace as well. The forest campaigns that targeted Burger King, Nestle, and Unilever were won with the help of dedicated Greenpeace youth activists who organized and demanded that these companies stop supporting rainforest destruction.

Last fall, I had the incredible opportunity to join this campaign with my Greenpeace Semester class. We went to Philadelphia to carry out a week of actions outside various Pizza Huts and insist that they join the ranks of Burger King and the others by cutting their contract with GAR. We collected hundreds of postcards, drove calls in to Pizza Hut Headquarters, made “Pizza Cut” props and uniforms, and dressed as orangutans that were protesting to save their brothers and sisters back in Indonesia.

We didn’t see Pizza Hut fold that week, but so many managers passed our message along that the company made plans to fly a regional manager in to find out what was going on! I was so pumped by our week of actions that I couldn’t stop there. When I got home after the Greenpeace Semester, I hosted a pizza party.  A local pizza parlor donated a few pies, and I took the opportunity to share with my friends and family what was going on in Indonesia. We pledged to begin eating more local and sustainable foods that are healthier for us and for our planet, and we made phone calls to companies that hold contracts with GAR.

The look on the managers’ faces in Philadelphia when they learned what their companies were doing, and the passion that erupted in my own community as people made the choice to be mindful and think globally about their purchases, inspired me so deeply. I have seen first hand through this campaign what we are capable of if we continue to inspire and educate each other!

I am now campus coordinator at Ithaca College for the Greenpeace Student Network. I’m grateful that I have this opportunity to continue to motivate and aggregate youth activists. I’ve seen directly through this campaign that if you take the time to educate and embrace a cause, others will follow suit. Our generation is one of reclamation, and we will not let the corruption, greed, and naiveté in this world continue. From saving the rainforests of Indonesia to demanding a coal-free Facebook, I can promise you that there are young people fighting for a greener and more peaceful future every day.