UK supermarket giants demand ever increasing amounts of palm oil, a vegetable oil found in one in ten products on supermarket shelves, is driving the orang-utan towards extinction, new research reveals. The `Oil for Ape Scandal', published by Friends of the Earth and the world's leading orang-utan conservation groups, concludes that without urgent intervention the palm oil trade could cause the extinction of Asia's only great ape within years. Palm oil is found in a diverse range of products on our supermarket shelves, from bread, crisps, margarine and cereals to lipstick and soap. Despite being warned for years by environmental groups that oil-palm plantations are associated with rainforest destruction as well as human rights abuse, the report finds that most UK companies do not even know where their palm oil comes from. New evidence shows that orangutan rescue centres in Indonesia are over-flowing with orphaned baby orang-utans rescued from forests being cleared to make way for oil-palm plantations. The Indonesian Government is now planning to convert a significant area of Tanjung Puting National Park, the world's most famous protected area for orangutan, into an oil-palm plantation. Research by Friends of the Earth found that at least 84 per cent of UK companies are failing to take effective action to ensure they do not buy palm oil from destructive sources and that not one single UK supermarket knows where the palm oil originates in the products it sells. Friends of the Earth and orangutan conservation groups say that the failure of UK companies to take action shows that they cannot be trusted to act responsibly. They are calling on the UK Government to give company directors a legal duty to minimise their environmental impacts through the Company Law Reform Bill, which will have its first reading in Parliament later this year. Recently the United Nations published the Kinshasa Declaration, an action plan backed by the UK Government to protect crucial forest areas and save the world's great apes from extinction . The Indonesian Government signed on to this agreement but so far Malaysia has failed to do so. Friends of the Earth and the orang-utan conservation groups urge both Governments to implement the declaration and end the conversion of orang-utan habitat into oil-palm plantations. Friends of the Earth Palm Oil Campaigner Ed Matthew said: "While the UK Government is prepared to fund international ape conservation it is failing to clean up its own back yard. Over 100 UK companies and every single British supermarket is helping fuel the obliteration of orang-utan habitat. The Government must amend the Company Law Reform Bill to stop UK companies acting so destructively."