Healthy Nation

For Madison Vorva and Rhiannon Tomtishen, it all began with orangutans. Four years ago-inspired by the work of primate researcher Jane Goodall-the two friends from Ann Arbor, Mich., collaborated on a research report on the endangered primates to help qualify for their Girl Scout Bronze award, one of the highest prizes offered by the 3.2 million-member organization. Vorva and Tomtishen have both been scouts since they were five years old, and they take their roles and responsibilities seriously. So when they discovered that one of the major threats to orangutan populations in Indonesia was deforestation caused by the growth of palm plantations-and that the iconic cookies the Girl Scouts sell can sometimes contain palm oil from plantations on deforested land-the girls refused to simply do nothing. “Being a Girl Scout is about showing stewardship for the land,” says Vorva, who is now 16. (Tomtishen is 15.) “We knew we had to keep fighting.”

For the past few years, Vorva and Tomtishen have worked to get the attention of Girls Scouts of the USA-the scouts’ national organization-and get palm oil out of the 198 million boxes of Girl Scout cookies sold each year. They began by convincing their own troop to stop selling cookies until the Girl Scouts removed palm oil or found a more sustainable source that wouldn’t lead to deforestation. As Vorva and Tomtishen spread their message with the help of the Web, social networks and the Rainforest Action Network-an activist group dedicated to fighting deforestation-other Girl Scout troops around the country began rebelling, sending thousands of emails to the Scouts’ national leadership. “We were really happy with the way other scouts responded once they found out what was going on,” says Tomtishen.

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