As a child, Lyndl Kean was always fascinated by apes and as she grew up she heard about the threats to orangutans, she was determined to save the species from extinction.
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Now 27 and the Miss Earth Australia title holder, Kean is heading to Sumatra, Indonesia to work with The Orangutan Project at a sanctuary to raise awareness about the endangered species.
"When I won Miss Earth Australia which is an environmental beauty pageant – I thought, now's the best time to do it, using the beauty pageant as a platform to raise awareness and to get people to start doing something," Ms Kean said.
"The overall goal is to obviously help save the species from extinction, which is actually something that could happen in my lifetime which scares me half to death – it's so upsetting, it's so confronting.
"My short-term goal is that I really want to change the laws on palm oil labelling."
Since 2009, Zoos Victoria's "Don't Palm Us Off" campaign has advocated for palm oil labelling in Australia, with the aim to weaken Australia's link to the palm oil crisis and the loss of orangutans. Palm oil is found in up to 50 per cent of all packaged supermarket products, but it remains mostly hidden.
"Right now food manufactures can hide if their products contain palm oil which is contributing to thousands of orangutan deaths per year," Ms Kean, who's an ambassador for the campaign, said. "I've come across people who don't know about palm oil labelling – which boosted me to want to go on this trip because I thought everyone did.
"People want to do the right thing, but they can't because they are not given the option."
Government ministers met last week to consider recommendations to change food labelling laws that would see palm oil clearly labelled in Australia, but the issue was delayed.
"They've delayed the meeting for another six months, which basically is saying that it's OK for another 500 orangutan to die just while they're waiting to get their act together."
Ms Kean will leave for Indonesia and the Bukit Tigapuluh National Park in early May where she will also be filming her own documentary.
"Like every Australian, I've only been to Bali – but it will be my first time out and it's going to be very rural, central jungle and a lot of trekking involved and I'm very excited about it."
