Commodities minister says critically endangered animals might be given to international locations that purchase Malaysia’s palm oil.
Malaysia has mentioned it plans to begin an “orangutan diplomacy” programme for international locations that purchase its palm oil.
The Southeast Asian nation is the world’s second largest producer of the edible oil after Indonesia, however critics say the mass growth of the trade has fuelled deforestation and destroyed the habitat of critically endangered orangutans and different emblematic species in one of many world’s biodiversity hotspots.
Orangutans reside solely on the island of Borneo and the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
The Worldwide Union for Conservation of Nature’s Purple Listing estimates the orangutan inhabitants on Borneo, which is shared between Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia, will decline to about 47,000 by 2025 on account of human pressures and lack of habitat. It estimates there are about 13,500 orangutans left in Sumatra.
Minister of Plantation and Commodities Johari Abdul Ghani mentioned the orangutan programme was impressed by China’s panda diplomacy and would goal international locations shopping for palm oil to “show” Malaysia’s dedication to conservation and biodiversity.
He mentioned main importing international locations, resembling China, India and a few European Union members, would seemingly obtain the orangutans. He didn’t elaborate on how the programme would work or when it might begin.
“Malaysia can not take a defensive strategy to palm oil,” he instructed delegates at a biodiversity discussion board in Genting, east of Kuala Lumpur, that he later shared on social media. “We have to present the international locations of the world that Malaysia is a sustainable oil palm producer and dedicated to defending forests.”
Beijing, which operates an enormous panda breeding programme, usually loans pandas for 10 years offering the international locations meet sure circumstances for his or her care. Malaysia received two pandas in 2014, constructing them a multimillion-dollar air-conditioned enclosure on the Nationwide Zoo in Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysia doesn’t have a breeding programme for orangutans, though there are conservation centres for them in Sarawak and Sabah on Borneo. NGOs additionally run conservation programmes to revive their habitat.
Johari urged massive palm oil producers to collaborate with NGOs on conservation and sustainability.
Palm oil is utilized in an enormous number of merchandise, from shampoo to ice cream and bread.
The trade has been making an attempt to enhance sustainability amid strain from campaigners over its impact on the setting by teams such because the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).