Malaysian Palm Oil Industry Denies Fuelling Orang-Utan Extinction

FLORA AND FAUNA

"Almost 90 percent of the orang-utan's habitat in Indonesia and Malaysia has now been destroyed. Some experts estimate that 5,000 orang-utan perish as a result every year," Friends of the Earth said.

Kuala Lumpur (AFP) Oct 13, 2005
Malaysia's palm oil industry denied Thursday accusations it was driving orang-utans towards extinction.

Environmental campaigners Friends of the Earth last month said demand for palm oil, which is widely used in processed foods, could cause Asia's only great ape to be wiped out within 12 years unless there was urgent intervention in the palm oil trade.

The Malaysian Palm Oil Association, Malaysian Palm Oil Board and Malaysian Palm Oil Promotion Council denied the charges, saying palm oil was a strategic, well-planned agricultural industry which supported the preservation of wildlife including the orang-utan.

"These allegations are not well founded and contain a number of factual inaccuracies," they said in a joint statement to the national Bernama news agency.

"The industry is far better regulated and the orang-utan far better protected than is suggested in the report," they said adding that the industry often preserved jungle reserves and wildlife sanctuaries as part of efforts to maintain the existing biodiversity found in plantations.

A recent survey showed that thousands of orang-utans remained in and around the Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary in east Sabah state on Borneo island, they added.

In a report which Friends of the Earth dubbed the "Oil for Ape Scandal", the environmental group said wildlife centres in Indonesia were over-run with orphaned baby orang-utans that had been rescued from forests being cleared to make way for new plantations.

"Almost 90 percent of the orang-utan's habitat in Indonesia and Malaysia has now been destroyed. Some experts estimate that 5,000 orang-utan perish as a result every year," it said.

"Oil-palm plantations have now become the primary cause of the orang-utans' decline, wiping out its rainforest home in Borneo and Sumatra."

Palm oil is found in one in 10 products on supermarket shelves, including bread, crisps and cereals as well as lipstick and soap, it said.

The red-haired apes, close kin to humans, are found only on Borneo, which is shared by Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei, and on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

Their numbers have dwindled to less than 60,000 from a population that once spanned Southeast Asia.

As well as forest clearing, they are threatened by commercial logging, hunting and poaching for the bush meat and pet trades and forest fires.

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FLORA AND FAUNA

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