Malaysia plans ‘orangutan diplomacy’ in palm oil pitch
Commodities minister says critically endangered animals could be given to countries that buy Malaysia’s palm oil.
Malaysia has said it plans to start an “orangutan diplomacy” programme for countries that buy its palm oil.
The Southeast Asian nation is the world’s second biggest producer of the edible oil after Indonesia, but critics say the mass development of the industry has fuelled deforestation and destroyed the habitat of critically endangered orangutans and other emblematic species in one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots.
Malaysia has said it plans to start an “orangutan diplomacy” programme for countries that buy its palm oil.
The Southeast Asian nation is the world’s second biggest producer of the edible oil after Indonesia, but critics say the mass development of the industry has fuelled deforestation and destroyed the habitat of critically endangered orangutans and other emblematic species in one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots.
He said leading importing countries, such as China, India and some European Union members, would likely receive the orangutans. He did not elaborate on how the programme would work or when it would start.
“Malaysia cannot take a defensive approach to palm oil,” he told delegates at a biodiversity forum in Genting, east of Kuala Lumpur, that he later shared on social media. “We need to show the countries of the world that Malaysia is a sustainable oil palm producer and committed to protecting forests.”
Malaysia does not have a breeding programme for orangutans, although there are conservation centres for them in Sarawak and Sabah on Borneo. NGOs also run conservation programmes to restore their habitat.
Johari urged large palm oil producers to collaborate with NGOs on conservation and sustainability.
No single utterance by a Malaysian minister under the s0-called Madani government has resonated globally quite like this one. Every news organisation across Europe and the US has picked up on this partially explained proposal.
Johari can therefore be congratulated for accurately putting his finger on the pulse, but unfortunately it has been with a negative impact that demonstrates the chasm of understanding that exits between the conservationist concerns of western consumers and the defensive anger of palm oil providers from Malaysia.
Any client needs to be won round with the right approach. A scientifically educated public concerned about the loss of global biodiversity, the eradication of natural spaces and the consequential disasters of escalating climate change, food insecurity and the loss of the DNA bank from which future medicines, foods and life on earth depend, is not going to be placated by the gift of a captive Orang Utan in a cage.
To the contrary, across Europe, where the confinement of zoos is increasingly frowned upon, people have been left horrified by the thought.
Pandas may have enchanted in the 1970s, but now the threat of technology to the future of the planet and the vital importance of our natural habitat, not only for the survival of other species but for humans also, is better understood.
The public from the advanced economies (who, granted, ruined much of their own less important habitat more than a hundred years ago) want to see Pandas and other species protected by sufficient areas of natural space for them to live free as emblems of a wider healthy habitat which the whole world needs to conserve – not stuck in a western zoo.
Maybe, this is exactly what Johari is in fact alluding to when he speaks of working with NGOs on conservation, which is a positive statement that potential palm oil customers need help to better understand.
In which case, this part of his message needs to be elaborated and actively re-enforced with a programme of positive activity and engagement.
Too often the palm oil industry proponents from Malaysia have instead vilified environmentalists, depicting concerned scientists and campaigners as paid agents of rival oil producers and as ‘brainwashers’ of children.
Economic rivalry is not what motivates millions of green voters and many more product aware supermarket buyers. Unable to stop the wholescale destruction caused by rampant logging and plantations in Borneo (home to the Orang Utan) those consumers are determined to use their consumer power to counter it instead.
Johari has identified the strategy that can bring together East and West on this painful issue, which is to seek collaboration and adopt sustainable measures. This has to include allowing the protection of this iconic apex species through the conservation of sufficient natural forest.
Don’t sent these extraordinary ‘Folk of the Jungle’ over to Europe in a cage. Instead, send the evidence they are living happily and roaming free in Borneo in sufficient numbers and thereby unlock the European market for Malaysia’s current top product.
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