Malaysia announces adopt-an-orang utan plan for palm oil importers

SANDAKAN, Sabah - Companies that import palm oil from Malaysia will be able to adopt orang utans, but they will not be able to leave the country, the commodities minister said on Aug 18, in a revised version of a conservation scheme announced earlier in 2024.

Plantations and Commodities Minister Johari Abdul Ghani also pledged to halt deforestation in Malaysia, saying 54 per cent of the country was forested and that the level would not fall below 50 per cent.

In May, the minister put forward

a plan to send orang utans abroad as trading gifts

in an effort to allay concerns about the impact on the animals' habitat of palm oil production, which tends to involve clearing forest land.

The plan

raised objections from conservation groups

fearful for the welfare of the orangutans that are critically endangered.

"The animals cannot leave their natural habitats. We have to keep them here. And then we will meet the countries or the buyers of our palm oil if they want to work together to ensure that these forests can be looked after and preserved forever," Datuk Seri Johari told a news conference in Sabah, northern Borneo.

Conservation group WWF says the population of the orang utan, whose name means "man of the forest" in Malay, is less than 105,000 on the island of Borneo.

The "orang utan diplomacy" scheme was first made public in May after the European Union in 2023 approved an import ban on commodities linked to deforestation.

Malaysia, the world's second-largest producer of palm oil which is used in anything from lipstick to pizza, described the law as discriminatory.

Mr Johari said funds raised from companies who adopt orang utans would be distributed to non-governmental organisations and the Sabah government to monitor the forested areas where the primates live, and seek to monitor the animals' safety and condition.

He did not give details on how much adoption would cost.

Mr Marc Ancrenaz, scientific director of non-government organisation Hutan, said he hoped the plan could fund habitat conservation work, such as building corridors between fragmented forests that are too small to sustain viable wildlife populations. REUTERS