AGGRESSIVE CONSERVATION EFFORTS IN OIL PALM PLANTATIONS

TUARAN (Malaysia), Oct 1 (Bernama) -- Malaysia has taken a comprehensive
approach in developing its palm oil industry by giving focus to the need to
conserve the environment despite allegations to the contrary, said Plantation
Industries and Commodities Minister Bernard Dompok.

"As the minister responsible for the palm oil development, I am equally
concerned about unfounded allegations that are made by among others,
non-governmental organisations (NGOs), regarding palm oil development and
deforestation.

"In addition, palm oil is also singled out as one of the primary causes of
deforestation, depletion of biodiversity and the displacement of endangered
species such as the orang utan.

"In this context, I wish to stress that all the allegations are
unjustified," Dompok said when opening the Orang Utan Conservation Colloquium
2009, jointly organised by the Borneo Conservation Trust, Sabah Wildlife
Department, the NGO Hutan, Land and Survey Department and Malaysian Palm Oil
Council here, Thursday.

Dompok said Malaysia has a very large land area gazetted as forest reserves
comprising 56 per cent or more than half of the land area.

"This is a very high percentage compared to other developed countries such
as the United Kingdom, which only has 11.8 per cent of land area under primary
forest, the United States with 33 per cent and Germany with 31.7 per cent," he
said.

MPOC chairman Lee Yeow Chor said the palm oil industry in Malaysia had
always been a responsible industry, and were constantly policed by a battery of
state and federal legislations.

East Malaysia state of Sabah, with 1.3 million hectares planted with oil
palm or 30 per cent of the total oil palm area in Malaysia, is also home to
11,000 orang utans, making it a major stronghold for this species, he added.

As such, Lee said, it was a huge responsibility for Sabah to ensure a
healthy co-existence between the industry and the state's wildlife.

Speaking at a news conference later, Dompok said among the ongoing
conservation efforts was to connect forest areas through corridors so that
wildlife could go from one forested area to another, thus striking a balance
between conservation and land development.

For years, NGOs and the state government have been toying with the idea of a
forest corridors that will allow wildlife to move freely from one point to
another, notably through riparian areas which is along the river banks.

Dompok went further and said that he would not object if the state
government would want to acquire land to allow this to happen, but acknowledged
that it might be a complicated matter as Sabah is a huge state.

Lee said that on the planters' part, they had been maintaining forest
sanctuaries within their plantations; so it was just a matter of coordination
between plantations and companies to make it work.

Land and Survey Department Director Osman Jamal said under the Sabah Land
Ordinance 1930 and Forest Enactment of Sabah, 25 per cent of plantation areas
should be set aside for environmental purposes while the rest would be for
plantation.

This showed that the state government had all the while thought of the need
to look after the environment, he said.

"The only thing is, the government did not anticipate the movement of rhinos
and orang utans, so these (legislations) have not been geared towards that kind
of wildlife corridors as mentioned Thursday.

"And we cannot enforce them (planters) to work on (the environmental portion
of a plantation) because we are talking about business; what we should do is to
come up with a plan to show the movement of the wildlife.

"This way we don't penalise planters who breach the terms by planting
towards the river banks or riparian area but ask them to fund and rehabilitate
the place," he said.
-- BERNAMA