Eat that ice cream, kill an orangutan

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Eat that ice cream, kill an orangutan

By Baradan Kuppusamy

 

KUALA LUMPUR - The orangutan is seriously endangered

by the dietary habits of his nearest cousin,

environmental activists say, explaining that man needs

vast quantities of palm oil to fry his greasy foods

and has been steadily turning Southeast Asia's forests

into palm plantations.

 

But the orangutan (man of the jungle) now has friends

in the enemy camp in the shape of international

non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that have

mounted a new campaign against the felling of forests

in Malaysia and Indonesia to make way for large-scale

cultivation of the palm.

 

So ferocious is the campaign - which holds that

orangutans will go extinct by 2020 if palm-oil

plantations continue to replace forests - that it has

shaken government officials and producers in the two

countries, which are the last refuge of the animal

that shares many human socio-biological traits.

 

In Malaysia, currently the world's largest producer of

palm oil, officials and producers worry that the

campaign would affect world demand for the product,

the country's second-biggest foreign-exchange earner

after petroleum.

 

And then there is competition. Indonesia is expected

to overtake Malaysia as the world's leading producer

shortly when new plantations begin production.

 

Since the Ape Alliance, a coalition of international

NGOs including Friends of the Earth, Borneo Orangutan

Survival Foundation and Nature Alert, launched the

worldwide campaign earlier this month there have been

quick and often blind rebuttals by Malaysian agencies

that promote palm oil and conduct marketing search.

 

Unlike earlier campaigns, the focus this time is not

on stopping deforestation and saving an endangered

species but on directly blaming Western consumers for

the decimation of orangutan populations.

 

The campaign argues that if you buy common household

items such as crisps, ice cream, detergents, bread,

lipstick and soap that contains palm oil, you are

helping to drive orangutans to extinction. The

campaigners say that as the demand for palm oil grows

so does the felling of forests and in turn the

destruction of orangutan habitats and exposure of the

animal to poachers.

 

Processed-food manufacturers prefer palm oil because

it does not need to undergo the costly process of

hydrogenization as with other cooking media. Its

stability at high temperatures makes it ideal for deep

frying, it gives fried products a longer shelf life

and it has a bland taste that brings out natural food

flavors.

 

Malaysia produced nearly 14 million tonnes of palm oil

in 2004, half the global output, from 3.8 million

hectares of plantation area.

 

The anti-palm oil campaign is centered in Britain,

which imports nearly a million tonnes of palm oil a

year and is therefore in a position to influence

changes in the industry.

 

Already slogans - such as " Save orangutans from

extinction when you next shop " and " Put an end to the

cruelty of palm oil " - are having an impact going by

the many queries Malaysian missions have been

receiving on palm oil and the orangutan.

 

The campaigners published their facts and arguments in

the widely distributed new report titled " Oil for Ape

Scandal " , which contains gruesome photographs of the

gentle animal captured and ill-treated in the

plantations of Kalimantan.

 

Large supermarket chains such as Tesco are being urged

by campaigners to certify that their palm-oil stocks

came from non-destructive sources, where no forests

were burned, only degraded land was used for planting,

local communities were respected and, above all, where

no orangutans were killed.

 

" We are not trying to put people out of business, "

Sean Whyte, chief of Nature Alert and co-author of the

report, told IPS. " We are simply asking that they do

business without destroying the environment.

 

" Already 90% of the orangutan habitat in Southeast

Asia has been wiped out and what is left is fast

depleting. If we do nothing now our children will see

orangutans only in the zoos. Orangutans could become

extinct within 12 years. "

 

Ian Redmond of Ape Alliance said: " It is we who will

have to explain to our children that the orangutan

became extinct because of corporate greed in our time.

Palm-oil plantations are now the primary cause of the

decline in population of the orangutans in Malaysia

and Indonesia. "

 

Experts estimate that about 5,000 orangutans perish

each year as a result of habitat loss. Such claims are

strongly denied by the Malaysian Palm Oil Association,

Malaysian Palm Oil Board and Malaysian Palm Oil

Promotion Council, which hold that palm oil is a

strategic, well-planned agricultural industry that

supports the preservation of wildlife including the

orangutan.

 

" These allegations are not well-founded and contain a

number of factual inaccuracies, " they said in a joint

statement last week. " The industry is far-better

regulated, and the orangutan far-better protected than

is suggested in the report. We often preserve jungle

reserves and wildlife sanctuaries as part of efforts

to maintain the existing biodiversity found in

plantations. "

 

Citing a " recent " survey, the industry has tried to

show that " thousands " of orangutans remained alive and

well in and around the Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary

in eastern Sabah state on Borneo Island, which is

shared by Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei.

 

The Malaysian Palm Oil Association said Malaysian

palm-oil companies would, in the next two years, adopt

standards that would prove their willingness to be

transparent about the palm-oil production process.

Buyers would be able trace the origins of the palm oil

in a product and ultimately to the estate where it was

harvested, they said.

 

But the truth is that Malaysian and Singaporean

capital, aided by European banks, has bought up large

tracts of Indonesian palm-oil plantations that were

going cheap following the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

 

 

Capital from these countries is also opening up more

plantations in the same lowland forest in Borneo and

Sumatra islands, the only remaining natural habitat of

the orangutan.

 

According to data from the Indonesian Forum for the

Environment (or Walhi), the Kutai National Park in

East Kalimantan - an ideal orangutan habitat -

consisted in 1934 of two million hectares but had

shrunk to 306,000 hectares by 1957. In 1997, the park

was down to 198,604 hectares, and Walhi estimates it

has since lost another 25,600 hectares due to illegal

logging. There are currently thought to be only 606

orangutans surviving in the national park.

 

One answer, say environmentalists, is the Kinshasa

Declaration, an action plan announced this month to

protect forest areas and save the great apes from

extinction. If the Malaysian and Indonesia government

sign this pact and implement it in an open and

verifiable manner, it would go a long way to ease the

fears of conservation groups worldwide.

 

(Inter Press Service)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/GJ27Ae01.html

 

 

Michelle Desilets

BOS UK

www.savetheorangutan.org.uk

www.savetheorangutan.info

" Primates Helping Primates "

 

Please sign our petition to rescue over 100 smuggled orangutans in Thailand:

http://www.thePetitionSite.com/takeaction/822035733

 

 

 

 

 

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