(MY) - Talking ape in the name of conservation

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WAVELENGTH: Ta

lking ape in the name of conservation

John Teo

 

Nov 12:

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THIS past week, spotlight was on the Borneo jungle — again. The

concern is of course nothing new — the debate over conservation versus

development is old hat and, in my view at least, no debate at all.

 

Poverty, as the late Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi once

observed, is the greatest threat to the environment, not prosperity or

development.

 

The poor are the most inefficient users of natural resources and their

first and foremost concern is their own survival, not that of other

natural species.

 

It therefore stands to reason that as the poor become richer, so the

concern over their surroundings will grow.

 

The Borneo jungle — like the Amazon, one of the last remaining huge

stands of tropical rainforest — came into the spotlight this week with

news of the proposed opening up of as much as two million hectares in

Kalimantan just across the border from Sarawak, for oil palm

cultivation.

 

The alarm was immediately raised as to what this would mean for the

orang utans of Borneo.

 

The Wall Street Journal Asia perhaps headlined its story most

succinctly — " Jobs vs jungle " .

 

The superlatives are already rolling off tongues — US$10 billion (RM37

billion) in investments, 10 million tonnes of palm oil production per

year, a million jobs.

 

For the endemically poor millions of Kalimantan, it will be a godsend.

The oil will be renewable and so what if portions of the natural

jungle are traded for a planted one of palms?

 

Objections are raised from the usual quarters — vested interests

masquerading as do-good non-governmental organisations from rich

industrialised countries and their paid minions over here. These

well-fed, well-travelled so-called " Friends of the Earth " (as if the

rest of us are anything but friends of this one and only home we all

have) would seem to elevate concern over animals and plants above

human welfare.

 

To be sure, development requires some calculated trade-offs — rich

countries deprived of their own natural forest cover long ago would be

only too keenly aware of that.

 

So-called environmentalist NGOs must be exposed for what they really

are — single-issue rabble-rousers who are a minority voice even in

their own rich countries. That is, however, not to deny that they have

the skills and the resources to pull at the emotional heart-strings of

ordinary Westerners to boycott products such as palm oil.

 

They will have the opportunity to fire the first salvo at the

forthcoming international environmental media fest in Kuching from Nov

30 to Dec 2, with the great Borneo ape cleverly chosen as their new

mascot.

 

Developing countries must stay united against such thinly-disguised

potential trade sanctions.

 

This is another of those occasions when Western initiatives turn out

to be so out of tune with the aspirations of people in the rest of the

world.

 

Malaysia should be — indeed we have always been — leading the way in

demanding a much more equitable sharing of the world's wealth as the

only fair answer to environmental concerns.

 

Unless the rich countries are prepared to do this, they have

absolutely no moral standing to be preaching the virtues of

environmental conservation to the rest of us.