1y ago

Malaysia plans 'orangutan diplomacy' to boost palm oil sales

www.dw.com /en/malaysia-plans-orangutan-diplomacy-to-boost-palm-oil-sales/a-69023254

Malaysia intends to present orangutans to nations that import its palm oil. The move aims to allay concerns that palm oil production is often linked to the destruction of the endangered apes' habitats.

Malaysia has said it plans to present orangutans to major palm-oil-importing countries with the aim of boosting its credentials as a conserver of biodiversity.

The Asian nation is the world's second-largest producer of the widely used commodity, whose production is blamed by environmentalists for fuelling the destruction of the great ape's habitats in both Malaysia and Indonesia.

The move comes after the EU last year approved a ban on importing commodities, like palm oil, that are linked to deforestation.

Malaysia says the ban has been introduced to protect the bloc's own oilseeds market.

43 comments

Genius. If you export some of the apes, the remaining population requires less habitat, leaving more room for plantations! /s
- On the other hand, Palm oil is one of the densest crops that exist, as in it yield the most nutritional value per m2. So sustainable Palm oil production is less harmful to habitat than mostly any other crop in any other country.
  Just Google "the benefit of palm oil production"
  Palm Oil yields 4-10 times more oil per hectare than other sources of vegetable oil such as soybeans or coconut palms. The plant accounts for just 9% of the 322 million hectares of land used to produce oil crops globally, yet it produces 36% of the oil. This makes it an efficient and profitable use of land.
  Unfortunately deforestation to make palm oil is still a thing, but this is not equal among palm oil producing countries.
  In Denmark our main vegetable oil product is from Raps seeds, using about 5 times as much agricultural area for similar yield. But fortunately for us, we had our deforestation of almost the entire country several hundred years ago to make a huge naval fleet, and no body complains today that we are not regrowing those forests.
  This is not an equal standard for developing countries, they always get blamed much worse for doing things we already did decades or centuries ago in developed countries.
  These countries need to be helped, not to be hindered.
  
  Fun fact, the Jamestown Colony, the first colony Britain set up in the Americas, was intended to send timber back to Britain because they were running out of wood for construction and fuel due to all of the deforestation.
  
  I think the anger is directed and the agricultural conglomerates and the governments that have allowed those groups to pillage these places while selling out their countrymen, not the farm workers themselves or the citizens of those countries. Probably no matter the issue, that is likely the case. I know palm oil is important to many people, and colonialism is a lot of the cause of these issues for both the people and those that care about the local environments, as many times they are the same people.
  Many people, myself included, don't know much about the current Malay government, so the initial action being mistrust of something like this shouldn't be a surprise. As people are realizing how much of our natural resources we've squandered for quick cash, I don't fault them for being angry.
  As you said though, it's important to realize there are good and bad actors in all of these situations, plus many doing what they need to survive in many of these regions.
  
  It's worth considering the biodiversity loss where palm oil is grown, as all land area is not equally valuable to nature either. Most palm oil plantations used to be rainforests.
This is fucking disgusting.
- Why?
  From the article:
  Malaysia is a sustainable oil palm producer and is committed to protecting forests and environmental sustainability.
  
  Because 1) orangutans are only one of the hundreds of thousands species affected by deforestation, and 2) catching, transporting and confining animals in zoos is hardly an improvement to their life: apes are social animals who live in large groups in large habitats, they suffer in zoos. 3) this is the commodification of sentient beings, ironically the very species they pretend to wanting to help. Greenwashing at its finest.
  
  That's a quote from Malaysia's commodities minister, so I don't know if you can trust it. The article also says
  The Asian nation is the world's second-largest producer of the widely used commodity, whose production is blamed by environmentalists for fuelling the destruction of the great ape's habitats in both Malaysia and Indonesia.
  
  Any statement that boils down to "this extractive industry is environmentally sustainable" is massively suspicious. I don't trust that statement at all. I don't buy that you can produce palm oil on that scale while respecting nature.
  
  Without having read the article, I'm not sure I buy that it's as sustainable as they say.
Gross
- Why?
  
  Because 1) orangutans are only one of the hundreds of thousands species affected by deforestation, and 2) catching, transporting and confining animals in zoos is hardly an improvement to their life: apes are social animals who live in large groups in large habitats, they suffer in zoos. 3) this is the commodification of sentient beings, ironically the very species they pretend to wanting to help. Greenwashing at its finest.
I'm gonna have to nuance that: while palm oil is an environmental disaster, it is in fact the most efficient vegetable oil in terms of land area per ton of finished product. This is because the the plant that produces it is incredibly productive, more than sunflowers or rapeseed.
So changing to other vegetable oils would result in more land area being cultivated overall.
- This is because it grows where rainforests are supposed to be, what is maybe the most productive natural habitat. There is likely far more wildlife per land area where palm oil is grown than places you can grow other vegetable oils.
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  it is in fact the most efficient vegetable oil in terms of land area per ton of finished product
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
- Sunflowers and rapeseed can be planted and harvested every year or even multiple times a year, palms cannot.
"Thanks for giving us money at the expense of our wildlife. Here's some more of it to exploit."
Better than gorilla warfare to be sure
I'm not sure handing out wild orangutans in cages en mass sends the message about conservation they're hoping it will.
- Here: we've destroyed their homes, if you care so much about them - adopt!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Malaysia has said it plans to present orangutans to major palm-oil-importing countries with the aim of boosting its credentials as a conserver of biodiversity.
The Asian nation is the world's second-largest producer of the widely used commodity, whose production is blamed by environmentalists for fuelling the destruction of the great ape's habitats in both Malaysia and Indonesia.
Malaysia's commodities minister, Johari Abdul Ghani, said the plan would entail gifting the great apes to trading partners, such as the EU, India and China, that import large quantities of palm oil for use in products from food to cosmetics.
"This will prove to the global community that Malaysia is committed to biodiversity conservation," Johari said on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, late on Tuesday.
In the scheme's current form, China only loans pandas to foreign zoos, which must usually return any offspring within a few years of their birth to join the country's breeding program.
However, according to the conservation organization WWF, its production on large plantations has decisively contributed to a significant loss of orangutan habitat in both Malaysia and Indonesia, which is the main exporter of the commodity.
The original article contains 366 words, the summary contains 184 words. Saved 50%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

43 comments