Nature Alert: Malaysia to Switch Palm Oil Usage for Biodiesel

Wednesday, 4 March 2009

Malaysia to Switch Palm Oil Usage for Biodiesel

Personal note: Once again we can see the palm oil industry in denial. Shame on them.

Make no mistake, Malaysian companies operate throughout Indonesia and are directly responsible for deforestation and the slaughter of orangutans.

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Wednesday, 04 March, 2009

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: Malaysia has decided to change the usage of palm oil for biodiesel when the price reduces.

Head of Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB), Dato' Sabri Ahmad, said the alteration was needed as one way to manage stocks of the palm oil industry.

“If the stocks are not managed, the country and producers will lose out,” he told Tempo at the World Islamic Economic Forum yesterday (3/3).

He said the world's needs for biodiesel cannot be fulfilled by the supply only from Indonesia and Malaysia.

So this is a large opportunity for both countries to produce palm oil as biodiesel.

However, Sabri acknowledged that the main purpose of palm oil was for food.

He disagreed with the accusation of the palm oil industry in Malaysia being a cause of environment deforestation.

“It is not true. Five palm oil companies in Malaysia have received certificates from the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil,” said Sabri.

ISMI WAHID

http://www.tempointeractive.com/hg/nasional/2009/03/04/brk,20090304-163062,uk.html

Hall of Shame for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the Palm Oil Industry.

Nothing can prepare one for the sight of the systematic extermination of orangutans by the government of Indonesia.

Look at the photos and news articles on these pages in the context of a statement the President made to the media on 10th December 2007.

“In the last 35 years about 50,000 orangutans are estimated to have been lost as their habitats shrank. If this continues, this majestic creature will likely face extinction by 2050,” President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said at the launch of an orangutan conservation plan at the climate talks in Bali.

“The fate of the orangutan is a subject that goes to the heart of sustainable forests … To save the orangutan we have to save the forest.”

Statements like these are most welcome, but unless backed up by action, such words fall on deaf ears within the Ministry of Forestry....who are busy granting licences to cut down the very forests the President says they should protect!

When you think you are to busy to help, please could you reflect for a moment on .........

The following extract refers to environmental problems in general. I just hope you find it as thought provoking and relevant to orangutans as I have.

"This is such a shocking and unpalatable fact that most people deny it, or they just don't want to think about it. They believe as individuals, they can do little about it, so push it to the back of their minds. But I can't do that.

When something has to be done, we need to do it. It doesn't matter how big the challenge is or how hard the solution; if I know something is wrong, and I am in a position to help, I will do my best to make it right." Duncan Bannatyne, successful British businessman.