Nature Alert: Sarawak Will Have Biggest Oil Palm Area Under Felcra By 2010

Monday, 25 May 2009

Sarawak Will Have Biggest Oil Palm Area Under Felcra By 2010

May 25, 2009

Sarawak Will Have Biggest Oil Palm Area Under Felcra By 2010

KUCHING, May 25 (Bernama) -- Felcra will develop another 11,000 hectares of land in Sarawak for oil palm cultivation by 2010, its chairman Datuk Tajuddin Abdul Rahman said here today.

With the completion of the project, he said, Felcra Berhad would have developed 55,000ha for oil palm, the biggest for Felcra as this made up 36 per cent of the total area in the country developed by the agency for oil palm, compared to 52,000ha in Pahang currently.

"We see that Sarawak still has a lot of land banks with the potential of being developed into oil palm plantations compared to the peninsula, and this will also help the government develop its (Sarawak) rural areas," he said after attending a briefing at Felcra's Sarawak office.

Tajuddin said 44,000ha of land in Sarawak had so far been developed by Felcra, out of which 22,000ha had started producing.

He said the three new areas to have agropolitan projects would be Batang Sadong, Batang Lupar and Pulau Beruit, involving 6,534ha and 3,700 participants altogether.

Besides that, he added, Felcra would also set up two people's estates, involving 4,571ha, this year .

"Felcra's current focus is on economic, physical and human capital development as part of efforts to overcome the effects of the global economic slowdown."

Felcra now has some 94,000 project participants, including 5,544 in Sarawak, with accumulated dividends given out amounting to RM3.5 billion of which RM72 million went to the participants in Sarawak.

Tajuddin said Felcra was also working at attracting more participants and encouraging their family members to work in the oil palm estates developed by Felcra so as to reduce the country's dependence on foreign labour for work, such as harvesting the oil palm fruits.

He said Felcra was now hiring 20,000 people for plantation work, including 8,000 foreigners whom it aimed to reduce to 4,000.

-- BERNAMA

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsgeneral.php?id=413457

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.