Nature Alert: Win NGO support - Published in Malay Mail

Wednesday, 28 October 2009

Win NGO support - Published in Malay Mail

http://www.mmail.com.my/content/16801-win-ngo-support

Win NGO support - Published in Malay Mail

Submitted on Monday, October 26th, 2009

Monday, October 26th, 2009 02:08:00

TO claim that attacks on palm oilbased products may be politically motivated shows how much out of touch the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) is with consumer awareness and power, or, the MPOC is choosing to play fast and loose with the facts.

Show us your evidence, MPOC, of any political motivation by NGOs. The MPOC might better take note of and act upon the advice given by Sabah’s Minister of Tourism, Culture, and Environment, Datuk Masidi Manjun. “I urge all departments, government bodies, not to treat NGOs as enemies but rather as friends. I think we need to tell ourselves that we are not exactly the experts on everything that we think we know. And I urge all of you not to be too defensive of what the NGOs are going to say, but in fact to take their words quite seriously, and ask ourselves are we moving in the right direction.”

My guess is, the palm oil industry will win friends and customers much more quickly if it will only stop, listen, and take advice from those who offer it freely.

Neither do we want to see palm oil banned. But, most of all we also do not want to see palm oil produced at a catastrophic cost to the environment – do we?

Sean Whyte
Chief Executive,
Nature Alert

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.