31/10/05 SINGAPORE (Bernama) -- Both sides of the divide in the "Orang Utan versus oil palm plantation" debate are set to meet in Kuching, Sarawak, end of next month in an international summit amid an intensified campaign against what is claimed as the destruction of Orang Utan habitats by oil palm plantations.

Western pressure groups, which mounted the campaign against oil palm plantations and oil palm products, will be making their way to the capital city of the Malaysian Bornean state for the International Media and Environment Summit (IMES) from Nov 30 to Dec 2.

Welcoming them to the riverside city will be none other than the palm oil producers and governments who had been the target of the campaign.

The media from across the globe -- often the go-between of information, not least of them are arguments and counter-arguments from both divides -- will also be making their way to Kuching for the summit.

"If you buy items that are made with palm oil, are you are hastening the demise of the Orang Utan?" asked News World Nature, the organiser of the IMES.

News World Nature is part of News World International, a media event management company that helps worldwide media practitioners to report informatively on topical issues and to reflect reality and diversity.

The Friends of the Earth, a British environmental campaign group, said that it certainly thinks so -- that oil palm plantations are the culprit in the destruction of Orang Utan habitats and therefore are threatening the very existence of the primate.

The group recently published a report entitled "Oil For Ape Scandal", claiming that continued conversion of jungle into palm oil plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia will make the Orang Utan extinct within 12 years.

The group claimed in the report that almost 90 per cent of Orang Utan habitats in Indonesia and Malaysia had now been destroyed while some experts estimated that 5,000 Orang Utan perish as a result every year.

They estimate that there are only 60,000 Orang Utans left to date in Malaysia and Indonesia -- the only two countries where the primate, Asia's only great ape, resides.

But oil palm producers refute the claim, saying that compared with other cereal crops, oil palm plantations also promote far greater biodiversity.

To some, the campaign against palm oil is not entirely about the environment but rather, a trade-related one.

Arguments in support of palm oil centre on its importance to health and its affordability as food. It may also become a key renewable bio-fuel as the world moves away from its dependence on petroleum products, so goes another argument.

"A typical oil palm plantation is teemed with about 260 species of flora and fauna which include microbes, insects, fish, birds and small mammals," said the Malaysian Palm Oil Association in response to the non-governmental organisations' campaign.

With the debate intensifying, so does media coverage of the dilemma. "One of the dangers when complex issues are boiled down to soundbites is that either side is likely to feel that they have been misrepresented," chairman of the Ape Alliance Ian Redmond was quoted as saying by the News World Nature.

Redmond, who is one of the speakers at the Kuching Summit, said that it was therefore "a challenge for the media to fill in those gaps accurately".

News World Nature described the summit as an avenue for those concerned -- the pressure groups, NGOs, governments, palm oil producers and the media "to hear all sides of the story".

"The summit is being held in Kuching, in the heart of Borneo, and close to all the palm oil action," News World Nature said in a statement here.

The IMES, among others, aims to build bridges between environmentalists, business people and journalists from across the globe to facilitate the flow of information about the environment.

There will also be an environmental film festival running alongside the Summit with award-winning films from around the globe.

More information on the summit can be obtained from www.newsworldnature.com.

-- BERNAMA