25/05/2010 (The Star Online), Kota Kinabalu - Malaysia refutes allegations that its oil palm plantations were wiping out the rainforest and causing the extinction of the orang utan.

“In Malaysia, large tracts of forest are being preserved permanently; for every hectare of oil palm, the country preserves four hectares of permanent reserves which is a healthy balance in terms of the land use policy,” Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Tan Sri Bernard Dompok said yesterday.

Taking on western environmental groups who say that oil palm plantations were destroying the rainforest, he said the displacement of orang utans cannot be attributed to palm oil development in general.

Speaking at the opening of the International Palm Oil Sustainability Conference hosted by the Malaysian Palm Oil Council here, Dompok said Malaysia was committed to the United Nations Rio Earth Summit 1982 pledge of retaining 50% of total land area under forest.

He said there were laws to ensure that plantations operated in harmony with wildlife, biodiversity and the environment.

He said that a number of areas where higher populations of orang utans and other wildlife were present had been gazetted as wildlife sanctuaries, national parks or forest reserves.

“In addition, the oil palm industry has voluntarily taken steps to be involved in wildlife and biodiversity conservation,” he said, adding that they were involved in efforts to recreate riparian reserves and connect wildlife corridors.

He said Malaysian palm oil has overcome various challenges like dubious health claims by competing oils because successful research had debunked those claims.