25/05/2010 (The Star Online), Kota Kinabalu - As part of an on-going initiative to prove to the world that Malaysia is a responsible oil palm producer, a mega wild life sanctuary involving 100,000ha of rainforest in an area of 300,000ha of contiguous forest zones in Sabah is currently initiated by the Malaysian oil palm industry and Sabah state government.

Malaysian Palm Oil Council chief executive officer Tan Sri Yusof Basiron said the proposed wildlife sanctuary would have 100,000ha of nucleus with rehabilitation and release function for orang utan and other wildlife.

“This (the size of the wild life sanctuary) is over three times the size of Singapore. “There are four million people in Singapore but only 11,000 orang utans in Sabah. This imply that if all the orang utans were to live in the mega sanctuary, they have potentially more land base than the people of Singapore by a factor of 1,350 times!,” said Yusof.

At the same time, Yusof has call for the zoos in New Zealand and Australia to start thinking of releasing orang utans back into the wild rather than imprisoning them in confined spaces under cold and non-tropical climates.

“Of course, they (orang utans) cannot complaint for being imprisoned in the zoos. How can they ...if only they can speak?” quipped Yusof.

He said Malaysia however will need to raise more funds for the mega sanctuary.

“The Malaysia Palm Oil Wildlife Conservation Fund will continue to be ready to match any external funding for this purpose,” he said adding that the Western environment NGOs were also most welcome to make contributions towards this noble effort.

On Monday, a Sabah Wildlife Rescue Centre has been set up at the Lok Kawi Wildlife Park in Sabah via a joint initiative between the Sabah Wildlife Department, Shangri-La Rasa Ria Hotel and the MPOC.

An MOU was signed by the three organisations at the IPOSC attended by 300 local and foreign participants here.