Malaysia announces adopt-an-orangutan plan for palm oil importers

By Mandy Leong

SANDAKAN, Malaysia (Reuters) - Companies that import palm oil from Malaysia will be able to adopt orangutans but they will not be able to leave the country, the commodities minister said on Sunday, in a revised version of a conservation scheme announced earlier this year.

Plantations and Commodities Minister Johari Abdul Ghani also pledged to halt deforestation in Malaysia, saying 54% of the country was forested and that the level would not fall below 50%.

In May, the minister put forward a plan to send orangutans abroad as trading gifts in an effort to allay concerns about the impact on the animals' habitat of palm oil production, which tends to involve clearing forest land.

The plan raised objections from conservation groups fearful for the welfare of the orangutans that are critically endangered.

"The animals cannot leave their natural habitats. We have to keep them here. And then we will meet the countries or the buyers of our palm oil if they want to work together to ensure that these forests can be looked after and preserved forever," Johari told a news conference in Sabah, northern Borneo.

Conservation group WWF says the population of the orangutan, whose name means "man of the forest" in Malay, is less than 105,000 on the island of Borneo.

The "orangutan diplomacy" scheme was first made public in May after the European Union last year approved an import ban on commodities linked to deforestation.

Malaysia, the world's second-largest producer of palm oil which is used in anything from lipstick to pizza, described the law as discriminatory.

Johari said funds raised from companies who adopt orangutans would be distributed to non-governmental organisations and the Sabah government to monitor the forested areas where the primates live, and seek to monitor the animals' safety and condition.

He did not give details on how much adoption would cost.

Marc Ancrenaz, scientific director of non-government organisation Hutan, said he hoped the plan could fund habitat conservation work, such as building corridors between fragmented forests that are too small to sustain viable wildlife populations.

(Reporting by Mandy Leong in Sandakan, Sabah; Writing by Xinghui Kok; editing and Barbara Lewis)