Palm oil firms’ moratorium rejection threatens orangutans: activists

A decision by Indonesian palm oil companies to reject a moratorium on land clearing is threatening to wipe out more than 8,000 orangutans in the next three years, activists said Thursday.

The decision last week to reject the moratorium call by Greenpeace means there is no effective mechanism for protecting thousands of orangutans living outside conservation areas, said Novi Hardianto from the Centre for Orangutan Protection (COP).
COP teams have observed land clearing by two major palm oil companies in orangutan habitats in Central Kalimantan province on Indonesia’s side of Borneo island, Hardianto said.

Subsidiaries of companies IOI Group and Agro Group have been clearing orangutan habitats despite signing up to voluntary standards under the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), he said.

The Indonesian Palm Oil Producers Association, in rejecting the moratorium, argued RSPO standards were enough to protect species.

However, Hardianto said land clearing by the companies showed the voluntary standards would do little to arrest the rapid decline in the number of orangutans living outside Central Kalimantan’s conservation areas.

“If it keeps going at this rate, we’ll see orangutans in this environment wiped out within three years,” he said.

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