48 NEW STRAITS TIMES W E D N E S D AY, J U LY 11, 2007BIZNEWS

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Biofuels: The Malaysian storyAs the biofuels debate intensifies, legislators andnon-governmental organisations across Europe flock tolisten to the Malaysian story — whether the country isable to balance social and economic criteria. TheMalaysian Palm Oil Council sees it as an opportunity forMalaysia to listen to and address the issues on the groundand correct the image. RUPA DAMODARAN reports.

Chin (centre) meetsDutch Environment andSpatial PlanningMinister JacquelineCramer (right), whoseCramer Report earlythis year proposed thatpalm oil meet severalcriteria ranging frombiodiversity, foodsecurity to carbondioxide emission levels.On the left is Sabri.

Transparency is the main grouse among NGO activists. On the right is Sylvius.

MARCEL Silvius comes across initially as aloud non-governmental organisation (NGO)official from Wetlands International, all out topush his First World “startling findings onMalaysian bad agricultural practices”.

His tirade of remarks, laced with half truthsand confusing the agro-management prac-tices between palm oil producers Malaysiaand Indonesia, was irksome.

To the Malaysian group of palm oil captainsand experts led by Plantation Industries andCommodities Minister Datuk Peter Chin to theNetherlands, Belgium and the UK recently,they reflected unfounded fears a majority ofpressure groups from the other side of theworld have.

With environment at the top of the politicalagenda, the sustainable biofuels debate canbe an emotional one in Europe that has piquedthe interest of global NGOs like Greenpeace,Friends of the Earth, Wetlands International,BothEnds, Oxfam and WWF.

Legislators and NGOs alike across Europehave flocked to listen to the Malaysian story —whether Malaysia is able to balance the socialand economic criteria — as well as how abalance can be struck between deforestationand opening new land for the crop, as lawscome down hard on the imports.

Chin extolled palm oil as a means to over-coming rural poverty, and that the govern-ment is therefore determined to develop theindustry sustainably. He stressed that Malay-sia plans to increase production through goodpractices and better yields, and referred to thepolemic over deforestation and biodiversityl o s s.

Malaysian Palm Oil Council chief executiveofficer Tan Sri Yusof Basiron outlined thebackground of plantation agriculture, howmany of the systems pioneered by the Britishcolonial masters have been running sustain-ably for decades now.

In the 80s, forests were cut to plant rubber,oil palm and cocoa to enable the people to geta decent level of income, but these practices(cutting forests) have dropped to a trickle adecade later. Only 20 per cent of the land is foragriculture with slightly over 60 per centcovered with forests.

“The main thrust of oil palm industry play-ers today is to increase the supply throughyield improvement — from four tonnes per hato six or eight tonnes, without opening anymore land, while better clones and seeds areconstantly sought,” he explained.

Palm oil contributes about five to six percent of the country’s gross domestic product,and provides employment to 1.4 million work-er s.

“We are making the best use of our re-sources and we disagree that we have beenopening new land,” he said.

Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) chairmanand Golden Hope Plantations Bhd chief ex-ecutive Datuk Sabri Ahmad said the cer-tification process by the Roundtable of Sus-tainable Palm Oil (RSPO), has already been inplace on a business-to-business basis for com-panies like Golden Hope, Kuala Lumpur Ke-pong Bhd and the IOI group.

Golden Hope, which is a founder member ofthe RSPO, was also the first plantation com-pany in Malaysia to receive the Global 500 Rollof Honour from the United Nations Envir-onment Programme for the commercialisa-tion of its zero burning replanting techniqueswhich include pulverising the biomass back tothe soil.

Like Golden Hope, major plantations havebeen looking to improving efficiency by re-ducing the levels of chemicals through organiccompost and advanced pest control systemsuch as using the barn owl.

MPOB has also sought its scientists to mapthe flora and fauna which make up the biod-iversity while the board is also looking to zeroemissions to trap methane gas.

The industry, he stressed, has been efficientin sustaining agro-management practices,with focus on food as the main criterion.

Both ends recognised the importance ofpalm oil for economic development, but wasconcerned with the deforestation of secondgeneration rainforest and want to see plant-ations diverted to wasteland. They want theMalaysian Government to address the ques-tion of indigenous people's right to decide howto use their customary land.

MP for Serian, Datuk Richard Riot anakJaem, who hails from the Bidayuh ethnicgroup, said 10 million hectares of land in

Sarawak has been earmarked as native cus-tomary rights land.

These natives, he said, want to improvetheir social standing and not be left behind,and palm oil could be the way out.

Wetlands International has blamed palm oilas a driving force behind the destruction oftropical peatlands by deforestation, soil de-gradation and fires. Besides causing the de-struction of large areas of rainforests, palm oilplantations on peatlands also cause massiveemissions of the greenhouse gas carbon di-ox i d e .

The issue of peat took centrestage becauseWetlands International has been vociferous inits claims that large tracts of peatland inSarawak were being converted into oil palmareas. Draining about one metre of the soil

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The industry has been efficientin sustaining agro-managementpractices, with focus on foodas the main criterion.

when planting the crop on peatland will emit90 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

NGOs have alleged that Malaysia contrib-utes 13 per cent of the carbon dioxide emis-sions through oil palm with Indonesia con-tributing more than 60 per cent.

Planters chose peat soil as the last resort asit costs more than 40 per cent to develop, plusit involves higher maintenance costs com-pared to mineral soil.

From a business perspective, Sabri argued,peat soil would not be the first choice althoughwith proper management (to reduce oxid-ation), shallow peat areas can be fertile andproductive for the crop.

United Plantations Bhd vice-chairman andexecutive director Carl Bek-Nielsen pointedout that some of the claims by Wetlands

International about peat soil were misleading,as less than 11 per cent of the total areaplanted under oil palm in Malaysia was onpeat soil.

Most of these plantings were developed overthe past 25 to 30 years, when greenhouse gasemissions was a non-existent issue.

“Oil palm development on peat soil, if ex-posed to good water management, is capableof sustaining favourable yields and has con-tributed immensely towards uplifting povertylevels in particular Sarawak, which was anoble thing.”

He also felt that it would be advisable toprioritise oil palm plantings on mineral soilsvis-à-vis peat soils as the latter were moremarginal in nature and could neither matchyields nor infrastructural development cost of

mineral soil.“Right from your general upkeep practices

to harvesting and fruit evacuation is morecumbersome on peat soils compared to min-eral soils,” he added.

MPOB estimated that the proportion of oilpalm that were grown in shallow, medium anddeep peat soil in Malaysia is to a 60:30:10r at i o.

Wetlands International wanted to know ifthe Malaysian Government is proposing to itsinvestors to stay out of peat soil by issuing amoratorium, at least until the RSPO has all itsprocesses in place.

During several of the sessions which wereheld in the Hague, Brussels and London, someof them resorted to using the orang utan as atotemic figure to address the biofuel debate.

Chin fielded the orang utan genocide ac-cusation hurled at Malaysia, saying loggersand plantation companies in Sabah andSarawak shared the concern to protect thecountr y’s mascot from extinction.

Transparency was the main grouse, ad-mitted the NGOs, during the last leg of theMalaysian mission.

Friends of Earth, in welcoming the dialoguesession with the Malaysian delegation asfrank, said NGOs were also frustrated byM a l ay s i a ’s reluctance to acknowledge the en-vironmental issues.

Apart from more transparency and inform-ation on future land use plans, it also wants tobe in the know of customary rights, biod-iversity, high conservation value forest andcarbon dioxide impact.

Greenpeace’s strong message: “You saythere’s no deforestation, we say there is. Wecan’t get any further without transparency.”

They said that their NGO colleagues inMalaysia often have difficulty obtaining in-formation from the authorities.

They argue that palm oil can only be con-sidered “g reen” if it has a positive carbondioxide balance and believe that it comparesless well to the other oils if the full lifecycle istaken into account.

The famous Lone Droscher Nielsen, fromBorneo Orangutan Survival Foundation,widely respected for her work with the orangutan in Indonesia, also claimed that Malaysiancompanies were not respecting the ruleswhen they operate in Indonesia.

WWF wanted to hear how Malaysia wouldinterest the smallholders to join the RSPO andhow it would police the scheme. They said thebioenergy industry needed clarity on what totell consumers, and called for full RSPO com-mitment to create a climate of certainty.

While the engagement with the NGOs hasenabled a common understanding about sus-tainability concerns, the ongoing dialoguebetween Malaysia and the European civilsocieties must continue — regularly and noton an ad hoc basis.

Never mind if there are claims that some ofthe green activists could be working for othercrops or even claims that the whole biofuelsdebate could have sprouted from the oil andfood industry which has to put up with thehigh CPO prices.

Even if the RSPO with the certification pro-cess that involves auditing of the processeswould provide Malaysia with a better reportcard, there must be constant policing to en-sure that Malaysia has taken the lead in thisfight against global warming.

Datuk Sabri AhmadMPOB chairman

European NGO claimsq Illegal loggingq Opening new land for oil palmq Peatland destruction, leading toexcessive carbon dioxide emissionsq Natives deprived of land,livelihoodq Biodiverse wetlands all goneq Increase in food pricesq Orang utan genocide; extinctwithin five years

Malaysia’s responseq Forest and biodiversity conservationmeasures already in placeq Needs hard evidence on claims of peatlands’contribution to global carbon dioxideq Peat soil research instituteq Collaborative studies between scientistsq Open invitation to NGOs to join theRoundtable on Sustainability of Palm Oilq Protection of indigenous population andtheir environment

Their demandsq Moratorium on peatland useq Sustainable agronomicpracticesq Malaysian planters to usethe same methods inIndonesiaq Transparency in policy andindustry decisionsq Replace orang utan foodtrees