Malaysia intends to present orangutans to nations that import its palm oil. The move aims to allay concerns that palm oil production is often linked to the destruction of the endangered apes’ habitats.
Malaysia has said it plans to present orangutans to major palm-oil-importing countries with the aim of boosting its credentials as a conserver of biodiversity.
The Asian nation is the world’s second-largest producer of the widely used commodity, whose production is blamed by environmentalists for fuelling the destruction of the great ape’s habitats in both Malaysia and Indonesia.
The move comes after the EU last year approved a ban on importing commodities, like palm oil, that are linked to deforestation.
Malaysia says the ban has been introduced to protect the bloc’s own oilseeds market.
This is fucking disgusting.
Why?
From the article:
Malaysia is a sustainable oil palm producer and is committed to protecting forests and environmental sustainability.
Without having read the article, I’m not sure I buy that it’s as sustainable as they say.
Argument from ignorance is pretty worthless and nothing more than a baseless opinion, which you are of course free to have.
That’s a quote from Malaysia’s commodities minister, so I don’t know if you can trust it. The article also says
The Asian nation is the world’s second-largest producer of the widely used commodity, whose production is blamed by environmentalists for fuelling the destruction of the great ape’s habitats in both Malaysia and Indonesia.
Because 1) orangutans are only one of the hundreds of thousands species affected by deforestation, and 2) catching, transporting and confining animals in zoos is hardly an improvement to their life: apes are social animals who live in large groups in large habitats, they suffer in zoos. 3) this is the commodification of sentient beings, ironically the very species they pretend to wanting to help. Greenwashing at its finest.
Any statement that boils down to “this extractive industry is environmentally sustainable” is massively suspicious. I don’t trust that statement at all. I don’t buy that you can produce palm oil on that scale while respecting nature.
Well IDK how it’s done with Palm oil, but AFAIK what is meant by sustainable, is that the area is regrown, that’s how we do with forestation here too. And that’s been grown and harvested sustainably for many decades.
Basically you are putting forward what is called an argument from ignorance.
