Controversial palm-oil plan may save the orang-utan

Priya Shetty, New Scientist 22 Jul 09;

THE mournful eyes of the orphaned baby orang-utans held in Borneo's sanctuaries would tug at the stoniest of hearts. But while rehabilitating abandoned orang-utans is admirable, it seems increasingly clear that it will not help to conserve a species in danger of extinction through habitat loss.

Instead, orang-utan researchers and conservationists in Sabah, in Malaysian Borneo, may have to do what had until recently been unthinkable: join forces with the palm oil industry whose plantations have eaten into much of the orang-utan's habitat. October this year will see an unprecedented meeting of Malaysia's palm oil producers, conservationists and local government to figure out how to protect the world's last orang-utans.

Such collaborations will be especially important given the poor start for the international Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), set up in 2002, which is supposed to address the issues of environmental damage and wildlife conflict by encouraging producers to ensure their plantations are certified as sustainable. This includes undertaking environmental assessments before planting, and not planting in forests of high conservation value.

The conservation group WWF wants palm oil to be 100 per cent sustainable by 2015, but the initial results have been dispiriting. A WWF report released in May showed that just 1 per cent of the 1.3 million tonnes of sustainable palm oil produced since November 2008 had been sold - in part because it is more expensive.

Many believe that if the orang-utan is to have a chance of surviving anywhere, it will be in Sabah. Both the industry and the government say there is virtually no suitable land left there for new plantations and there are just about enough wild orang-utans to ensure the survival of the species. The key now is to join up their remaining habitats.

Until recently, rehabilitating orang-utans hurt through conflicts with plantation workers, or kept as pets, had seemed like the most obvious way to boost the species' dwindling numbers. In practice, however, this approach is riddled with problems. A key risk is transferring diseases such as the malaria parasite, which orang-utans in rehabilitation are prone to, into wild populations. Furthermore, because orang-utans learn their survival skills from their mothers, "not all of the [rehabilitated] animals will be able to adapt to the wild", says Marc Ancrenaz, who co-founded the Kinabatangan Orang-utan Conservation Project near the Kinabatangan river in Sabah.

Many rehabilitation centres are becoming overcrowded, partly because some orang-utans can never be rehabilitated but also because the release criteria are stringent. The centres want to release animals into protected rainforest, with no risk of poachers, loggers or plantations, but few of these areas now exist in either Malaysia or Indonesia.

It is also impossible to know how rehabilitated animals fare after release, as orang-utans remove electronic tracking devices. David Chivers at the University of Cambridge argues that rehabilitated orang-utans "are becoming an increasing proportion of the whole gene pool of the species, and reintroducing [them] will significantly increase the prospects of the orang-utan avoiding extinction". Ancrenaz disagrees: "Rehabilitation is a welfare approach, not a conservation one; it's not necessary for the sake of the species".

Sabah's 26,000-hectare Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary is home to about 1000 orang-utans (see Map). The sanctuary has been heavily fragmented by oil palm plantations, and is now an archipelago of animal "islands". For large animals like orang-utans and pygmy elephants, these fragments are unnaturally restricted habitats.

An offshoot of Ancrenaz's organisation, The Nature Heritage Conservancy, has joined up with a local NGO called LEAP and the UK-based World Land Trust to raise funds and buy up pieces of land to link the sanctuary's fragments as wildlife corridors. So far they have bought up about 200 acres at a cost of $280,000. These are tiny patches of land in the grand scheme of things, but highly strategic in location.

Benoît Goossens at the Danau Girang Field Centre within the sanctuary has undertaken research that shows why wildlife corridors are so important. He has mapped the orang-utans' genetic diversity - important for the health of a population - and modelled future changes in diversity. Though Sabah's populations are fairly diverse, this will change drastically for the worse within the next 100 years if the forest fragments are not joined up, he says.

Connecting the sanctuary's fragments will also link Sabah's central forest reserve with the coastal mangroves, creating a more comprehensive habitat (see map). Two other forest reserves, Kulamba and Tabin, now need to be linked to the sanctuary, but the gaps between them are so heavily planted with oil palms that buying small segments of land will not do. In October, conservationists will seek a commitment from palm oil growers to create corridors within their plantations. Part of the debate will centre on what constitutes a viable wildlife corridor.

Corporate collaborations are also vital for the Sabah government (see "Banking on biodiversity"). Its forests have been so heavily logged that there is no more revenue from logging. In the long term, the government plans to create sustainable logging reserves that can house wildlife too. Results from a 55,000-hectare trial area called Deramakot suggest the approach is feasible, but growing suitable forests will take decades. In the meantime, palm oil will be vital to see the government through its economic famine, says Sam Mannan, the head of the forestry department. Let's hope the orang-utans see it through, too
Banking on Biodiversity

Biodiversity-rich, cash-poor countries are coming up with ways to make conservation sustainable.

In 2008, Malaysia became the first such nation to launch a scheme to allow private investment in the rainforest that would generate "conservation dollars" - money specifically set aside for conservation. The scheme is voluntary, but the government is considering making such investment a requirement for land developers.

The Malua Biobank, which differs from the biobanks established in other countries to bank genetic material, covers a 34,000-hectare forest reserve in Sabah, in Malaysian Borneo, which buffers virgin rainforest from palm oil plantations. It sells conservation certificates for 100 square metres of forest at $10 each, making a total possible fund of $34 million. Of this, 20 per cent will create an endowment fund to restore the previously logged forest, says Darius Sarshar of New Forests, an international environmental investment management group with offices in Malaysia that advises Malua Biobank.

Buyers can either "retire" their certificates, effectively making a donation, or put them into a trading account. Once the endowment fund is secured, any additional profits will be split between the investors and the government.

The scheme is unlikely to compete with traditional stock markets, however, and so far the biobank has relied on companies wanting to reinvent their environmental image. Initial sales have been sluggish - it has sold 21,500 certificates for a total of $215,000, all to logging companies - but that will change if the government makes the scheme mandatory.

Habitat quality is likely to be a factor, says Sarshar. "So if you trash a degraded forest, you have less of an offset obligation than if you trash a pristine forest."