First-hand encounters
Published: Thursday October 24, 2013 MYT 12:00:00 AM
Updated: Thursday October 24, 2013 MYT 9:39:26 AM
by
natalie heng
Datuk Carl Bek-Nielsen, the CEO of United Plantations, takes French journalists on a tour of Jenderata Estate, located in Teluk Intan, Perak.
MPOC recently hosted French and Belgian journalists on an educational tour. The Star went along for the ride.
LAST month, a small group of journalists from France and Belgium visited Malaysia.
The visit came courtesy of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council, which represents the interests of stakeholders from the local palm oil industry. The trip was, in part, a response to a wave of anti-palm oil sentiment, which has been gaining traction since the early 2000s.
The journalists spent their time here meeting farmers, academics, institutions and NGOs in the peninsula and in Sabah, to hear Malaysia’s side of the story.
The Star went along for the ride. This is a diary account featuring highlights from the trip.
Day 1
Our journey begins in a wood-panelled chamber, where the Bek-Nielsens are entertaining a bevy of French journalists.
A steady stream of questions and answers are being thrown back and forth, giving the hired translator a run for his money.
It’s been just a few weeks since the French prime minister’s visit to Malaysia, where Jean-Marc Ayrault reiterated assurances that products containing palm oil imported into France would not be taxed.
However, the pulse of anti-palm oil sentiment abroad has prompted the Malaysian Palm Oil Council to reach out in an attempt to ensure both sides of the story are at least heard, if not written about.
United Plantation’s Jenderata Estate, at Teluk Intan in Perak, is our first stop in the council’s five-day tour.
Some of the questions are innocent enough. The journalists are curious about the working conditions of estate workers and ask why labour is dominated by foreign workers. Vice-chairman and chief executive officer of United Plantations Datuk Carl Bek-Nielen responds by saying that ageing farmer populations are a problem the world over.
We check out the palm oil mill at Jenderata Estate, which is run by United Plantations, one of the oldest oil palm players in Malaysia.
As for working conditions, a tour around the estate past neat rows of employee housing (many decorated with a homely array of plants and flower pots), a school, a hospital, places of worship, and even – of all things – a Danish bakery, seem to answer the question.
Granted, United Plantations is one of Malaysia’s oldest, largest and probably best-run plantation companies – however most of the big players run things according to similar standards, he says.
It isn’t long before the discussion moves on to the “hot” topics: deforestation, native customary rights, orangutans – the sort of stuff that make attention-grabbing headlines.
There is no skirting the issue. Any form of agriculture can cause deforestation.
“It would be a lie to say no,” says Bek-Nielsen. “But do not obfuscate palm oil as the main cause of deforestation.”
Around 13.6 million hectares of forest have been cleared per year over the past two decades according to the Food and Agricultural of the United Nations, he points out.
“However, oil palm has been responsible for 14.5 million hectares worth of planting, in the past 150 years.”
Bek-Nielsen’s brother Martin, who is an executive director of the company, also acknowledges there are companies that violate the law. However, such incidents are common elsewhere rather than in Malaysia, he says.
But the real issue isn’t whether palm oil is good or bad, but how to address challenges of how to grow it sustainably.
One journalist brings up the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil standard, a mandatory national scheme soon to be introduced. Why develop a new scheme, when we have the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)?
The topic also leads to more questions about RSPO. If companies are subscribing to the principles of RSPO, shouldn’t there be transparency, why is it that companies often keep buyer information confidential?
The questions seem to strike a nerve. Perhaps these are the questions the Bek-Nielsens have been waiting for.
“First of all, the RSPO is a voluntary scheme,” Martin points out. “A lot of companies have invested millions to be compliant with its certification criteria.”
However, despite assurances that there would be a market for RSPO palm oil, when the scheme was mooted about 10 years ago, the demand for RSPO has simply not materialised. “Initial RSPO premiums per tonne were supposed to be US$40 (RM120) to US$50 (RM150) per tonne.
“Today, however, the premium has dropped to just US$4 (RM12) per tonne.”
As far as the oil palm growers are concerned, a lack of demand for RSPO products by manufacturers and consumers sends a bad message. Why spend millions investing, if no one is going to follow through?
In three to four years, Martin says, all plantations in Malaysia are expected to be capable of supplying segregated oil to the market, for traceability and chain-of-custody purposes.
“However, it all boils down to whether the manufacturers are willing to pay for segregated oil,” says Martin.
“They always say the supply chain is not ready, and that getting it ready could cost millions. But at the end of the day, if it’s sustainable palm oil they are interested in, they will have to bite the bullet.”
Bek-Nielsen adds: “I am all for someone picking up their product and being concerned about whether its ingredients have been sourced sustainably.
“However, non-discriminatory blanket statements coming from the anti-palm oil lobby has a self defeating impact, because it penalises those who are investing in sustainable practices and trying to make the industry better.”
Palm oil and the orang-utans
Volunteers teaching baby orangutan orphans how to climb, at the Sepilok Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre in Sandakan.
Day 2 (Part I)
THE day after our visit to United Plantations, which included a tour of the estate’s plantation, palm oil mill and biogas plant, we fly to orangutan country to meet the charismatic animals in person. Only two are hanging around the platform when we arrive at the Sepilok Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre in Sandakan, Sabah.
This is a good thing. It means the rehabilitation programme is working, our guide tells us.
There are around 50 orangutans in the forest, where they belong. It’s usually the curious juveniles that return to snack on bananas and other goodies left out on the viewing platform; veterinarian and assistant manager for the Sabah Wildlife Department’s Wildlife Rescue Unit Diana Ramirez recognises the one staring curiously out at the deck of tourists.
Ramirez, originally from Mexico, has been working here for three years.
Apparently we just missed a big event – the release of a 20-year-old male rescued two and a half months ago.
‘Whilst the pictures of scorched trees and orangutans lying burned on the ground may have applied a decade ago, things are very different today,’ says Sabah Wildlife Department’s Wildlife Rescue Unit assistant manager Diana Ramirez.
“He was found near the Gomantong caves in Kinabatang, severely injured. We had to bring him back to perform surgery on him,” she says.
His release earlier in the week was a big deal. The injuries he suffered were from natural causes, maybe a fight with another male.
In fact, most of the orangutans Ramirez’ unit rescues these days are victims of floods, loss of habitat due to forest clearance for general development purposes, or because someone has made a call when one wanders onto an orchard.
“There has actually been a decline in the orangutans brought into our sanctuary,” Ramirez says.
The kind of images that go viral – scorched babies due to forest clearance by burning, to make way for oil palm plantations, are simply not the norm. Even confiscations of orangutans as pets by the Sabah Willdife Department have become rare.
When asked about her perspective on common anti-palm oil rhetoric centred around orangutan habitat destruction, Ramirez says some people are alarmists.
“For us, it’s about keeping a balance. In Sabah, especially, its economy is based on agriculture.
However, whilst the pictures of scorched trees and orangutans lying burned on the ground may have applied a decade ago, things are very different today.”
This, she says, is due to stricter wildlife laws, and Sabah’s zero burning policy.
“This stuff might still be happening in other countries, but certainly not here. But even then, it is reducing.”
After we are done at the public viewing platform, we move to a smaller, restricted area, surrounded by a pond. On the far side of that is a series of suspended ropes, volunteers wearing face masks are teaching baby orangutan orphans how to climb.
Elis Tambing has been a wildlife ranger with the Sabah Wildlife Department since 1987.
‘My grandfather was traditionally a hunter, maybe it is God’s will that I am doing the work I do now,’ he says.
I get chatting with wildlife ranger Elis Tambing, who has been working with the Sabah Willdife Department since 1987. He is 48 years old and of Dusun descent.
“My grandfather was traditionally a hunter, maybe it was God’s will that I am doing the work I do now,” he jokes.
One argument often thrown out in defence against the anti-palm oil lobby, is that boycotting palm oil won’t just hurt major growers, but smallholders.
I wonder what Elis, a native Sabahan, makes of this.
From his point of view, he tells me the palm oil industry has been instrumental in bringing development to rural folk.
“Back in the day, most villagers survived on subsistence farming,” he says.
“Poverty was common, and the only way to the nearest town was by boat.
“One advantage of the industry was the infrastructure it brought with it. It gave us roads, so people could move around more easily.”
Elis remembers the government began opening the land up for rubber plantations back in the 70s.
In the 90s, oil palm was pushed by the Federal Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority and the Federal Land Development Authority, as a new source of economic development.
“All my uncles and cousins were given small, 15ha plots of land with which to plant oil palm.”
Today, Elis estimates that 60% of his family’s livelihoods are tied up with the industry.
Most are smallholders; some of his cousins have joined the big palm oil companies in search of long term career prospects, as estate managers.
“So yes, this industry is very important,” he says.
The value of standing forest
‘The Sabah Forestry Department requires RM100mil per year to manage four million hectares of forest. What we are earning right now is barely enough to keep us going,’ says Frederick Kugan, deputy director of Forestry from Sabah state’s Forest Sector Planning Division.
Day 2 (Part II)
AFTER our trip to the Sepilok Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre, we have lunch.
Appetites satiated, we then meet with Frederick Kugan, deputy director of Forestry from Sabah state’s Forest Sector Planning Division.
The session takes place at the Rainforest Discovery Centre, a state-run educational centre located within the Kabili-Sepilok Forest Reserve. It is equipped with a series of bridges that offer visitors a vantage point over the rainforest canopy. The views are breathtaking.
Before we get to have a look around, however, Kugan delivers his presentation, followed by a Q&A.
A forester by profession, Kugan joined the Sabah Forestry Department in 1987, the same year as Elis Tambing.
One of the first things he brings up during his presentation is a subject NGOs usually gloss over.
‘Now Sabah is already developed, and has already achieved a good balance, in terms of agriculture, forest and timber,’ says Marc Ancrenaz, the scientific director at Hutan, an NGO running a conservation programme for orangutans in the Kinabatang area.
“The Sabah Forestry Department requires RM100mil per year to manage four million hectares of forest,” he says. “What we are earning right now is barely enough to keep us going.”
As a country develops, people tend to place a lot of value on economics. To put things into perspective, you can get 50 times the economic value per hectare of oil palm than standing forests.
“It’s a desperate situation in some ways. If we don’t find a way to develop and increase incomes, then pressure on protected areas also increases,” he says.
Sabah currently has about 1.3 million hectares of protected forests, including Protected Forest Reserves, State Parks and Wildlife & Bird Sanctuaries.
“About 59% of the state is currently under forest cover, 53% of which comes under forest reserves and parks.”
Now, any new degazettement of forest land in the state must correspond with an equivalent replacement of forest land elsewhere.
Today, most of Sabah’s forests have in the past, undergone some form of human cultivation, or been logged over.
But that doesn’t mean that biodiversity in them is low, warns Kugan.
One of the best competing alternative land uses to oil palm in fact, in terms of economic value, is certified timber production forest, he says.
The only problem is, certified timber, such as that under the Forest Stewardship Council or Malaysian Timber Certification Council (MTCC) schemes, no longer fetch a premium price in international markets – a problem eerily resonant with what we heard about RSPO premiums the day before.
Marc Ancrenaz, who is sitting in on the meeting, has something to contribute.
“Now Sabah is already developed, and has already achieved a good balance, in terms of agriculture, forest and timber,” he says.
A Frenchman living in Malaysia, Ancrenaz is the scientific director at Hutan, an NGO running a conservation programme for orangutans in the Kinabatang area.
He agrees that the way forward is certification – both for timber and oil palm.
“Is the RSPO completely reliable?” asks one journalist.
“No,” he replies. “It could be better in terms of traceability and enforcement, but it’s definitely a good start.”
For Ancrenaz, it makes a lot more sense to work with the palm oil industry than against it. Instead of criticising the industry from afar, he is working here on the ground, where the problem takes on a whole new light.
“Boycotting is not the proper way to deal with the problem, because bringing the palm oil industry down will not do anything to solve any of the (economic) problems in the long term.”
“Policymakers in Sabah have accepted sustainable forest management, and recognise its importance in other sectors, especially tourism. They have opened their minds to exploring other potential sources of income,” he says.
Interestingly, quite a few of the French journalists seemed unaware of the state’s attempts to initiate alternative financing mechanisms, to improve the value of standing forests. Most of those efforts are still premature, and some look more promising than others.
Kugan’s mention of the state’s involvement in initiatives such as the Malua BioBank and the United Nations Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (UN-REDD Programme) stimulates a fresh flurry of questions, more out of curiosity, it seems, than the topic of palm oil.
It also seemed to come as a surprise that human-wildlife conflict these days stems mostly from human-elephant conflict.
In comparison, orangutans rarely come into the picture, in that sense.
“The orangutan population in Sabah is pretty much stabilised.
“In the past, 70% of orangutans were found outside of protected areas, but today, it’s the other way around, and 70% are found inside protected areas.”
http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Environment/2013/10/24/The-value-of-standing-forest.aspx
Final stop
The French journalists got a chance to chat with Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Seri Douglas Uggah Embas (left) and Malaysian Palm Oil Council CEO Tan Sri Dr Yusof Basiron (back row, right) during their five-day educational tour.
Day 3
UPON our return from Sabah, the schedule is packed. During the remaining two days, we squeeze in a meeting with the MPOC, dinner with Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities Datuk Seri Douglas Uggah Embas, a morning session with the Malaysia Trade Development Corporation, and an afternoon session with Pemandu, the outfit charged with implementing Malaysia’s Economic Transformation Programme.
A short recovery period is available during the two-hour van journey which brings us up to Sabak Bernam, a district on the outskirts of Selangor.
The time is 6pm, and we are waiting in front of a religious school, finally free, once again, from the hectic rush of the city.
The French journalists are taking pictures with a gaggle of giggling schools girls, their male counterparts watching shyly from a fishing spot at the storm drain.
It’s a picturesque slice of rural life, interrupted when our guy pulls up in a black Toyota Hilux.
Ahmad Sidek emerges from the jeep, clad in flashy red sneakers with bright yellow soles indicating for us to follow him.
The 57-year-old farmer’s family used to plant cocoa and coconut, before he, like thousands of other smallholders in the 90s, decided to switch to oil palm.
As our van tails him along a narrow gravel road, I notice his number plate, which spells out IM4U – the acronym for the government’s much publicised 1Malaysia for Youth slogan.
Curious, I later ask about it. Ahmad Sidek replies he bid RM2,000 for it. Small luxuries, we soon discover, are something this farmer can afford.
It’s been a long day, and we only have a few hours to ask him questions and rush all the way to KLIA so journalists can check in for their 11.30pm flight.
Ahmad Sidek has been a farmer all his life. Here he is being interviewed by some French journalists at his small oil palm plantation in Sabak Bernam, Selangor.
The light is fading as we gather around the entrance to his small oil palm estate, and so begins the interview process of converting questions: from French to English, and from English to Malay; with the answers to be translated back again.
Ahmad Sidek’s estate is 14.21ha, the French journalists are told.
About 4ha are planted with banana, to generate temporary income during replanting – but the rest is covered in oil palm.
His earnings vary, depending on market prices. When prices were good, he made about RM17,000 a month. At the moment, however, a tonne of fresh fruit bunch (FFB) fetches about RM400.
He sells the 35 odd tonnes of FFB produced per month to the nearest palm oil trading company, and employs five workers.
There are plenty of questions and little time. We breeze through them, but there is not a lot of time to dwell on anything.
French journalists got to see oil palm cultivation first hand during their visit to palm oil estates, such
as Ahmad Sidek’s in Sabak Bernam, Selangor.
For example, when asked if he intends to get RSPO-certified, he says yes. However, when asked whether there is any demand for RSPO-certified crops by the local palm oil trading company, he replies that no, there isn’t.
Some journalists wanted to know why he made the switch to oil palm in the first place. Well, that’s what all the research and investment was going into, he explains. It made sense to go into a crop that was getting so much support.
Would he encourage his children (of which he has four) to take over from him? He says personally, yes.
“Well, they can choose for themselves.
“It’s up to them whether they want to have a hectic city life, and maybe earn RM5,000 a month, or have a more quiet life here, and earn up to RM17,000 a month.”
Having said that, compared to most, Ahmad Sidek admits that he has it pretty good.
His high yields are, at least in part, thanks to access to good advice, and new planting materials and fertilisers.
He’s been running demo plots for the Malaysian Palm Oil Board since the 90s.
In comparison, most of his friends – other smallholders – bring in about 15 tonnes of FFB per hectare.
Any fluctuations in market prices are likely to have a greater impact on them than on him.
After the journalists wrap up their questions, everyone gets ready themselves for the mad dash to the airport.
There is time for one last group photo, before we say our goodbyes.
The trip has ended.
I guess the take-home point from this last pit stop along the tour was meant to be that palm oil can serve to elevate rural folk into a higher income bracket.
The contribution of palm oil to the Malaysian economy is tremendous. Last year’s exports were worth RM71bil.
Smallholders make up 40%, or two out of the 5.1 million hectares of land cultivated with oil palm in Malaysia.
However, even if we ended the tour with a story that sticks out from the ordinary, Ahmad Sidek’s perspective still lends insight into how the livelihoods of many rural folk are tied up with the industry.
Somehow, I get the feeling that the visiting journalists won’t have encountered anything particularly life-changing during the trip.
However, coming along for the ride made me realise that experiencing things on the ground is a far cry from nursing judgements based on facts and stats on a piece of paper.
Whether we were equipped with rose-tinted glasses or not, there is no doubt that the trip offered us more than the black-and-white image portrayed by anti-palm oil lobbyists.
In reality, the impact of palm oil – be it good or bad – is far more nuanced than that.
http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Environment/2013/10/24/Final-stop.aspx
