The news
Malaysia on Sunday launched the controversial “orangutan diplomacy” program in a bid to push countries to continue importing palm oil despite the known risks it poses to the animals’ habitat and survival.
The program will allow importers to “adopt” orangutans in the country. The government will also seek to curb deforestation, a common consequence of palm oil plantations, Malaysia’s resources minister said on Sunday.
Animal welfare activists had criticized the original proposal to send orangutans abroad. Experts believe that there are fewer than 105,000 orangutans in the wild, on the Malaysian island of Borneo alone.
Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries have tried to present a cleaner sheen on palm oil products since the European Union banned products linked to deforestation. The palm oil industry generates more than $39 billion a year in global GDP and employs 3 million people worldwide, a million of whom live in Malaysia, and is used in everything from lipstick to pizza.
