Malaysia is inviting countries that buy its palm oil to adopt orangutans, but leave them in their natural habitat, local media reported, tweaking a plan that originally sought to send some abroad.
In a scheme modeled on China’s “panda diplomacy,” Malaysia in May announced that it would send the great apes as gifts to palm oil-purchasing countries, sparking an outcry among conservationists.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists orangutans as critically endangered, as they have lost habitat to logging and agricultural expansion, particularly palm oil plantations.
Photo: Reuters
On Sunday, Malaysian Plantation and Commodities Minister Johari Abdul Ghani said any orangutans that were adopted would stay in Malaysia, the official Bernama news agency and other local media reported.
“All conservation activities will be carried out in forest areas or forest patches in oil palm plantations with high conservation value,” Bernama quoted him as saying.
These “areas provide space for orangutans to move freely, find food and reproduce without interference from humans or other activities,” he said.
Buyers of Malaysian palm oil from around the world can “sponsor” one or more orangutans, and the funds collected are to be used to implement conservation programs for the animals, the Star newspaper quoted the minister as saying.
The programs include “collaborating with a team of rangers, comprising experts, to monitor the presence, safety and condition of these wild animals,” he said.
Beijing’s panda diplomacy, to which the scheme has been widely compared, has long served as a source of soft power, with pandas loaned to foreign zoos under strict conditions, including returning any offspring to join China’s breeding program.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Cambodia’s government on Wednesday said that it had arrested and extradited to China a tycoon who has been accused of running a huge online scam operation. The Cambodian Ministry of the Interior said that Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi (陳志) and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited on Tuesday at the request of Chinese authorities. Chen formerly had dual nationality, but his Cambodian citizenship was revoked last month, the ministry said. US prosecutors in October last year brought conspiracy charges against Chen, alleging that he had been the mastermind behind a multinational cyberfraud network, used his other businesses to launder
RSS