MALAYSIA will not allow any more land to be used as oil palm plantations in the country, Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok said today.

In giving her assurance that Malaysia would not increase its planted area under oil palm, she said: “This is Malaysia’s commitment to the international community, to keep 54.6% of our land as forest reserve.

“The challenges we face in Western countries is that they accuse Malaysian oil palm plantations as causing deforestation at the expense of displacing orang utans and wildlife… but the reality is that Malaysia still maintain 54.6% of its land as forest reserve,” she said after officiating the Corporate Malaysia Summit 2018 in Kuala Lumpur today.

Meanwhile, she said her ministry was also optimistic that the Malaysian palm oil industry would achieve 100% Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) certification as targeted by end-2019 with the assistance of large companies and civil society groups.

However, she added that the Pakatan Harapan government had to speed up its work, as currently, only 20% of the 650,000 palm oil smallholders in the country were MSPO certified.

“We are going to work very fast, especially in rural areas. We are working with the Federal Land Development Authority and civil society groups to get more smallholders to work towards MSPO certification.” 

The MSPO certification is a national scheme in Malaysia for oil palm plantations, independent and organised smallholdings and palm oil processing facilities to be certified against the requirements of the MSPO standards.

Kok said that she would lead a ministry delegation to visit Sabah and Sarawak and hold meetings with state governments to seek their cooperation to get smallholders in both states to comply with the target.            

Sarawak has 1.56 million ha under oil palm cultivation, the largest in Malaysia, accounting for 27% of total planted area in the country. By 2020, oil palm cultivation in the state was expected to increase to two million ha. – Bernama, September 4, 2018.