STATEMENT ON THE LEGALITY OF PUBLISHING MALAYSIAN PALM OIL MAPS

Datuk Darrel Webber, Chief Executive Officer:

The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is encouraged by the positive statement by the Minister of Primary Industries related to the publication of maps for the palm oil sector in Malaysia.

We understand that, given the scale, it will be a challenging task to provide transparency for all palm oil related land holdings. And such, the process will necessarily take some time.

The RSPO, however, is ready to publish all of its Malaysian members maps within days of receiving the ‘greenlight’ from the Government of Malaysia. 

We will be communicating with the Government of Malaysia, to look into the possibility of an early publication of the RSPO members maps. Hopefully this can assist the Malaysian ambition to bring greater transparency to the palm oil sector. This, in turn, can bring greater objectivity to discussions on fires and other environmental topics that have sometimes been attributed to the palm oil sector. 

About RSPO

The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was formed in 2004 with the objective of promoting the growth and use of sustainable oil palm products through credible global standards and engagement of stakeholders. RSPO is a not-for-profit, international, membership organisation that unites stakeholders from the different sectors of the palm oil industry including oil palm producers, palm oil processors or traders, consumer goods manufacturers, retailers, banks and investors, environmental or nature conservation NGOs, and social or developmental NGOs.

This multi-stakeholder representation is mirrored in the governance structure of RSPO such that seats in the Board of Governors, Steering Committees and Working Groups are fairly allocated to each sector. In this way, RSPO lives out the philosophy of the "roundtable" by giving equal rights to each stakeholder group, facilitating traditionally adversarial stakeholders in working together to reach decisions by consensus, and achieving RSPO’s shared vision of making sustainable palm oil the norm.

The seat of the association is in Zurich, Switzerland, while the secretariat is currently based in Kuala Lumpur with satellite offices in Jakarta (ID), London (UK), Zoetermeer (NL), Beijing (CN) and Bogotá (CO).

For further information, kindly contact:

Name: Dan Strechay

Position: Head of Communications  

[email protected]

Name: Sara Cowling

Position: Communications & Content Manager

[email protected]