- [Narrator] Orangutans are called
the gardeners of the forest.
When they eat fruits, they consume a lot of the seeds,
next day when they poop, the seed is out,
and more importantly, because the orangutans can move
long distances in the forest,
they're disseminating the seeds
away from the mother tree.
It allows the forest to regenerate better.
My name is Marc Ancrenaz, I'm the scientific director
for the French NGO, Hutan.
I have been working here in Sabah, Malaysia
for 22 years now.
We are in Kinabatangan, which is
one of the most important hotspots for biodiversity.
At the same time, the Kinabatangan remains
one of the prime areas for production of palm oil
for the entire country of Malaysia.
Today the most of the area is covered
with industry or palm oil plantation.
So imagine you're an orangutan.
You are used to living in a very diverse forest
where you have thousands of different species of trees
everywhere, and you come to the edge of this forest
and you see a sea of palms.
One species of tree with the same height,
it has to be daunting.
And at the beginning, personally I thought that
these poor individuals were doomed
and they would disappear at some point,
but over the years, we have been back to the same areas
and realized that some of the orangutans
have been surviving there.
Some of them, the females, have been able to produce babies
in places where there are nearly no trees left
except for the palms.
It's amazing to see that the orangutan is able to adapt,
somehow they have learned over the years
to use this new habitat created by people.
We have stolen their forest habitat and now
they start to use the new habitat we have created ourselves.
Well, I think the least we could do is to help them
to survive in this newly created landscapes.
Okay, the palm oil issue is a very complex issue,
there is no such thing as an easy answer .
"Boycott" is an easy answer that won't work.
The palm oil industry is here to stay,
we need to work with it to support
what we call sustainable palm oil.
Some of these companies have actually approached us
to try to create better landscapes.
One way is to create corridors of trees,
meaning that you plant trees along the river for example,
that will link to patches of forests that are isolated.
To achieve this, you need the collaboration
from the land owner.
So we are working with a few estates in Kinabatangan
and they allocate some of their areas as set aside
to create these corridors that will
give a safe passage to wildlife.
So for me, there is no choice.
If you want to give a chance to elephants or orangutans,
we also need to create conditions that will sustain them
outside of protected forest as well.
I strongly believe that RSPO is the way forward.
Why? Because since last year,
a company that is certified by the RSPO
cannot do any deforestation.
We need to recognize the limits and the weaknesses
of this certification approach.
This is why it's key for the consumers, NGOs, scientists
and producers to engage with RSPO.
We need to improve it.
As long as the market doesn't recognize
the value of certified oil,
it doesn't really give a strong incentive to the industry
to improve their own practices.
So if you want to do something that
will be useful on the ground,
is it actually to support certified palm oil,
RSPO palm oil.