THREE PILLARS

Building on Sabah State’s commitment for 30% Totally Protected Areas, there needs to be local spatial planning to reduce the chances of Class 1 (protection) Forest Reserves and State Parks being degraded or deforested. This landscape-level planning can address the current shortcomings of site-by-site certification, and help to reduce ‘leakage’ of producers clearing new areas to avoid complying with certification principles, such as protection of High Conservation Value and High Carbon Stock areas. Furthermore, oil palm agriculture can have adverse and cumulative effects on freshwater ecosystems, from residues of fertilisers and pesticides, to palm oil mill effluent.

Certified sustainable production of palm oil is required to support livelihoods, jobs and businesses in such a way that they become providers of high quality, sustainable products for the global market. WWF will engage with the palm oil industry to facilitate this change, through advocacy and provision of technical support. All Sabah producers should be MSPO certified before 2020, and WWF supports this as a first step to reaching the international RSPO standards. In this process, WWF has been requested to target the medium-sized oil palm growers (>50 hectares) without their own mills, who account for 50% of Sabah’s oil palm areas. Some small-holders will also need assistance, and moving these independent growers to sustainable production relies on both government policy and market demand, and requires new models of group certification, which help reduce costs and deliver change at scale.

Ecological corridors are needed to connect isolated wildlife populations in forest fragments and to reduce the risk of local extinctions from inbreeding, hunting and climate change impacts. There are opportunities to link forest blocks on both state and private lands, and there is a need to restore many riparian reserves. Furthermore, some large forest areas have been badly degraded by heavy machinery and forest fires. So a central element in the Sabah Landscapes Programme will address these issues through reforestation.