Myanmar is learning from its neighbors on how to conserve its unique biodiversity as its palm oil industry  expands and the country seeks to meet domestic demand for the commodity.

Myanmar’s first workshop on the development of a sustainable plantation sector took place on 28 June,  2014, in Yangon, organised by Fauna & Flora International (FFI) and the Union of Myanmar Federation of  Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI). Gary Paoli, a director at Daemeter Consulting, gave a  presentation on how the High Conservation Value (HCV) approach could be applied on the ground, using  examples from Indonesia.

“Myanmar is uniquely positioned to learn from its neighbors, especially Indonesia, on how to strike a  balance between nature conservation and palm oil development,” said Paoli. The HCV tool can be  especially helpful to balance such trade-offs, provided a small number of key challenges to  implementation can be overcome, he added. Lessons from Indonesia, where HCV has been trialed for  more than 10 years, will help to address these challenges directly.

Plantation companies, government agencies and civil society organisations in Yangon discussed the  sustainable development of Myanmar’s palm oil industry in the European Union-funded workshop. They  committed committed to set up a sustainable palm oil learning group as a next step towards creating a  sustainable palm oil sector in the country.

“Myanmar has an opportunity to develop its palm oil sector sustainably by planning for agricultural  conversion in areas that are already severely degraded and leaving forested habitat untouched,” said FFI’s  Myanmar Director, Frank Momberg, as quoted in its press release here.

Myanmar’s Tanintharyi region is one of the country’s most important biodiversity areas with 2.5 million  hectares of intact lowland rainforest home to globally threatened animals including tigers, leopards,

elephants, tapirs, Malayan sun bears and Gurney’s Pitta, a colourful ground-dwelling bird found nowhere  else in the world, according to the press release.

Tanintharyi is also the only area with the right soil and climate conditions to grow oil palm in Myanmar.  Fuelled by a need to meet Myanmar’s demand for cooking oil and reduce the high cost of palm oil imports  (which cost the country $376 million in 2012 from Indonesia and Malaysia), to date over 140,000 hectares  of oil palm have been planted and 400,000 hectares allocated to over 40 local and three international  companies.

Gary Paoli’s presentation “The HCV approach in action: Examples from Indonesia” is available here. The  press release from FFI is available here. Photo courtesy of FFI