PETALING JAYA: The “standard risk” status given to Malaysia under a deforestation law came about following an assessment all countries had gone through under a new benchmarking system, says the European Union to Malaysia.
Responding to an outcry from Malaysia over the classification, the EU explained that its benchmarking system would rate countries either as low, standard or high risk, based on their risk of deforestation when producing seven commodities – namely cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soya and wood.
The assessment of the countries was based on a methodology of combining two quantitative thresholds to distinguish low-risk countries from standard risk ones.
These include an absolute threshold (below 70,000ha of annual forest loss) and a relative one (below 0.2% of annual forest loss of their total forest area).
The EU said in statement that Malaysia, which exceeded one or both of these thresholds, had been classified as standard risk by looking at its overall deforestation and not deforestation linked to any of the seven commodities in particular.
It has been reported that the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) wanted the European Commission to explain its benchmarking methodology used that led to the “standard risk” label given to Malaysia under the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).
“The ‘standard risk’ status for Malaysia does not recognise at all the progress and achievements made by the Malaysian palm oil industry in reducing deforestation and producing sustainable palm oil for European consumers,” MPOC chief executive officer Belvinder Sron said in a statement on Friday.
He cited latest independent satellite data which showed that Malaysia’s oil palm sector had transformed its environmental footprint for the better.
On Saturday, MPOC chairman Datuk Carl Bek-Nielsen criticised the “standard risk” classification, saying that it was unjust as it could lead to palm oil being excluded from the EU market despite the country’s progress in curbing deforestation and raising sustainability standards in the oil palm sector.
In its response yesterday, the European Union said that all countries went through the same process under the EUDR after a new benchmarking system (country classification) was adopted on May 22.
It said that the system was landmark legislation that promotes the consumption of “deforestation-free” products in the EU with the aim of reducing the impact on global deforestation and forest degradation.
