Its CEO, Darrel Webber, said it will be contacting the government to look into the possibility of an early publication of the RSPO maps, which it had previously withheld due to “legal constraints”.

“Hopefully, this can assist the Malaysian ambition to bring greater transparency to the oil palm sector.

“This, in turn, can bring greater objectivity to discussions on fires and other environmental topics that have sometimes been attributed to this sector,” Webber said in a statement.

Yesterday, Malaysiakini reported that the government was working to make public the maps to improve transparency.

Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok said this when asked to comment on the news portal’s report that the RSPO had not publishied the location of most RSPO-certified palm oil mills and plantations, except for Sabah, “due to concerns over the Official Secrets Act 1972 (OSA)”.

Today, Webber said that it was encouraged by Kok’s statement on the publication of such maps for the palm oil sector in Malaysia.

However, given the scale, it will be a challenging task to provide transparency for all palm oil-related landholdings, Webber added.

“And such, this process will take some time.”

Recently, Kok said about 51% of the country’s 5.85 million hectares of oil palm land in the country had obtained the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) certification until Aug 31 this year.

She said the MSPO certification covers more than 2.95 million hectares of land and 288 oil palm mills.