Plantation Industries and Commodities Ministry said that hunting by humans was a major contributor to the decline of Bornean orangutans over the last 200 years, long before significant oil palm development began in the 1970s.

In conjunction with International Orangutan Day celebrated yearly on Aug 19, its minister Zuraida Kamaruddin also denied allegations that palm oil plantation was the biggest threat to the orangutans, with some quarters even going to the extent of brandishing the edible oil as an “orangutan killer”.