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Southern Central Forest Spine (SCFS) Landscape, Malaysia

Southern Central Forest Spine (SCFS) Landscape, Malaysia

Southern Central Forest Spine (SCFS) Landscape, Malaysia

Demonstrate harmonised sustainable economic development, forest conservation, decent work opportunities, and resilient livelihoods for communities  through collective action.

The Southern Central Forest Spine (SCFS) is one of the most important palm oil sourcing regions in Malaysia, playing a crucial role in the industry. However, since the 1980s, significant land conversion to palm oil plantations has resulted in a fragmented forest ecosystem. Despite these challenges, the remaining forest complexes in SCFS serve as vital wildlife corridors for endangered animals, highlighting the region's ecological importance. 

Unfortunately, the continued expansion of palm oil plantations puts further pressure on these last remaining forests in Peninsular Malaysia, often leading to conflicts between palm-growing farmers and displaced wildlife. Additionally, social issues such as forced and bonded labour are still present in the palm-growing region of SCFS. The SCFS stands out as a key player in Malaysia's palm oil industry while simultaneously showcasing the pressing need for sustainable practices to preserve both its ecological and social integrity.

Key Objectives For 2025

Supply Chain Transformation

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Forest Protection

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Resilient Farmers

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Workers & Families

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Key Learnings Benefiting the SCFS partners in Collective Action

Sustainable business development

Integrates economic growth with forest conservation, improving livelihoods for farmers and well-being of workers.

Supply chain transparency and NDPE compliance

Drives traceability and NDPE action planning with palm oil actors.

Collaborative partnerships

Multistakeholder initiatives across thematic work to engage government, supply chain actors, and local communities to achieve scalable, sustainable and replicable landscape management.

Impacts To Date

The project is systematically monitored and evaluated on a quarterly and an annual basis, using Earthworm’s Global Impact Framework Tool (GIFT ). 

Supply Chain Transformation

A total of 47 mills has NDPE time bound action plans, 30 mills are 100% traceable to plantations while 67 mills are making progress towards achieving 100% TTP.

Forest and Environment

8,433 ha covered by human-elephant coexistence program through various stakeholder engagement, capacity buildings and patrolling.

Farmers Resilience

A total of 625 smallholders outreached through income diversification, series of seminars and capacity building program; 1 village mapping, covering estimation of 2000 ha of land and is undergoing land application process.

Workers Wellbeing

Through the Ethical Recruitment Due Diligence (ERDD) and Operational Grievance Mechanism work, Earthworm has reached over 2000 workers in mills and plantations providing improved working environment.

The sustainability of the SCFS landscape initiatives is designed into the project framework

  • By empowering local communities and ensuring ownership from the onset of field initiatives.
  • By building the capacity of suppliers to improve their NDPE commitments and support for actions.
  • By collaborating with local governments and partners to scale project initiatives.
  • By establishing a comprehensive impact monitoring and evaluation framework to track progress, identify challenges, and adapt strategies to ensure continuous improvement and accountability.
  • By engaging key government agencies to influence and promote systemic change sustainable environment and human rights practices.

Our work is supported through collaboration

The following informal multistakeholder working groups and collective action with private sector

Promote human-wildlife coexistence

  • Sungai Ara human elephant coexistence (HEC) committee
  • Project Achieving Coexistence with Elephants (ACE)

Achieve supply chain transparency

Multistakholder dialogue: improving traceability within national systems

Improve workers' wellbeing

Collaborate with palm oil refineries and key producers to support the improvement of labour practices in supplier companies within the landscape to safeguard workers’ well-being.

The SCFS landscape initiatives collaborate extensively with the following government agencies at national, state, and district levels

  • Smallholder farmers’ resilience
    • Malaysia Palm Oil Board (MPOB)
  • Traceability and compliance
    • Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil Certification (MSPO) (formally Malaysia Palm Oil Certification Council (MPOCC))
  • Decent work, eliminating forced labour, improving labour awareness and practice
    • Ministry of Human Resources (MOHR)
    • Department of Labour (JTK) 
  • Indigenous farmers’ resilience and customary land protection
    • Department of Orang Asli (JAKOA) 
    • Forestry Department
  • Human-wildlife coexistence
    • Malaysian Palm Oil Green Conservation Foundation (MPOCGF)
    • MPOB
    • Wildlife Department
    • Pahang State Government
    • Johor State Government
    • Kota Tinggi District government
    • Forestry Department

Funders

Lead funders

  • Ferrero
  • Nestlé
  • Oleon

Contributors

  • Cargill
  • Fuji Oil
  • AAK
  • Target
  • The Hershey Company
  • Givaudan
  • Clariant
  • Vandermoortele
  • Flora Food Group
  • Clorox

Project Partners

  • IOI Group
  • Malaysian Palm Oil Certification Council
  • Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB)
  • Management and Ecology of Malaysian Elephants (MEME)
  • Malaysian Palm Oil Green Conservation Foundation (MPOCGF)
  • Ministry of Human Resources (MOHR)
  • Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities (MPIC)

Our field team

Kiah-Hui Ooi

SCFS Landscape Coordinator

Bejay Yapp

Manager - Smallholder and Community Transformation

Zaid Hamzah

Project Lead - Smallholder and Community Transformation

Ezzny Zulaikha

Project Lead – Social and Human Rights

Roshen Velsine

Project Lead - Social and Human Rights

Masturina Hani

Project Lead – Smallholder and Community Transformation

Beyond our on-the-ground field teams, our technical specialists in Malaysia play a pivotal role in supporting and advancing the landscape initiatives.

Southern CFS is one of the key ecosystems where Earthworm Foundation works through its landscapes approach.

Key Commodities

Click on the icons to learn more about Earthworm's work on the commodity:

News & Stories

World Elephant Day Celebration 2024: Fostering Coexistence between Humans and Elephants in Johor for Future Generations

May 31, 2024

Managing Human-Elephant Interactions in the Southern Central Forest Spine (SCFS) Landscape, Malaysia

Jul 10, 2023

Memorandum of Agreement to implement a project aimed at achieving harmonious coexistence between elephants and local communities