Last checked at 
By Juarawee Kittisilpa and Orathai Sriring
BANGKOK, July 6 (Reuters) - Monkey labour to harvest
coconuts for commercial products "is almost non-existent" in
Thailand, the commerce minister said on Monday, after British
retailers announced bans on products campaigners say use the
animals in their production.
Waitrose, Co-op, Boots and
Ocado vowed not to sell products that used monkey
labour, while Morrisons has already removed Thai
products amid an appeal by Prime Minister Boris Johnson's
fiancée Carrie Symonds.
Symonds on Friday backed a call to supermarkets to stop
selling Thai coconut products over accusations of monkey
"slaves" by the rights group People for Ethical Treatment of
Animals (PETA) published in the Telegraph newspaper.
"Using monkeys for the coconut industry is almost
non-existent," Thai Commerce Minister Jurin Laksanawisit told
reporters, saying human labour had long ago replaced monkeys.
"But there may still be the pictures of monkey collecting
coconuts for tourism on video clips, which created a
misunderstanding," Jurin said.
Deputy agriculture minister, Mananya Thaiset, echoed his
comments. "How do you even find that many monkeys to collect
large amounts of coconuts to cater to the industry?" she said
When asked by email about the minister's comments that the
video may have been taken at tourist shows, rather than in an
industrial plantation, PETA Senior Vice President Jason Baker
said: "PETA’s investigation footage was captured recently on
plantations and training schools."
"When the government tries to explain away extreme cruelty
to monkeys, it only makes the public angrier," he added.
Reuters could not verify whether the monkeys in the PETA
video were being used in commercial coconut farming.
Thailand last year exported coconut milk worth 12.3 billion
baht ($396 million), about 8% of it to Britain.
Walmart-owned supermarket Asda also said it was
removing products from Aroy-D and Chaokoh, Thai brands of
coconut milk, while investigating the PETA report.
An Aroy-D spokeswoman disputed the report and said British
retailers did not consult it before their announcements.
Chaokoh did not reply to queries on Monday.
Edwin Wiek, of the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand that
tends to rescued wildlife, said he believed the practice was
waning as farmers strived to meet European trade standards.
"I do believe that monkeys are still being used for the
coconut picking. But in the last 15 years, it’s going down at a
very big rate," he said.
($1 = 31.0300 baht)
(Additional reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat; Writing by Kay
Johnson; Editing by Alison Williams)
