Junaidi Che Ayub, chief of Malaysia's fisheries department, said the cloning procedure would first be carried out on green turtles, which are abundant in Malaysia's northeastern state of Terengganu, where the leatherbacks nest.

"Once we have perfected the technique, we will apply it to leatherback turtles as they are a more complicated species in the turtle family," the paper quoted Junaidi as saying.

Rantau Abang in Terengganu used to be the nesting home of one of the seven largest leatherback populations in the world but its population has declined by more than 99 percent since the 1960s, global conservation group WWF says on its Malaysia Web site.

Leatherbacks, known to scientists as Dermochelys coriacea, get their name from their leathery carapace, and have distinctive long front flippers, the site said.

They face threats such as the loss of nesting and feeding places, excessive egg-collection, fatal entangling in fishing nets, pollution and coastal development, it added.

Cloning animals involves taking the nuclei of cells from adults and fusing them into other egg cells that are implanted into a surrogate mother.