Birute Galdikas -- '60 Minutes' program synopsis

[Guest guest]

from Barbara

 

>http://cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,260977-412,00.shtml

 

>The Last Place On Earth

 

>

 

>The Remaining Habitat For Orangutans Is In Jeopardy

 

>But One Woman Is Fighting To Save The Species

 

>

 

>BORNEO, Indonesia, Jan. 2, 2001

 

>

 

>(CBS) The closest living relatives to humankind are the great apes, gorillas,

 

>chimpanzees and orangutans. Their DNA is about 95 percent the same as

 

>man's. Does that mean apes have anything to tell us about being human?

 

>In the case of the orangutan, you'd be surprised.

 

>

 

>What we know about the orangutan is largely due to one woman. Anthropologist

 

>Birute Galdikas left the University of California at Los Angeles for Borneo

 

>30 years ago and never looked back. The apes she studies once ranged from

 

>China through the South Pacific. But today they're cornered on just two

islands,

 

>Borneo and Sumatra, both part of Indonesia.

 

>

 

>Now the woman who discovered how orangutans live is watching the species

 

>decline toward extinction. As Scott Pelley reports, the apes who seem so

 

>human are losing, what is for them, the last place on Earth.

 

>-\

-

 

>Dozens of infant orangutans of the Indonesian rain forest would not be alive

 

>if it were not for the mothering instinct of Galdikas. The infants in her care

are

 

>about 1 year old. For every one there was a mother killed in the jungle.

 

>

 

> " You face a situation where orangutans are going extinct in the wild, and you

 

>absolutely have to do something to save them, " says Galdikas.

 

>

 

>The forest of the orangutan lies far up the Sekonyer River. It's the second

 

>largest rain forest after the Amazon.

 

>

 

> " It is prime orangutan habitat. This is peat swamp forest, and there are more

 

>orangutans here than virtually any place on Earth, " says Galdikas as a wooden

 

>boat takes her upstream.

 

>

 

> " Unfortunately there's a horrible possibility, and it's very tragic, that we

could

 

>be traveling up the last river where orangutans are found in the wild, " she

adds.

 

>

 

>Galdikas first explored Sekonyer River 30 years ago when it was a paradise

 

>for apes. " I look back to those days when I went into the forest every morning

 

>and followed wild orangutans, and, ah, those were wonderful golden days, "

 

>she says.

 

>

 

>She was sent by legendary anthropologist Louis Leakey, who assigned Jane

 

>Goodall to chimpanzees and Dian Fossy to gorillas. " One of the reasons I

 

>wanted to study orangutans was that they seemed so human, " says Galdikas.

 

>

 

>But no one had ever succeeded in tracking them. Orangutans are so elusive

 

>the native people of Indonesia used to believe they were ghosts.

 

>

 

>In fact, when Galdikas came to the forest in 1971, she imagined that she

 

>might not ever see an orangutan.

 

>

 

>The incredibly dense foliage makes it very difficult to find the primates. It

is

 

>a problem Galdikas learned to overcome in her studies. " I once followed an

 

>adult male for 61 days, " she says.

 

>

 

>And with the persistence came the discoveries. " What surprised me the most

 

>is the fact that they live most of their lives alone, but they are not lonely, "

she

 

>explains. " I used to get terribly lonely in this forest, but they never got

lonely.

 

>An adult male orangutan could be alone in that forest, year in year out, but

 

>he is serene; he is a universe unto himself. "

 

>

 

>Galdikas says orangutans make tools like humans. They bend limbs into

 

>toys, tools and even umbrellas.

 

>

 

>In the Malay language, orangutan means " person of the forest. " The orangutans

 

>are the only species of great apes that live virtually their entire lives high

in the

 

>canopy of the rain forest. The trouble is Indonesia is losing approximately

 

>1 percent of its rain forest every year, according to estimates. The orangutans

 

>make their home in trees that comprise some of the most valuable timber in

 

>the world.

 

>

 

>The trees standing inside a national park are off limits to loggers. The parks

 

>are protected by Indonesian law, which, it turns out, is no protection at all.

 

>

 

>In the Tanjung Puting National Park, home to prime orangutan habitat, trees

 

>by the hundreds are headed for the sawmills in broad daylight. The habitat

 

>of the orangutan ends up going down gang planks - off to the furniture

 

>factories of South Asia.

 

>

 

>Faith Doherty, who investigates the timber trade for a private group called

 

>the Environmental Investigation Agency, says 70 percent of all timber felled

 

>in Indonesia is illegal.

 

>

 

>So how does the wood get to the mills without being confiscated by police?

 

> " If anything goes to court, you buy the judge to get the correct verdict, " says

 

>Doherty.

 

>

 

> " One of things for sale is not just that national park, but all of Indonesia's

 

>national parks. "

 

>

 

>Doherty shot video of a wood called ramin in a Borneo sawmill. The national

 

>park is the only source of ramin in the region.

 

>

 

>When Doherty went to the mill owners with some questions, she was kidnapped,

 

>beaten and held for three days, she says.

 

>

 

>Company director Een Jaharia was shown the video of her mill filled with ramin,

 

>which could only come from the park: " The ramin we have is all legal. It is all

 

>legal. We didn't take any wood from Tanjung Puting, " said Jaharia. When

 

>pressed further, she ended the interview abruptly.

 

>

 

>And deforestation is not the only threat to the orangutans. In their remaining

 

>habitat, men are literally tearing apart the rain forest in search of gold.

 

>

 

>The gold miners turn the earth inside out, washing away the topsoil with high-

 

>pressure water hoses. By law, orangutans and the entire rain forest are to be

 

>protected but parts of it have become scenes of magnificent desolation. Where

 

>pristine rain forest once lay, there are now acres of barren fields of sand.

 

>

 

>To bind the gold together, they add mercury to the mix. For the miners, it's a

 

>day soaked in poison for a handful of gold dust while the future of the forest

is

 

>sent downstream.

 

>

 

>The Indonesian government has so far done nothing to stop the miners and

 

>the loggers.

 

>

 

>At this rate, the orangutans don't have many years left: " I would have to guess

 

>10 years at the most, " Galdikas estimates.

 

>

 

>Time is running out because of another trait orangutans share with humans: The

 

>bond between mother and infant is long term. Orangutans are the slowest

 

>breeding apes in the world. In the last 10 years, the population has dropped

 

>50 percent.

 

>

 

> " A female only starts giving birth when she is 16 or 17 years of age, so if you

 

>start killing females you have to wait 16 or 17 years for infants to grow up

 

>and start reproducing, " says Galdikas.

 

>

 

>Because of this, when females are killed, Galdikas rescues the infants.

 

>

 

>There may be as few as 10,000 orangutans left in the wild. Galdikas says it is

 

>urgent that humans save the species " because they are our closest living

 

>relatives, because they are unique, because they've been on this Earth for

 

>millions of years, and they deserve to survive. "

 

>

 

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