Orangutans and Dr Willie Smits

[Guest guest]

This article can be found at:

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/11/06/1099547432198.html?oneclick=true

 

A race against time

November 7, 2004

 

There's a real, real chance we're going to lose all

our biodiverse lowland rainforest

- Willie Smits

 

 

Willie Smits is working desperately to save the wild

orangutan from extinction. He has only three years,

writes Annie Lawson.

Dr Willie Smits is Borneo's answer to Indiana Jones. A

typical day can be spent anywhere, in the depths of

the dense jungles of Indonesia, lecturing university

students or rubbing shoulders with international

politicians, diplomats and corporate giants.

Such is the frenetic nature of his job that the

Dutch-born tropical forest ecologist, who was knighted

in his native Holland for his conservation work, has

travelled round the world three times in the past

month.

That this 47 year-old - who is in Australia to promote

orangutan awareness and conservation as part of the

International Orangutan Awareness Week - is fluent in

six languages and cuts a dashing figure heightens the

obvious comparisons with the fictional archaeologist.

Saving wild orangutans, which he believes could be

doomed within three years, comes at a price. He has

not seen his Indonesian wife and three sons for seven

weeks but he says they understand his long absences

are necessary to defend Asia's only great ape against

imminent extinction.

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His influence not only resonates in the upper echelons

of the political and corporate world; he has also

captured the interest of the main space agencies

around the globe, which are now helping to extinguish

one of the biggest threats facing orangutans - habitat

destruction through illegal logging.

" When you destroy one part of this beautiful ecosystem

you're influencing thousands of other parts and,

thereby, endangering the survival of the whole

system, " Smits says. " There's a real, real chance

we're going to lose all our biodiverse lowland

rainforest in just a few decades from now and with

them we will lose an uncountable number of species.

Mankind will suffer the consequences for sure.

" If you want to have an orangutan population to

survive, you need 1000 individuals, which means that

they need more than 30,000 hectares of perfect-quality

forest without any roads going through. These

fragments of forest of that size - lowland rainforest

with enough fruit trees in it for orangutans to

survive - have become extremely sparse.

" We are now looking at a very sad situation. . . right

at this moment there is not a single population that

looks safe for the future. "

The use of satellite technology to track illegal

loggers is shaping up to be one of the biggest

developments in preserving the orangutan and its

habitat.

The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOS, formed

by Smits in 1991, set up the company SARVision

(Synthetic Aperture Radar Vision), which has developed

a dynamic radar monitoring system based on data

supplied by the European Space Agency, Japan AeroSpace

Exploration Agency and NASA. Using a complex set of

algorithms to decode the radar images supplied by

satellites, BOS can detect changes in the forest

canopy regardless of cloud coverage.

 

Willie Smits with one of his charges: " The world would

be a lot better place if we humans were a bit more

like orangutans. "

Photo:Emma Sachsse

Smits says: " We take images of the faces of the people

stealing timber, what equipment they use, and a day

later we leave with a team of police and the army and

we arrest them.

" Since we have started adapting this technology five

months ago, we cannot find any wood thieves any more.

It has a good preventative effect and this is one

thing that gives us hope.

" It is widely acknowledged that 60 to 70 per cent of

all wood harvested in Indonesia is from illegal

logging and, if you add the timber that illegally

comes out of the land preparation of these oil palm

plantations, you're looking at almost 90 per cent

illegal activities in Indonesia and timber

harvesting. "

There is no refuge for orangutans enduring the twin

threats of the multi-billion-dollar illegal logging

industry and the black-market pet trade. Poaching

alone, valued at $US1 billion a year, claimed 6000

mothers and babies from the wild in 2003. When you

throw in forest fires, the effects of climate change

and disease, the population of a once abundant species

has been whittled down from 3 million in China,

South-East Asia and India 10,000 years ago to around

50,000 in pockets of Borneo and Sumatra.

No less alarming is the propensity for people to

ignore the reality of these threats.

The frequency and savagery of attacks on orangutans by

poachers and forest degradation by loggers raises

inevitable questions about their potential extinction.

Although many scientists and ecologists are optimistic

about the outlook, Smits' prognosis is disturbingly

gloomy.

He warns that the wild orangutan will lose its chance

to sustain its population within three years.

" It's clear we are losing the orangutans if nothing

changes, so the present trend is directly towards

extinction and, in three years from now, less than

1000 days, it will be too late. "

Smits, who worked as a senior adviser to the

Indonesian Government on conservation matters, has

been instrumental in finalising a debt-forgiveness

scheme that could arrest the rapid decline.

Under the deal, the Indonesian Government hands over a

large area of forest to be permanently protected under

the management of BOS.

The Dutch and German governments are close to wiping

up to $US100 million of Indonesia's debt in exchange

for carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol. This

allows countries that exceed their carbon emission

targets to offset this by buying carbon credits in

less developed areas.

Oil giant Shell has agreed to invest $10 million to

help BOS manage the 500,000 hectares of protected

forest in the Mawas region of central Kalimantan in

southern Borneo, as part of the carbon credit system.

BOS has so far rehabilitated and released 1000

orangutans and has another 550 in its centres.

" This is merely proof of our failing to protect the

wild orangutans, " says Smits. " If we had been

successful, we would have been able to close down

these centres

Smits love of nature and animals became apparent at

the age of six, when he developed an interest birds.

Later, he took part in a campaign to set free hawks

and owls.His interest in saving orangutans was

triggered by a chance encounter with a distressed

orangutan at a market in 1989.

He later rescued and released the creature.

Since establishing BOS, Smits has developed a

reforestation method using local tree species.

It is supported by thousands of Indonesians who are

taught forest management and nature conservation.

The Indonesian Government awarded him a development

medal of merit in 1998, the highest Indonesian

conservation award handed to a Europe-born Indonesian.

This is one of many international awards he has

received for his work.

Orangutans, which share 97 per cent of humans' DNA,

have an advanced brain and the ability to understand

language, and they experience many human emotions.

Unlike humans and chimpanzees, orangutans are not

inherently aggressive; rather, they are more peaceful

and altruistic creatures. " The world would be a lot

better place if we humans were a bit more like

orangutans, " Smits says.

The depth of his passion is evident when asked to name

his mentor:

Dr Willie Smits will give public lectures at the

Australian Museum, Sydney on Tuesday, the Australian

National University, Canberra, on Wednesday, and

Melbourne University, Melbourne, on Saturday. Visit

www.orangutans.com.au for information.

 

 

=====

Michelle Desilets

BOS UK

www.savetheorangutan.org.uk

www.savetheorangutan.info

" Primates Helping Primates "

 

Please sign our petition to rescue over 100 smuggled orangutans in Thailand:

http://www.thePetitionSite.com/takeaction/822035733

 

 

 

 

 

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