Update from Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation UK

[Guest guest]

Dear Friends of the Orangutan,

 

I’d like to take this opportunity to update you on some developments with the

Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation UK.

 

Our website continues to be developed, and in recent days some new links and

news have been added. One item that deserves particular attention is the new

“Create Rainforest” link. This link offers supporters a chance to “purchase”

square meters of land for BOS reforestation efforts at our Samboja Lestari

Project. Here, you can pay online and receive immediate acknowledgement of your

support in the form of a downloadable certificate, and satellite imagery allows

you to see precisely where your square meters are. (Please note that these

funds are managed by our BOS Germany office.) You can also go directly to

www.create-rainforest.org to find out more.

 

An interview with BOS UK on BBC Radio Birmingham took place a couple of weeks

ago, allowing listeners to learn more about the issues surrounding palm oil and

orangutans. Although there is not an online version of this interview

available, you can visit a similar interview we did for Pacifica Radio in the

US, which was subsequently fed out to local stations nationwide, and is archived

online at the following link:

http://kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=12087 & page=1 & type=news

Go to minute 38.13 for the start of the interview.

 

We were pleased to find that the story of palm oil and orangutans made the

cover of Geographical magazine (March 2006), and the 11-page article reported

on our campaign for sustainable palm oil as well as featured photos of our work

in the field.

 

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CPSI) in Washington DC ran a

full-page ad in the New York Times this week to draw attention to the link

between palm oil and orangutans. (To view the ad in PDF format go to:

http://www.cspinet.org/palm/CSPI_Palm_adlr.pdf). Their website has more

information as well as an online petition to tell Wal-Mart to use only

sustainably sourced palm oil. (http://cspinet.org/new/200603211.html).

 

BOS UK, along with other representatives from the Ape Alliance Palm Oil

Working Group, has been meeting with DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and

Rural Affairs) and the Minister of Biodiversity to discuss these issues as well.

We are pleased that the UK government seems to be taking this situation

seriously. Meanwhile, BOS Denmark has enjoyed positive meetings with the

Indonesian Ambassador in Copenhagen to draw attention to the matter of the plan

for conversion of 1.8 million hectares of forest to palm oil in Kalimantan.

However, there remains no definitive answer as to whether this will go ahead as

planned. To protest the conversion of this area, be sure to visit

http://forests.org/action/alert.asp?id=indonesia.

 

BOS UK and Nature Alert continue to campaign for the return of known smuggled

orangutans in Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia and Saudi Arabia. Last week, a

letter was faxed to the secretariat of CITES (the Convention on the

International Trade of Endangered Species) calling for sanctions against those

CITES members failing to take action in these cases. The letter was endorsed by

Sir David Attenborough, Dr Richard Leakey and 40 international NGO’s

representing millions of supporters worldwide.

Please be sure to sign the petitions for smuggled orangutans at these sites:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/822035733?ltl=1121612391

http://www.petitionthem.com/default.asp?sect=detail & pet=2386

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/644799724?ltl=1129475267

 

In reaction to my most recent update from the field, Columbus Zoo in the US

has kindly offered us $ 5000 for emergency rescue work for wild orangutans at

risk in the palm oil plantations. We are very grateful for this support.

http://www.colszoo.org

 

Our friends at Twycross Zoo have assisted in an episode of The Really Wild

Show talking about palm oil and orangutans. The programme will be aired on May

15th, time to be announced. I will certainly send a reminder closer to the date.

 

In a couple of weeks, I shall be returning to Borneo. First on the agenda, I

will be working with wildlife filmmakers Nick Lyon and Evie Wright of Cockroach

Productions and the Orangutan Film Protection Project, who have been

instrumental in the sustainable palm oil campaign (their footage taken with us

last year featured on special Sky News report which was seen by 18 million

people worldwide). With funding from Asda, who have now joined the Roundtable on

Sustainable Palm Oil, we will be producing a conflict mitigation video which

will be distributed and used to teach palm oil workers and their managers how to

prevent and to deal with conflicts with orangutans in their plantations. Find

out more at the very comprehensive website: www.cockroach.org.uk.

 

A few weeks later, I will be joined by 2 BBC film crews and presenters

Michaela Strachen and Steve Leonard to start production on Orangutan Diary,

which is due to air for a week next January. The programme will feature Kesi,

whom some of you will know from our baby appeal and the palm oil pamphlet. A

victim of the conversion of orangutan habitat to palm oil, she lost her hand

when her mother was killed. Kesi will soon be launched for the BOS UK Adoption

Programme. Look out for details to come.

 

On the tail end of the first shoot with BBC, I will be joined by a film crew

from Canada, who are making Orangutan Mama, a documentary looking at some of our

orangutan babysitters, and how working at Nyaru Menteng has affected their

lives, families and communities. Following this, the BBC crews return to our

project for the second shoot of Orangutan Diary. I will return to the UK at the

end of June. And back to Borneo for August for the third and final shoot of the

programme.

 

It is with sincerity that I thank you all for your continued interest and

support for the survival of the orangutan.

 

Kindest regards,

 

Michelle Desilets

 

Director

Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation UK

 

 

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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