Pressure mounting to save orangutan

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Pressure mounting to save orangutan

 

 

Pressures are mounting to save endangered orangutans in Central

Kalimantan, where most of the world's only great ape lives under

increasingly bleak conditions due to declining forests -- their habitat.

Aldrianto Priadjati of the Borneo Orangutan Survival (BOS) Foundation

said

the number of displaced orangutans due to forest conversion for timber

estates and agriculture, including palm oil plantations, has increased.

" Currently, there are about 1,000 orangutans being rehabilitated in our

orangutan rehabilitation center. Most of them were saved from palm oil

plantations, " he said.

BOS' Nyaru Menteng, the world's largest orangutan rehabilitation center,

is about 30 kilometers south of Palangka Raya, the capital city of

Central

Kalimantan.

Many of the rehabilitated orangutans have been ready to be released to

primary forests.

" But it is very difficult for us to find the primary forests for the

orangutan to live securely, " he said.

He was one of the speakers at an August workshop on the implementation

of

the strategic and action plans for orangutan conservation.

The workshop was jointly organized by the Forestry Ministry's Natural

Resources Conservation Center (BKSDA), BOS, World Wildlife Fund, oil

palm

company Agro Group, Orangutan Foundation International (OFI), Orangutan

Conservation Services Program and the U.S. Agency for International

Development. The event aimed to implement orangutan conservation action

plans that were launched by the ministry of forestry in Jakarta late

last

year.

The workshop's participants said the forest's decline was due to rapid

conversion of forests into industrial timber estates and agriculture

(including palm oil plantations), nonsustainable logging, forest fires

and

illegal hunting and trading of the species.

According to data from BKSDA, forests have been declining annually

between

1 and 1.5 percent in Sumatra and between 1.5 and 2 percent in

Kalimantan.

The forests' decline was partly due to the implementation of regional

autonomy in 2001, which has given regencies authority to issue any

regulation they consider necessary for their respective regencies to

attract new investments.

With such authority, many regencies have seen their forests decrease

rapidly, bringing catastrophe to many species, including the orangutan.

The rapid conversion of forests, combined with weak enforcement of

environmental laws, has also increased the human-orangutan conflicts as

many orangutans start seeking food outside of their habitat.

Sanjay Upasena, director of sustainability of Agro Indomas, the

subsidiary

of Agro Group, said it was not fair to blame the palm oil companies

alone

for the loss of the orangutan's habitat.

" Not all of them (palm oil companies) ar to blame for the displaced

orangutans. In our case, we only use degraded forests for our palm

plantations, which formerly belonged to the forest concessionaires

(HPH), "

he said.

" Most of the orangutans we have were brought by the local people to us.

The rest we found entering our palm oil plantations, and to save them we

call people from the orangutan rehabilitation center. "

Separately, the Indonesian palm oil producers are back in the spotlight

this week, with the association rejecting a moratorium call from

Greenpeace on land clearing which is threatening to wipe out more than

8,000 orangutans in the next three years, news agency AFP reported last

Thursday.

Novi Hardianto of the Center for Orangutan Protection (COP) told AFP the

decision to reject the call by Greenpeace means there is no effective

mechanism for protecting thousands of orangutans living outside

conservation areas.

In rejecting the moratorium, the Indonesian Palm Oil Producers

Association

argued the standards developed by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil

(RSPO) were enough to protect the species.

However, Novi said land clearing by the companies showed the voluntary

standards would do little to arrest the rapid decline of the number of

orangutans living outside Central Kalimantan's conservation areas.

" If it keeps up at this rate, we'll see orangutans in this environment

wiped out within three years, " he was quoted by AFP as saying.

COP estimates 20,032 orangutans live in the wild in Central Kalimantan

province and that close to 3,000 of them die every year.

A spokeswoman for the RSPO said the environmental group was entitled to

raise any accusations against the companies under its grievance

procedures.

" If it is true they (the companies) need to make corrections in the

field, " Desi Kusmadewi said. " Before they are kicked out as RSPO

members,

usually the RSPO gives them a chance to correct themselves. "

In the workshop, Birute Mary Galdikas, chairwoman of OFI, said the

orangutans were facing a bleak future.

" But I'm not saying they cannot be saved. This is possible if all the

necessary steps to save the endangered species are taken seriously, "

Gladikas said, who has been working in Kalimantan for 37 years to

conserve

the orangutan.

OFI manages the Tanjung Puting protected forests for orangutan in

Tanjung

Putting, Central Kalimantan.

" Orangutans mean people of the forests. If the forests are gone, then

the

orangutans will also be gone as the forests are their habitat. "

 

 

 

HARDI BAKTIANTORO

and orangutan

 

Rungan Sari Compound

Jalan Tjilik Riwut km 36 Sei Gohong

Palangkaraya 73225 INDONESIA

T /F : +62818333911

E: orangutanborneo

www.cop.or.id