Palm oil threat to Indonesia's orangutans, BBC reports from East Kalimantan, Indonesia

Orangutans are the only exclusively Asian genus of extant great ape. There are only two surviving species, both of which are endangered: the Bornean Orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) and the critically endangered Sumatran Orangutan (Pongo abelii).

A 2007 study by the Government of Indonesia noted in 2004 it was estimated that there was a total wild population of 61,234 orangutans, 54,567 of which were found on the island of Borneo. So we have to safeguard these primate, not kill them!!



Ronal, a (mighty stupid) plantation worker, says plantations view orangutans as pests (instead of critically endangered primate). Some plantations owners and workers are the stupidest species in the world!!



Rosa with Elaine, the baby Orang Utan

Palm oil threat to Indonesia's orangutans

By Karishma Vaswani BBC News, East Kalimantan, Indonesia

Eight-month-old baby orangutan Elaine would have never survived without her carer Rosa.

Coaxing the infant ape to eat, Rosa uses a mixture of baby-talk orangutan sounds, trying to mimic the noises Elaine's mum would have made if she were here.

The baby orangutan and her mother were separated when they were chased off a palm oil plantation by some workers. It is not clear whether the older orangutan is even alive.

Now, Elaine depends on Rosa for care.

"She usually cries when I leave," Rosa said, cradling the baby ape. "So I need to always be close to her."

Elaine is one of two baby orangutans rescued from palm oil plantations in the last few months and brought to the Samboja Lestari sanctuary in East Kalimantan.

Orangutans are very vulnerable when they first arrive at the sanctuary, explained Ascheta Bastuni Tajuddin, the manager of Samboja Lestari.

"The two babies Elaine and Mads, they were really stressed,'' she says. ''One had diarrhoea, and the other had fever."

''Most of the orangutans we have here are confiscated from people's houses,'' she adds. ''But lately, there are several baby orangutans that we have rescued who have been separated from their mothers.

''Either the mother is killed or runs away because of the people chasing her on palm oil plantations.''

Chased and killed

Unfortunately, Elaine and Mads are not unique cases. There have been a number of reports of late of orangutans being chased away on palm oil plantations in East Kalimantan. At least 750 are thought to have been killed during 2008 and 2009.

Orangutans, amongst the most endangered species in Indonesia, are increasingly under threat in their own homes.

In the last few weeks, Indonesian police have arrested five palm oil plantation workers on suspicion of killing the great apes, bringing the total number of those arrested to nine

On the bumpy car ride to the area in East Kalimantan where many of the killings are thought to have taken place, it was apparent that much of the landscape had been converted into palm oil plantations.

"Just 10 years ago, this was all forest," Rudi, who drove the BBC team to the sanctuary, said. "These areas used to be the homes of the orangutans until the palm oil plantations came.''

Forests are the natural habitats of Indonesia's orangutans. But the expansion of palm oil plantations and coal mines in East Kalimantan's forest areas has resulted in tragic consequences for the animals.

''When the orangutans came back to the areas they once thought were their homes, they were driven out by the people who work on these plantations," Rudi said.

Dire consequences

At a plantation where some killings have been reported recently, workers chopping away leaves of the oil palm trees, to get to the bright orange fruit hidden beneath were reluctant to speak to the BBC.

The precious palm oil comes from inside this fruit. Oil is extracted both from the pulp and the kernel of the fruit.

Finally Ronal from Sulawesi said that he knew about the orangutan deaths and the reasons why some workers were willing to hurt them.

"Some workers found an orangutan on the plantation," he said. "The company paid them $100 (£64) for it. I don't know what the company did with the ape, but they want them gone because they see them as pests."

Palm oil firms say they are innocent and that conservation groups blame them unfairly. But environmentalists say there are dire consequences if nothing is done to stop the killings of orangutans.

"They will go extinct in the wild in perhaps five years," said Arfiana Khairunnisa, with the Centre for Orangutan Protection in East Kalimantan.

''We find this case only in plantation areas they are considered as pests actually by the workers because they eat the palm seedlings,'' she added. ''Orangutans are protected by law in Indonesia so this violates the law."

Indonesia is home to 90% of the world's orangutans.

The Indonesian government has said it is committed to protecting orangutans, but critics have questioned why palm oil plantations are being allowed to expand in their natural habitat.

On the journey out of the plantation area, driver Rudi stepped on the brakes suddenly, bringing the car to an abrupt halt.

"Look! There on the road! An orangutan!" he exclaimed.

The orangutan lumbered slowly across the dirt road, one giant arm swinging against the other. He paused, as if startled by something he heard, and proceeded to scamper quickly off into the forest.

He moved too fast for a photograph to be taken. It was very rare to see an orangutan in the wild, said Mike, the BBC's guide from the Centre of Orangutan Protection.

"Unfortunately, he might not be so lucky,'' he added. ''This is very near the area where many of the killings of orangutans have been reported. He could be the next victim."

Orang Utan locked up in small cage in solitary confinement in the Melaka Zoo?

I received this photos of an Orang Utan, Malaysia's endangered primate, locked up in a tiny cage in solitary confinement, through email and i feel it is worth sharing.

According to the sender of the email, this happens at the Malacca or Melaka Zoo.












The email said :

Investigators returning to Melaka Zoo (Malaysia) this week found orangutans abandoned in tiny cages with no enrichment and no company. Not unlike conditions seen on previous visits.

Malaysia’s only great ape, a protected species deserving of an iconic status in Malaysia, treated like rats.

Shiva Lucian from Nature Alert said, “I felt like crying when I saw these orangutans caged like this. I ask myself, why is it my country allows such cruelty to continue? If anything, things have got worse at this zoo since our last report to Perhilitan.

What we see here is cruelty, against our law and it must be punished.”

Melaka Zoo is no stranger to criticism. Nature Alert has filed several reports to Perhilitan, all ignored, which is why this abject cruelty continues.?

Besides orangutans, the zoo has been sharply criticised by others for the extremely cramped conditions in its quarantine area. Animals are brought into this centre from closed down zoos, never again to be seen. Where are these animals now? What happened to all those tigers from Saleng Zoo?

Sean Whyte, CEO Nature Alert said, ‘The Melaka Zoo management must be prosecuted for this cruelty. It’s no use Perhilitan sitting in their cosy air-conditioned offices with their eyes wide shut. They are paid to enforce the law, but as we know, they only do so when stung into action by public criticism. What’s the point of the new law if they won’t enforce it.

In the summer of this year Melaka Zoo were given four orangutans taken from the A’Famosa Resort where they had been very badly treated for 12 months. Is there no zoo in Malaysia capable of caring properly for orangutans? It seems not. In neighbouring Singapore, where orangutans are not native, the Singapore Zoo treats this majestic species like royalty, so why won’t Malaysia do the same?


The email also provided a You Tube link apparently showing an Orang Utan in a tiny cage, always locked up.


MY SAY

Actually there is a world class Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre in Malaysia, located in Sepilok near Sandakan, Sabah, East Malaysia.

This centre is world famous.

If Melaka Zoo cannot handle the Orang Utans there, then why not send those endangered primates to Sepilok in Sabah?

Sabah's Lower Kinabatangan Has Lost 300 Orang-utans Since 2004

Photos/Article : HUTAN - Kinabatangan Orang-utan Conservation Programmme, KOCP : Is a grassroots Non-Governmental Organisation founded in 1996 to carry out wildlife conservation in Sabah with the focus on orang-utans and also carries out a variety of wildlife research and surveys including for the Bornean Pygmy Elephant, recognised sub-species of the Asian Elephant. In addition HUTAN-KOCP also undertakes a variety of community related activities from capacity building to alternative livelihoods as well as environmental education and awareness for rural communities.



Planting of oil palm up to the riverbanks and fragmentation of forest patches are seen clearly in these series of pictures. Photos by HUTAN/Marc Ancrenaz.





A series of photos of orang-utans in the Lower Kinabatangan where population decline over seven years has seen 300 orang-utans lost. Photo by HUTAN/Dzulirwan @ Jolirwan bin Takasi

Kinabatangan, 21st November 2011:

The Lower Kinabatangan located on the East Coast of Sabah, East Malaysia, Borneo has lost about 300 orang-utans in seven years due to forest isolation and loss of corridors according to Dr. Marc Ancrenaz, Scientific Director of HUTAN – Kinabatangan Orang-utan Conservation Programme (KOCP).

“What we are seeing with our latest surveys within the Lower Kinabatangan is a clear population decline of the orang-utans in this area,” said Ancrenaz who hoped such issues would add to urgency to events such as the Roundtable for Sustainable Oil Palm (RSPO) being held in Kota Kinabalu for the first time this week.

The biggest threat to orang-utan and other wildlife populations in Sabah today is fragmentation. What this means is that agriculture development primarily oil palm has created small islands of forest, which are isolated and completely surrounded by human-made landscape.

“Because it is difficult for wildlife to move from one forest patch to the next, this situation leads to inbreeding and eventual population decline, which is what we are witnessing today in the Lower Kinabatangan,” explained Ancrenaz.

Ancrenaz points out that this issue is inherently related in part to the oil palm industry and as this industry has much resources they should take real action to rectify the situation.

“We can still improve the situation for the Lower Kinabatangan’s orang-utan and other wildlife by actually replanting and planning for actual wildlife corridors or patches of forest to support wildlife movement between protected or forested areas,” said Ancrenaz.

This according to Ancrenaz has been paid much lip service by big organisations but in reality only local communities have been successfully carrying out such work.

“Except for Wilmar/PBB Oil which is replanting 382 hectares with 50 meters on the banks on the river, we mostly see signboards and newspaper articles but when you go to the ground you find that in reality they is more talk than actual viable replanting taking place,” said Ancrenaz.

Perhaps, the money the Malaysian Government is spending for oil palm promotion such as the recent allocation of RM24 million for the Malaysian Oil Palm Council could instead be used for establishing real corridors and patches of forest in the Lower Kinabatangan said Ancrenaz.

“While they are many reforestation programmes taking place within the Lower Kinabatangan, the best known being the work by MESCOT-KOPEL in Batu Putih, we need oil palm companies to start planting back corridors along the riverbanks in particular. This will not only help wildlife but also improve the water quality for local communities living along the river,” said Ancrenaz.

As the situation is even more grim in the Lower Kinabatangan, he urged oil palm companies with forest patches to reconsider converting remaining forested areas as conversion of even small pockets such as 10 hectares has a negative effect on the long term survival of the orang-utan population.

“If oil palm companies want to contribute to orang-utan conservation today, they have the opportunity to do so in the Lower Kinabatangan by stopping what little land conversion they are still planning to do carry it,” said Ancrenaz.

As Ancrenaz noted that the largest number of RSPO Certified companies are from Sabah, he hoped that they would step up to the challenge of conserving small forest patches and replanting natural forest to riverbanks.

According to Ancrenaz, orang-utan populations in other parts of Sabah with large contiguous forest such as Malua, Dermakot and Tabin have remained stable in the same period of time.

“The difference between those areas and the Lower Kinabatangan is that they have a large area that is not broken up. This highlights the urgency of the situation and the need for more oil palm plantations to replant corridors and leave patches of forest,” urged Ancrenaz

Orang Utan - Man of the forest vulnerable to forest conversion

A Message from Orang Utan Survival Group of Borneo


An Orang Utan being translocated from Sepilok to Tabin Forest Reserve via Helicopter - funded by Orang Utan UK.

There are currently approximately 11,000 Orang Utans population in Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia.

This Great Ape can only be found in Borneo Island which consists of Sabah and Sarawak (Malaysia) and Kalimantan (Indonesia).

In Sabah, the Orang Utan is categorized as fully protected species alongside Pygmy Elephants, Sumatran Rhinoceros, Proboscis Monkeys, Sun Bears/Honey Bears, Clouded Leopards or locally known as Harimau Dahan, Dugong, Buaya Julung Julung or Crocodiles of Tomistoma schlegeli species, Hawksbill Turtles and Green Turtles.

Sabah is the pioneer in the conservations and rehabilitations of the Orang Utan - the first such centre was opened as early as 1964 at the 5,500 hectares Kabili-Sepilok Forest Reserve in Sepilok, near Sandakan, in the east coast of Sabah.

Here, the Orang Utans are being taken care by professional personells of the Sabah Wildlife Department as well as Researchers and Scholars from all over the world.

The Orang Utans in Sepilok are given food twice daily at 10 am and 3 pm.

Common Name: Orang-utan (English & Bahasa Melayu)
Also known as : Kogiu (Orang Sungai / Dusun language)
Scientific Name: Pongo pygmaeus (Borneon orang-utan)
Habitat: Lowland forests, also found in tropical, swamp and mountain forests
Status: Endangered globally. Vulnerable in Sabah & Sarawak
Population: Estimated to be about 12,300 in Sabah & Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo.

Asia’s only great ape, the orang-utan or ‘man of the forest’ is found only on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra.

Globally classified as endangered due to their habitat being destroyed, fragmented and poaching, orang-utans in Malaysia (Sabah and Sarawak) are probably best classed as ‘vulnerable’.

Much of their prime habitat has been converted to plantations and the rate of habitat loss has hit a very low level in recent years. There is almost no hunting of this species in Malaysia, and most of the remaining populations are found in forests that are protected or under natural forest management.

Borneo is unique in that it has three distinct populations or subspecies of orang-utans:

• Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus (northwest populations)
• Pongo pygmaeus morio (northeast and east populations)
• Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii (southwest populations)

Orang-utans in the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak occur mainly in the lowlands.

In Sarawak, there are about 1,300 orang-utans, almost all in the Lanjak-Entimau Wildlife Sanctuary and Batang Ai National Park in the south next to West Kalimantan, Indonesia.

In Sabah, there were five main areas of special importance with a total of 20,000 orang-utans in the mid 1980s (by WWF-Malaysia working with the Sabah Forestry Department, 1986).

By 2004, the orang-utan population in Sabah had dropped to about 11,000 individuals (by Kinabatangan Orang-utan Conservation Project working with Sabah Wildlife Department, 2003).

This decline in their numbers in the last twenty years was caused by planned conversion of forests to plantations in the eastern lowlands.

Physical and species description

Orang-utans generally have brown and rust-coloured shaggy fur. Weighing in at an average of 50 kg, female orang-utans grow to about 1.1 m in height and weigh 30 - 50 kg. Males weigh 50-90 kg and stand 1.2 - 1.5 m tall.

Ecology, Habitat & Distribution

Fruit eater sleeps in new nest every night.

Imagine sleeping 2 storeys and above up in the trees every night. The arboreal orang-utan lives up in trees where they bend twigs and small branches together to make a large nest-platform for sleeping.

They are the largest tree dwelling mammal in the world. Adult orang-utans are solitary, except during mating.

Orang-utans are not territorial, maintaining a loose relationship in a given area although adult males are hostile to one another. Crowding may cause them to fight over the limited supply of fruits. An adult female gives birth about once every six years.

Orang Utan Diet

Omnivorous, orang-utans eat both plants and animals but feed mainly on fruits, young leaves, bark and insects. By about the age of ten, an orang-utan can recognise over 200 different food plants. The orang-utan’s favourite food is fruit.

Population decline of 40% in last two decades

Orang-utans in Sabah and Sarawak live mainly in lowland rainforests but are also found in tropical, swamp and mountain forests. Sarawak has about 1,300 orang-utans, almost all in the Lanjak-Entimau Wildlife Sanctuary and Batang Ai National Park to the south bordering West Kalimantan, Indonesia.

In Sabah, there are about 11,000 individuals today, the population having declined by over 40% in the last 20 years due mainly to planned conversion of forests to plantations in the eastern lowlands. Drought and forest fires, especially during the El Nino events of 1982-83 and 1997-98, but also 1987 and 1991, contributed to the decline.


Threats

Destruction of natural forests and unreliable food sources.

Wild orang-utan populations need a reliable source of a variety of fruits and young leaves to survive. They can survive only in extensive natural forests. The availability of food all year round means not all forests can support long-term breeding populations.

We now know that this gentle ape can survive only in lowlands - where fertile soils and constant water availability allow steady food production - or where there are several forest types with different fruiting and leaf-producing seasons.

There is little point in putting orang-utans where they have historically not existed, as lack of food supply may eventually cause them to die. There are six areas in Malaysia with quite large populations but this does not mean that any one of these places is unimportant. There is always the risk that one or more populations could be devastated by disease, drought or fires.

Maintaining natural forests with viable wild breeding populations and restoring degraded forests is vital for the continued survival of orang-utans in Malaysia.

Hence, the Sabah government’s initiative to retain the largest orang-utan population in the Ulu Segama-Malua Forest Reserves under sustainable forest management (SFM) deserves full support.

The Deramakot forest management model, which produces controlled amounts of timber for international auction, certified according to international standards since 1997, shows what can be done.

SFM could reduce forest damage and provide enough time for the forest to regenerate. In SFM, reforestation is necessary to ensure the forest rehabilitation or restoration take place in any sustainably managed forest. In the Lower Kinabatangan, various isolated forest patches need to be joined through restoration.

Long Live the Orang Utans...!!!

save the orang utan

Borneo where sabah is located is home to the great red ape - the orang utan.. the highest concentration of orang utan in the world is in fact in Borneo.


And last thursday december the 4th 2008, Sime Darby Plantation and Sabah Forestry Department inked a memorandum of agreement for the purpose of protection and restoration of the Orang Utan at Northern Ulu Segama, covering an area of 5,400 hectares. Sime Darby will allocate RM 25 million to restore orang utan habitats in that area for a period of 10 years. That particular area has been degraded by bad logging practices in the past, multiple forest fires and encroachments.

It is estimated that between 400 to 500 Orang utans call Ulu Segama as their "home sweet home"..

Apart from Sime Darby Plantation, the state government of Sabah has already endowed nearly RM 200 million ringgit over the last 5 years for the same purposes in other parts of Sabah.

Others who have pledged for this kind purpose are WWF, Arcus Foundation, NewForests, Alexander Abraham Foundation and Sabah Foundation.

loch ness bigfoot king kong

Who knows maybe "King Kong", "big Foot" and "Loch Ness" monsters are also found in Ulu Segama Forest!!!!!