Nature Alert: Australia, Indonesia hold talks on logging and fishing

Friday 22 August 2008

Australia, Indonesia hold talks on logging and fishing

Australia, Indonesia hold talks on logging and fishing

Updated August 22, 2008 ABC Radio, Australia

Illegal logging and proper fishing practices have been the subjects of ministerial talks in Jakarta between Australia's Forestry and Fisheries Minister Tony Burke and his Indonesian counterpart.

Mr Burke says he received strong backing in Indonesia over the need to halt illegal logging and move to sustainable forestry management.

He says this includes working with a community in Kalimantan Borneo to show how income can be made while still involved in forestry and then demonstrating the benefits to the wider community.

Mr Burke says fishing communities are also having the benefits of stopping illegal practices explained to them.

"You need to have information, you need to have education and then you also have to have enforcement."

His visit follows similar talks earlier in the week in PNG.

Hall of Shame for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the Palm Oil Industry.

Nothing can prepare one for the sight of the systematic extermination of orangutans by the government of Indonesia.

Look at the photos and news articles on these pages in the context of a statement the President made to the media on 10th December 2007.

“In the last 35 years about 50,000 orangutans are estimated to have been lost as their habitats shrank. If this continues, this majestic creature will likely face extinction by 2050,” President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said at the launch of an orangutan conservation plan at the climate talks in Bali.

“The fate of the orangutan is a subject that goes to the heart of sustainable forests … To save the orangutan we have to save the forest.”

Statements like these are most welcome, but unless backed up by action, such words fall on deaf ears within the Ministry of Forestry....who are busy granting licences to cut down the very forests the President says they should protect!

When you think you are to busy to help, please could you reflect for a moment on .........

The following extract refers to environmental problems in general. I just hope you find it as thought provoking and relevant to orangutans as I have.

"This is such a shocking and unpalatable fact that most people deny it, or they just don't want to think about it. They believe as individuals, they can do little about it, so push it to the back of their minds. But I can't do that.

When something has to be done, we need to do it. It doesn't matter how big the challenge is or how hard the solution; if I know something is wrong, and I am in a position to help, I will do my best to make it right." Duncan Bannatyne, successful British businessman.