Nature Alert: As someone who makes a living out of communicating with the public, Terri Irwin has gone very quiet. WHY?

Thursday, 28 August 2008

As someone who makes a living out of communicating with the public, Terri Irwin has gone very quiet. WHY?

It has now been four weeks since I first wrote to Terri Irwin.
http://www.australiazoo.com.au/

We all know that to write an email reply to anyone takes only a couple of minutes. Why, then, does Terri not reply - to any of us?

I imagine Terri would like us all to see her as a conservationist. But why would any conservationist allow their name and celebrity status to be used as an endorsement of the government of Indonesia's disregard for tropical rainforests and orangutans? Look around this Blog and you can see ample evidence of what the government permits in this regard.

Come on Terri, why not explain to us why you permit the government of Indonesia to continue using your name as an endorsement of their truly deadly form of orangutan conservation?

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Have you written to Terri yet? Her email address is in the next Blog posting below this. Surely you can spare two minutes? Thank you.

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.