Thursday 11 September 2008

Saving orangutans and a quest for transparency continues.

Who can you write to and voice your own opinion on what you see below? Please scroll on down to see the photos?

The Titian Foundation. A small group of largely volunteers who are largely dependent on funding from an organisation called USAid....who get their money from the US government and taxpayers. Only after strenuous efforts on my part has this rather secretive group revealed what they claim to have achieved with the money in recent years. I was less successful in obtaining any financial reports from either them or USAid. The Titian Foundation know these (and others) orangutans exist, yet refuse to help them. Why not write to this person and ask why:

- will USAid/OCSP insist the Titian Foundation helps these two orangutans immediately, by arranging for them to be confiscated by the Forestry Department (who locally are very helpful) and arrange for them to be sent to a rescue/rehabilitation centre? I'm sure this is what American taxpayers would want and USAid has a multi-million dollar budget for orangutan conservation.

- will USAid also ask the Titian Foundation to rescue other illegally held orangutans in their region?

The person to email is Paul Hartman Paul_Hartman@dai.com and you might copy to hbryer@usaid.gov PLEASE - you don't have to be American to write; so, you will write won't you?

You might also help by writing to Douglas Alexander MP at the UK Department for International Development and ask if they could send you any reports, financial or otherwise, regarding the support they gave to the Titian Foundation (Indonesia) in 2006. email address: enquiry@dfid.gov.uk


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------