Monday 26 January 2009

Lost Border Markers Investigated

January 29, 2009 The Jakarta Globe

Dessy Sagita

Lost Border Markers Investigated

The Indonesian army is currently investigating the whereabouts of missing border markers in Kapuas district, West Kalimantan Province, used to delineate the boundary between Indonesia and neighboring Malaysia, an Army spokesman said on Wednesday.

“We are handling this matter seriously as it concerns our country’s sovereignty,” Brig. Gen. Christian Zebua told the Jakarta Globe.

Zebua said a team of Army personnel had been sent to Kapuas — more than 120 kilometers from Pontianak, the provincial capital — to secure the border and investigate the missing markers.

The markers are believed to have been uprooted during the recent construction of a road by a Malaysian oil palm company on the border between the two countries.

Because of the area’s relative isolation and the Army’s limited number of soldiers , Zebua said monitoring the border area in Kapuas was particularly difficult.

A local military commander first reported the disappearance of the markers two weeks ago.

Without the markers, Zebua said that the border between the two countries could become vague.

“We certainly don't want anyone to steal or claim our land, but we cannot patrol the border if we do not know where it is exactly,” Zebua said.

Zebua said that the Indonesian government had asked the Malaysian government to participate in the investigation.

He also admitted that loose supervision around the border was to blame for the loss of the markers.

The government should replace the makeshift markers with permanent fixtures to enable the army to monitor the area more thoroughly, Zebua said.

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/article/7764.html

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.