Nature Alert: Orangutans horrific treatment at Jakarta Zoo

Thursday 29 January 2009

Orangutans horrific treatment at Jakarta Zoo

A personal letter submitted to the Jakarta Post, as yet unpublished.

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Dear Sir,

If anyone doubts the appalling conditions 32 orangutans are kept in at the Jakarta Zoo, I am willing to send them photographs I took just last week.

The zoo’s long-held, uncaring attitude towards these orangutans is nothing less than a national scandal. Orangutans, the most iconic of Indonesian animals, left to a 90 year old lady to care for with money from her own pension whilst the zoo squanders vast amounts of money restoring stone statues of animals at the front gate.

Despite repeated attempts over the past 12 months to persuade the zoo director and curator to remedy this disgraceful situation, neither has ever shown any interest. The Ministry of Forestry look upon these captive (though largely wild caught) orangutans much the same way as they look upon those in the rapidly disappearing forests they keep on selling; to the Ministry orangutans are nothing more than an inconvenience getting in the way of making serious money.

That the Jakarta Zoo chooses to neglect orangutans makes one wonder how the rest of the animals are treated.

Whilst writing, has anyone ever wondered how the Ministry of Forestry can be trusted to be responsible for wildlife when the Ministry itself single-handedly is responsible for selling off the forest which is the primary reason why these orangutans are in the zoo in the first place?

Is it not about time responsibility for protecting wildlife is transferred to the Ministry of the Environment? Under the Ministry of Forestry’s watch, on their own admission at least 75,000 orangutans have been killed in the past 25 years.

At this rate, left to them, soon there will only be a few orangutans in the wild, which of course may well be what the Ministry of Forestry wants. The question is, will the people of Indonesia stand by and let this happen? Watch this space.

Sean Whyte
Chief Executive
Nature Alert
www.naturealert.org
sw@naturealert.org

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.