Nature Alert: Hostility Against Orangutans Neglected

Thursday, 23 April 2009

Hostility Against Orangutans Neglected

Hostility Against Orangutans Neglected

Thursday, 23 April, 2009 |

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: The Center for Orangutan Protection (COP) reported hostile acts against eight orangutans that are under the illegal care, yesterday. The report was completed with detailed information including pictures of orangutans, owners, and addresses.

All orangutans that are cared for illegally are in West Kalimantan. For officials of the Forestry Department, this is not new information. “We reported last year but there was no evacuation or legal response,” COP's spokesperson, Hardi Baktiantoro, told Tempo via phone.

Hardi explained that the eight orangutans are under the care of people who understand the law like the police, legislators, and public servants.

Based on the report, Hardi believes that it is possible to find the owners.

“We will wait until next week, or we will work with local police to confiscate the orangutans,” he said.

“The orangutan is protected under regulation No.5/1990,” he added.

COP said that the situation of the orangutans is an emergency as two of them are sick and paralyzed. “Even one eye of an orangutan is blind already. They will die if we do not help them,” said Seto Hari Wibowo from COP.

For this purpose, and for Earth day yesterday, COP has sent a medical team to give first aid for two orangutans.

Hardi said if there is no effort for law enforcement, the orangutan will remain be hunted and traded. He said that at least 1,200 orangutans are staying at rehabilitation centers. They generally are saved from palm oil plantations.

WURAGIL

http://www.tempointeractive.com/hg/nasional/2009/04/23/brk,20090423-172137,uk.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.