Nature Alert: Letters: Orangutan population

Saturday, 16 May 2009

Letters: Orangutan population

Sat, 05/16/2009 | Reader's Forum / The Jakarta Post

About 75,000 orangutans have been either illegally killed or sold in the past 25 years without a single prosecution.

Now we see a National Park has been almost destroyed - without a single prosecution. Is it not long overdue for the Corruption Eradication Commission to investigate the Ministry of Forestry's total failure to uphold the laws?

The evidence of their ineffectiveness can be seen most days in newspaper headlines all over the world. Ask anyone outside of Indonesia for their immediate impression of your country and two things will always be mentioned first: deforestation and the killing of orangutans.

Sean Whyte
Jakarta

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/05/16/letters-orangutan-population.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.