Nature Alert: Helping to rescue and save orangutans - your opportunity to make a difference today.

Wednesday 1 July 2009

Helping to rescue and save orangutans - your opportunity to make a difference today.

Dear Friend to the Orangutans,

Over the past two years a great many of you wishing to support the work of the Centre for Orangutan Protection have been unable to donate directly to COP. The good news is - now you can! This is the only way COP has of receiving directly, individual donations - through the services of PayPal.

COP are now able to accept donations via PayPal and a link to their donation page is on the top right-hand corner of this page http://www.orangutanprotection.com/indexeng.php?menu=main1.php&lang=eng The currency used is UK£ pounds. If you would like to calculate how much this will be in your local currency this web site is very simple to use. http://www.xe.com/ucc/

Not sure how much to donate? The short answer has to be 'whatever will make you feel good'. If it helps; COP urgently needs funds to help feed and provide veterinary care for four orangutans in a rescue centre on the main island of Java. It takes only £20 (about US$35) a week to feed, keep safe and take good care of one orangutan.

Below this message you will see COP team members preparing one of the large cages - sadly, there is little chance we can ever return these orangutans to the wild, so we are committed to helping them lead lives as happy as possible and free at last of any threats or ill treatment. One sick orangutan was rescued a week ago from a Chinese businessman. A special report on this rescue centre and the orangutans to follow in a future email, but if in the meantime you are able to donate any amount of money, please know it will be sincerely appreciated by COP.

After you have donated please could you send an email to Tryas - the COP bookkeeper, alerting him to look out for and also acknowledge receipt of your donation? tryas@cop.or.id

Thank you once again for your concern and support

Kind regards.

Sean

P.S. Please. If you are able to, will you

donate today whilst it is still fresh in your mind?

Putting the last minute touches to a large new enclosure for orangutans rescued from people who had kept them illegally and in terrible conditions. Photos of these orangutans in their new home will follow soon.

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.