Nature Alert: Another 50 orangutans ready for release

Thursday, 12 November 2009

Another 50 orangutans ready for release

Friday, November 13, 2009 00:58 WIB | Environment | |

Medan (ANTARA News) - At least another 50 North Sumatra orangutans are being prepared for release into their natural habitat in Indonesia to speed up the multiplication of the big apes, 97 percent of whose DNA are human.

"Previously since 2001, 185 orangutans had been quarantined at Batu Mbelin, Sibolangit, North Sumatra, and most of them had already been released into Bukit Tiga Puluh, Jambi," conservation division deputy director of the Yayasan Ekosistem Lestari (YEL) in Gunung Gea, Medan, Thursday.

He was referring to the 5th Orangutan Care Week held in the region with various programs like tree planting and peaceful action against activities which may put the big animals on the brink of extinction. The 50 orangutans are of various types, including baby orangutans, and invalids, as well as those still healthy, ready for release into the wilderness.

"The Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program is expected to speed up the restoration and addition of the number of orangutans in Indonesia," he said.

Flanked by Director of the Orangutan Information Centre Panut Hadi Siswoyo Gunung further explained that orangutans are only found on Kalimantan and Sumatra islands and are normally of two different species.

The population of the pongo pygmaeus in Kalimantan and the Pongo Abelli in Sumatra, is rapidly declining.

The extinction of orangutans in Indonesia is actually the impact of legal and illegal logging, and the conversion of forests into oilpalm estates, fires and illegal killing, and illegal chatching of the big apes.(*)

http://www.antara.co.id/en/news/1258048731/another-50-orangutans-ready-for-release

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.