Nature Alert: Central Kalimantan Actively Involved In Environment Conservation

Tuesday, 26 January 2010

Central Kalimantan Actively Involved In Environment Conservation

January 26, 2010

Central Kalimantan Actively Involved In Environment Conservation

By Nashir Mansor

PALANGKA RAYA (Central Kalimantan), Jan 26 (Bernama) -- The province of Central Kalimantan is committed to environment conservation apart from developing its plantation sector.

Its Deputy Governor Ir. Achmad Diran said environment conservation was of upmost priority because of the current global warming.

" We are very concerned about this issue as the entire world is concerned about climatic change.

" Recently, there was a delegation from the United States which came to view our environment conservation activities carried out here.

" We brought them to our sprawling 572,000 hectare National Park and they were taken aback when they saw our vast forest reserves," he told a Malaysian delegation of journalists and businessmen from Sabah who are on a 10-day visit to Kalimantan.

The visit, sponsored by Berjaya Foundation and coordinated by the Indonesian Counsulate in Kota Kinabalu, is to explore investment prospects in Kalimantan and to forge close ties between Malaysia and Indonesia.

Achmad said 56 per cent of Central Kalimantan was still under forest reserves, forest research and commerical forest while the remainder was set aside to be developed into plantations.

He said 10.3 million hectares of land in Central Kalimantan was gazetted as forest reserves which cannot be developed.

-- BERNAMA

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsbusiness.php?id=471127

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.