Nature Alert: Letters: Trades of endangered animals

Tuesday 23 February 2010

Letters: Trades of endangered animals

Letters: Trades of endangered animals

Tue, 02/23/2010 11:29 AM | Reader's Forum

Feb. 29 marked the 20th anniversary of the confiscation of six baby orangutans at Bangkok airport. They had been stuffed into sealed crates labeled “Birds” at Singapore airport and flown to Bangkok and were only found when the plane that was to carry them from Bangkok to Russia was delayed, and the drugged babies woke up and started crying.

So Thai authorities x-rayed the crates and saw the profiles of six baby orangutans and two siamangs and seized them on Feb. 20, 1990. Three of the babies had been shipped upside-down and later died. Matthew Block, the American dealer involved, was sent to prison for 13 months after a long battle by the International Primate Protection League.

Criminals from many nations were involved (Germany, Thailand, the Netherlands, Singapore, the United States, plus the mysterious Indonesian who is not that mysterious to many who tracked this case!)

There will be no solution to Indonesia’s wildlife smuggling problem unless and until the smugglers are sent to Indonesia’s most horrible prisons for very long “holidays”.

Wiping out species that have taken millions of years to evolve is a crime against God and our children and grandchildren.

Shirley McGreal
Summerville SC, US

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/02/23/letters-trades-endangered-animals.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.