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Fires continue to rage across the peat swamp forest of Tripa, Sumatra. Photo courtesy: SOCP/YEL
The world's densest population of orangutans is set to be "extinguished" by a massive new wave of fires that is clearing large tracts of a peat swamp forest in the Indonesian island of Sumatra, conservationists have warned.
Environmentalists claim that satellite images show a huge surge in forest blazes across the Tripa peat swamp in order to create palm oil plantations, including areas that have not been permitted for clearing.
Tripa is home to a tight-knit enclave of around 200 critically endangered orangutans. However, this number has plummeted from an estimated population of 3,000.
Just 7,000 orangutans remain in Sumatra, with rampant forest clearing for palm oil cultivation blamed for their decline.
Ian Singleton, head of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP), said that the Tripa orangutans are being "extinguished."
"The situation is indeed extremely dire," he said. "Every time I have visited Tripa in the last 12 months I have found several orangutans hanging on for their very survival, right at the forest edge."
"When you see the scale and speed of the current wave of destruction and the condition of the remaining forests, there can be no doubt whatsoever that many have already died in Tripa due to the fires themselves, or due to starvation as a result of the loss of their habitat and food resources."
Felling trees from Tripa's carbon-rich peat also triggers the release of large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Indonesia has been named as the third highest emitter of CO2 emissions in the world when deforestation is a factor, although the country disputes this.
Environmentalists have lodged a lawsuit against PT Kallista Alam, one of the five palm oil firms operating in Tripa, and Irwandi Yusuf, the former governor of Aceh, over the approval of a permit for the 1,600-hectare (3,950-acre) palm oil plantation.
Irawardi, previously styled as a "green" governor, says he granted the permit due to delays in the UN's Redd+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) programme, which has seen Norway pledge $US 1bn to Indonesia to reduce deforestation.
"The international community think our forest is a free toilet for their carbon," Irawardi said in April. "Every day they are saying they want clean air and to protect forests … but they want to inhale our clean air without paying anything."
SOCP and lawyers representing Tripa's local communities have called upon the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to bypass an ongoing government investigation into the forest clearing and immediately halt the razing of the area.
"This whole thing makes absolutely no sense at all, not environmentally, nor even economically," said Singleton.
Two Indonesian plantation workers have been arrested for allegedly killing at least 20 endangered orangutans. Photo courtesy: Reuters
Finally, steps are being taken to protect the endangered orangutans of Indonesia. Orangutan habitat is being destroyed at an amazing rate to make room for plantations; plus, many plantation owners pay locals to kill orangutans to prevent them from raiding the plantations and decreasing the owners' profits. I wonder if it occurs to them that the orangs may not feel the need to raid the plantations if there was enough natural habitat left to support their needs. In the end, it's a battle between environmentalists and plantations owners with the poor orangs caught in the crossfire.
But, now...a spark of hope.
Two Indonesian plantation workers have been arrested for allegedly killing at least 20 endangered orangutans and proboscis monkeys as a means of "pest control", police have said.
Colonel Antonius Wisnu Sutirta, a police spokesman, said the suspects had admitted chasing the primates with dogs before shooting, stabbing or hacking them to death.
The men allegedly told the authorities that the owners of several palm oil plantations on Borneo island, keen to protect their lucrative crops from being raided, offered a reward for every orangutan and long-nosed proboscis monkey killed.
If found guilty of violating the Indonesian law on national resources conservation, the plantation workers face up to five years in prison, Sutirta said.
Indonesia, home to 90% of the orangutans left in the wild, has lost half of its rain forests in the last half century in its rush to supply the world with timber, pulp, paper and palm oil.
The remaining 50,000 to 60,000 apes live in scattered, degraded forests, putting them in frequent and often deadly conflict with humans.
A study published this month in the PLoSOne journal said villagers in Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of Borneo, admitted to slaughtering at least 750 orangutans over a year-long period – a much higher figure than previously thought.
Some were killed to protect crops, and others because villagers thought they were dangerous. A much smaller number were hunted for their meat, the study revealed.
"The simple conclusion is that orangutans will be hunted to extinction unless someone stops the killings," Erik Meijaard, the study's main author, said.
"It's a blatant infringement of Indonesia's conservation laws. I really hope that both the perpetrators and the plantation managers who ordered the killings will be punished accordingly."
The two men were arrested at their homes in Muara Kaman, a village in east Kalimantan, on Sunday after the bones of several orangutans and proboscis monkeys were recovered.
Yaya Rayadin, a researcher from Mulawarman University, in the Kalimantan town of Samarinda, said the bones were scattered in 15 different places and that tests indicated the deaths had been violent. Most had hack marks on their skulls, jaws and ribs, he said.
Rayadin said he believed many more people were involved in the killings, adding that he had first told authorities that palm oil plantations were offering rewards to locals who slaughtered orangutans or monkeys in 2008, but no action had been taken until now.
"The fact police have arrested two people is a sign of remarkable progress," he added. "But the main thing now is to find a way to protect the orangutans that are still alive."
Photo: James Gagen via flickr.
It has been a case of one step forward, two steps back for the orangutans of Sumatra. The first orangutans to be reintroduced to the wild were released in 2002. Since that time, they have established themselves in the area, breeding and forming new family groups. They have been an environmentalist’s dream – thriving, breeding, increasing in numbers – and blissfully unaware of Asian Pulp and Paper (APP) and the Sinar Mas Group (SMG).
Enter Asian Pulp & Paper and the Sinar Mas Group. They are planning to log the only area in which orangutans have been so successfully reintroduced. The area in question is the forest surrounding the Bukit Tigapuluh National Park. Unfortunately, not only the orangutans are being threatened.
Map courtesy of WWF (World Wildlife Fund)
The Bukit Tigapuluh National Park in addition to orangutans contains about one quarter of the world's remaining Sumatran tigers, and a significant population of Sumatran elephants. Also in danger are the Talang Mamak and Orang Rimba forest-dwelling indigenous people along with the traditional Malay peasants who inhabit the forest edges. Both the Malay and the tribal people represent a living tradition of interaction with the rainforest and the use of its resources in harmony with. The rapid deforestation of this area is quickly increasing the marginalization of these peoples.
The park also provides vital catchment protection for several large rivers that sustain downstream agricultural communities. Without this system intact, there is a very real danger that food crops downstream from the Park will be affected with possible food shortages in those areas.
The Bukit Tigapuluh area was surveyed by NORINDRA (Norwegian-Indonesian Rainforest and Resource Management Project). Researchers observed and recorded 660 plant species (including 246 medicinal plants used by the local population) preserving 550 of the species found. Many rare and threatened non-utilized plant species were also recorded.
Many rare and threatened non-utilized plant species were also recorded. One example is the locally named Cendawan muka rimau ("Tiger-face mushroom"), which is none other than Rafflesia hasseltii previously observed in only two locations (West Sumatra and Pulau Tioman, Malaysia). Photo courtesy Kki-WARSI website.
Also discovered were 192 species of birds, almost 1/3 of all bird species known from Sumatra. Breeding was confirmed of 18 species of birds not previously known to breed on Sumatra, including the Garnet pitta (Pitta granatina) which had not been recorded for this island for more than 70 years. At least 10 of the bird species recorded are globally threatened.
Some 59 species of mammals were recorded, 5 of which are globally threatened, including the Oriental small-clawed otter (Aonyx cincerea), Clouded leopard (Neofelic nebulosa), Tiger (Panthera tigris), Malayan tapir (Tapirus indicus), and Elephant (Elephas maximus).
Of the 98 species of fish collected and preserved, one of these, a Glass-perch, turned out to be a previously undiscovered species. It has been given the name Gymnochanda limi.
Here’s the situation as WWF sees it.
APP/SMG pushed a legally questionable logging road through both areas last year, opening up access for rampant illegal logging and clearing linked with increased fatalities as tigers are driven into closer contact with humans.
With the latest acquisition, APP/SMG now holds the majority of the buffer areas to the national park, including large areas the Forestry Service of Jambi and the National Park management authority agreed in 2008 to designate as the Bukit Tigapuluh Ecosystem which would be sustainably managed as natural forest.
Less than one third of the 2007 forest cover is within the National Park, with the areas most preferred by animals and indigenous peoples lying in the surrounding lowland forests now vulnerable to clearing.
Peter Pratje of the Frankfurt Zoological Society has this to say: “It took scientists decades to discover how to successfully reintroduce critically endangered orangutans from captivity into the wild. It could take APP just months to destroy an important part of their new habitat.”
He continues, “these lowland forests are excellent habitat for orangutans, which is why we got government permission to release them here beginning in 2002. The apes are thriving now, breeding and establishing new family groups.”
Things we can do to help preserve one of Indonesia’s key areas of biodiversity:
1. Send an email to Asian Pulp & Paper explaining your boycott of their products - customer_talk@app.co.id
2. Visit the website and leave a comment on their "Ethics" section.
3. Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper drawing attention to this environmental disaster in the making.
4. If one of their products is stocked locally, let the store owner what AP&P is planning.
5. If anyone you know and/or your company use these products, let them know what AP& P is planning and request their assistance in your boycott of their products.
Fires continue to rage across the peat swamp forest of Tripa, Sumatra. Photo courtesy: SOCP/YEL
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