Specialist tour operator of Orangutan wildlife tour in Indonesia Borneo / Kalimantan
Supported by SOS
Sumatran Orangutan Society
Orangutan could be extinct in the wild in as few as 10 years...........
A crisis exists for the orangutan. Never before has its very existence been threatened so severely. Economic crisis combined with natural disasters and human abuse of the forest are pushing our closest cousins to extinction. They have lost approximately 80% of their habitat in the last 20 years. We lost approximately 1/3 of the wild population of orangutans during the fires of '97-'98. There are approximately 12,000 to 15,000 orangutans remaining in Borneo (compared to about 20,000 in 1996) and approximately 4,000 to 6,000 left in Sumatra
(compared to about 10,000 in 1996) Experts estimate orangutans could be extinct in the wild in as few as 10 years.
The threats to the survival of the orangutan are numerous and difficult to remedy. These include:
Loss of Habitat
Illegal hunting
The notorious pet trade
Once this species roamed over thousands of miles across the rainforests of Southeast Asia. Today they survive only on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra . Their home is in beautiful, lush rainforest, and shared by many other endangered species, like tigers and rhinos. This forest is crossed with large rivers and has the greatest number of species of trees, birds and animals per acre of almost anyplace in the world. The treasures of this forest are hard to estimate since they are so precious and numerous. Many different species of plants and animals have yet to be
discovered there.
Now even their habitat on the remaining two islands is threatened. This loss of habitat is the result of economic pressures, man's greed and ignorance and natural disasters. The population of Indonesia has grown from 10 million people at the beginning of the century to over 200 million people now. The needs of so many people with little landmass are pressingly urgent, allowing little time for planning or care about the environment. People and orangutans need the same alluvial habitat and in a human versus orangutan conflict, the orangutan does not win.
DEFORESTATION
Illegal logging
Slash and burn methods to plant large scale palm oil plantations
Slash and burn methods used by the local farmers
The transmigration program of the government to move more of the population of Java in to the rainforests of Borneo
Fires caused by the above methods of clearing land were inflamed by the extra dry conditions caused by the drought.
The slash and burn techniques also cause the peat and coal deposits deep in the ground to ignite and further escalate the fires
ILLEGAL PET TRADE
The trade in baby orangutans, though illegal, continues to thrive today. Many hundreds of infant orangutans are taken from the wild for the pet trade every year. This is done by killing the mother and taking the baby. It is estimated that 4-5 orangutans die for every baby reaching the market. They can die as a result of injury from falling several hundred feet to the forest floor when their mother was shot, of the trauma of seeing their mother killed and possibly eaten, from contracting diseases from humans (they are susceptible to all human disease), or from succumbing to the poor conditions in which they are often kept following their capture.
Though infant orangutans are extremely cute, they make very bad pets. All wild animals quickly outgrow being dependent, cuddly infants and grow into dangerous and unmanageable, very strong adults, completely unsuitable as pets.
POACHING
Orangutans may be hunted for food either from ignorance of the law, or in disregard of the law because of hunger and/or poverty. As human settlement encroaches on the forest, often wild orangutans are tempted to eat the fruit in human gardens and farms-this creates conflict and often the orangutans are, somewhat understandably, thought of as pests. When adult females are killed, the babies can be sold, and the skulls of the dead may be used to create souvenirs that are sold illegally throughout Kalimantan. Poor concession management in the past, slash and burn agriculture and illegal logging have all contributed to decreasing rainforest habitat. One area in South Kalimantan reported that 80% of logging that occurred in that area was done illegally.For many of the transmigrants (people relocated from Java to alleviate crowding on the country's most populated island) agriculture is survival. The poor soils of Borneo cannot produce such crops as are produced on the rich volcanic soils of Java. Therefore to survive, transmigrants may log or use a slash and burn agriculture that the land cannot support because as the population grows, the interval allowed for the forest to recover decreases.
These conditions are further aggravated by periods of extreme weather such as the prolonged El Nino of this year. Fires raged through East Kalimantan, Indonesia on the Island of Borneo for over 9 months. Smoke from the fires was a health hazard for countries as far away as Singapore and Malaysia . Hundreds of thousands of acres of forest in Kalimantan were destroyed leaving many wild orangutans homeless and desperately seeking refuge in village fruit trees and plantations. These orangutans are not welcome and many have been killed or mutilated or
eaten by starving people whose rice crops failed two years consecutively. Once the fires started, the peat and coal deposits common to the island caused further ignition and escalated the fires.
Source Balikpapan Orangutan Society and Orangutan Foundation International
Copyright©2006 Orangutantours. Allright reserved.Update 06 - 02 - 07
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