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Bleak Forecast for the Future of E. Kalimantan Orangutans
Tunggadewa Mattangkilang | February 20, 2012

A three-month-old Orangutan baby (Pongo Pygmaeus Mario) peeks out from inside a wooden box in East Kutai, East Kalimantan province, on Friday after being rescued after being separated from its mother. Experts say there are about 50,000 to 60,000 orangutans left in the wild, 80 percent of them in Indonesia and the rest in Malaysia. (AFP Photo/Firman) A three-month-old Orangutan baby (Pongo Pygmaeus Mario) peeks out from inside a wooden box in East Kutai, East Kalimantan province, on Friday after being rescued after being separated from its mother. Experts say there are about 50,000 to 60,000 orangutans left in the wild, 80 percent of them in Indonesia and the rest in Malaysia. (AFP Photo/Firman)
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PalmHugger.org
3:17pm Feb 23, 2012

It was Coleridge who observed: “Every reform, however necessary, will by weak minds be carried to an excess...” Conservation and good environmental practices are accepted and encouraged by the palm oil industry.

However, it is the excesses of the green movement which regularly traffic in crisis creation vis a vis palm oil and in the process, have gulled the media into believing their half truths, equivocations and outright lies which need reforming, in the infinite wisdom of Coleridge!

In any industry there will be isolated cases of rule infringement and violation of the spirit and letter of the law. However many connected with green groups, with their predatory sense of opportunism, appear ever ready to pounce on the slightest environmental infraction by a trifling and insignificant number of recalcitrant planters and try to paint a picture of systemic and industry wide abuse!

That's the travesty!

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Balikpapan, East Kalimantan. Orangutans in Kutai National Park in East Kalimantan face a bleak future unless urgent measures are taken to stop wildlife poaching and illegal logging in the ostensibly protected area, park officials warned on Monday.

Asep Sugiatna, the head of the national park, said the main threat to the orangutans there came from poachers who often killed the endangered apes while hunting deer.

He also said they were being killed off by workers at the various logging concessions and palm oil plantations operating on the peripheries of the park, who viewed the animals as pests.

“It’s these two problems that pose the greatest threat to the continued existence of the orangutans in the park,” Asep said.

Park officials estimate there are around 2,000 orangutans inhabiting Kutai National Park. However, Asep said his office only had 20 forest rangers to patrol the 198,600-hectare park.

“It’s nowhere near enough,” he said.

“Just 20 people to guard nearly 2,000 square kilometers of forest? That’s why we need to work with the local people. It helps in terms of monitoring and protecting the forest.”

The park straddles the districts of East Kutai and Kutai Kartanegara, where at least two palm oil companies have been accused of slaughtering dozens of orangutans and other primates deemed to be pests.

Earlier this month, authorities uncovered more grisly evidence of this kind of practice when they found an orangutan corpse in the East Kutai area of the park.

The body had two gunshot wounds to the head, while the arms had multiple slashes believed to have been caused by a machete.

Dr. Yaya Rayadin, an orangutan researcher at Mulawarman University in Samarinda, the provincial capital, said the recent spate of killings indicated a failure on the part of the authorities to enforce the protection of the species and the sanctity of the national park.

“The authorities are fearful of saving orangutans whose habitat overlaps with logging, mining and palm oil concessions,” he said. “If this keeps up, pretty soon the orangutan population here will diminish.”