More than 500 of Borneo’s orangutans are trafficked illegally in the Indonesian market every
year, while rampant hunting is predicted to threaten to make the species extinct in the next 50 years, said an activist.

“Those traded are their babies. Hunters kill the mothers in order to catch them,” said Arbi Valentinus of the Orangutan Conservation Service Program (OCSP).

Valentinus said that if the orangutan hunting was not stopped, the species would extinct in the next 50 years. It is estimated that the orangutan`s habitat in the Kalimantan region continues to decrease by about 3 sq. km. per year, making the animal one of the endangered species included in appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), Law No. 5 / 1990 on Bio-diversity and Ecosystem.

That law actually states that unlicensed domestication of the orangutan (Pongo Pygmaeus) is is a violation.

“A year before the issuance of Government Regulation (PP) No. 7/1999 on Animal Stuff, a directorate general decree on the permit to raise wild animals was issued in the run up to the issuance of the PP,” Valentinus said. “Sadly, the decree has yet to be scraped though the PP is already issued.”

He said it was believed legal sanctions were not taken against violators of species domestication so far because the PP had not yet been lifted.

An orangutan expert from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Jito Sugardjito, said there were only four great ape species in the world, three of which were found in Africa while the other one in Indonesia and Malaysia, namely orangutans. Recent estimates indicate that approximately 63,000 orangutans remain in the wild.

(Sources: Antara , Xinhua, OC staff)