A new book that is the first to compare and contrast virtually every aspect of modern orangutan research will present the most complete picture of orangutan species, subspecies and populations, according to the authors.

Dr. Serge Wich, a scientist at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa, and three other experts have edited Orangutans: Geographic Variation in Behavioral Ecology and Conservation (Oxford), a book set for release in the United States this month that, for the first time, compares data collected at every known orangutan research site and examines the information to discern differences and similarities among the Asian apes.

Scientists are aware of significant variation in the behavior, morphology and life histories of orangutans, found only on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, but the comparative approach in this volume provides a theoretical framework to explain them, according to Wich and his co-editors. The data analyzed in the book, collected for Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii) Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) and their subspecies, provides a foundation for conservation action plans to save the critically endangered wild orangutans from extinction, and also emphasize the effects of human settlement on orangutans and their habitat.
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Environmental activists have mounted a challenge against the Indonesian government’s plan to allow palm oil companies to set up plantations in the country’s remaining peatlands.

Greenpeace Southeast Asia says the plan runs counter to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s promise to halve emissions from the forestry sector by 2009. The President made the pledge during the climate change conference in Bali in 2007 and at the G7 summit in Hokkaido, Japan, last year.

“Opening up peatlands would cause huge carbon emissions into the atmosphere that can’t be compensated for, including by oil palm trees,” said Greenpeace forest campaigner Yuyun Indradi.

He called on Yudhoyono to take action to halt the conversion of peatlands, or risk the failure of efforts to tackle climate change.

“The government needs to protect the remaining peatlands and forests if we are to slow down climate change and protect the livelihoods of forest-dependent communities and biodiversity,” Indradi said.

The government has promised to cut emissions, including from the forestry sector, by 50 percent in 2009, 75 percent in 2012, and 95 percent in 2025.
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Eleven orangutans that were smuggled in to Thailand over a period of several months have been found and confiscated at a crocodile farm in the Southern province of Phuket, Thailand.

The orangutans, some of whom were forced to pose in photographs with tourists, were found
by an investigation team of the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand(WFFT) in December 2008 and disappeared for a while hours before the Department of National Parks (DNP) raided the farm in late January, after a probable tip-off.

The 11 orangutans were finally found on February 4th, 2009, on another visit to the zoo in small holding enclosures behind the crocodile farm.

Only six months ago another smuggled Orangutan baby was found at a resort in Chumporn, that was finally confiscated after demands from the WFFT and the International Primate Protection League (IPPL), whose supporters sent over 500 letters to the Director-General of the DNP, the
police and other high officials to push for enforcement of CITES regulations.

The confiscated orangutans are currently at the Khao Prathap Chang Wildlife Breeding Center of the DNP, while a permanent sanctuary cane be located to house them.

(Source: Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand)

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.
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