But you probably won’t be seeing orangutans on the television screen any more. And in about 10 years, scientists fear, you might not be seeing orangutans at all.

To counter a misconception that orangutans are not threatened, a myth fostered by their public portrayal, the Great Ape Trust in Iowa will now care for orangutans that have been transferred from the only remaining orangutan trainer in Hollywood. Those who would protect the apes see the move as a great victory.

“Seeing apes in entertainment may lead people to believe that conservation is not an issue for them,” said Robert Shumaker, the director of orangutan research at the Great Ape Trust. “If that diminishes concern for conservation, then that’s a problem.”

Already Rocky and Katy are settling in to their new Midwest home. And following their month-long acclimation period, they will be introduced to the other orangutans – Azi, Allie and Knobie – who already call the Great Ape Trust home.

Orangutans, the only great ape found outside of Africa, may be the first great ape to go extinct if current trends do not change. With 6,600 Sumatran orangutans in the wild, this species is critically endangered, according to the 2007 Red List of Threatened Species released by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The other orangutan species, the Bornean orangutan, is listed as endangered with fewer than 50,000 remaining.

Their fragile status underlies the magnitude of the decision by Steve and Donna Martin’s Working Wildlife to transfer their orangutans from Hollywood to this Great Ape Trust.
“The fact that Steve Martin’s place, which is one of the major players in the business, is taken out of Hollywood — now that’s a major coup,” said Steve Ross, a specialist in ape behavior and cognition at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo.

The Martins lately have represented the final frontier of orangutan trainers for the Hollywood entertainment industry following the closure of legendary chimp trainer Bob Dunn’s Hollywood Animals in 2005. Dunn’s apes, including Michael Jackson’s chimp “Bubbles,” were transferred to the privately-owned Center for Great Apes in Florida.

With Dunn and the Martins off the ape-trainer playing field, “the big boys are out,” Ross told LiveScience.

Over the years, chimpanzees and orangutans have been the star apes of the entertainment industry. With hundreds of chimps in the hands of private owners and trainers, their protection has been a daunting challenge, says Zoo Atlanta’s Lori Perkins, chair of both the Orangutan Species Survival Plan and Association of Zoos and Aquarium’s Animal Welfare Committee. But because significantly fewer orangutans are used nowadays as entertainers, Perkins realized recently that “there actually is a shot to get all orangutans out of the entertainment industry.”

Upon hearing that the Martins were considering retiring some of their apes, Doug Cress of the Orangutan Conservancy contacted the couple on behalf of Shumaker. The conversation led to the orangutan transfer several months later.

Shumaker tried to acquire the Martins’ orangutans on two conditions: They would transfer all of their orangutans to the Great Ape Trust, and they would no longer train orangutans.

For more than a year, the Martins had tried to focus on training non-ape animals such as big cats. Having already sent two of their eight orangutans into retirement at another California site, Steve and Donna Martin agreed to put the brakes on their role as ape trainers and transfer the remaining six orangutans to the Great Ape Trust.

“Luckily, we came along at a time when [the Martins] were open to the notion of change, and the Great Ape Trust was a perfect solution,” said Cress. “This was as close to win-win as you can get.”

And this transfer has a wider impact than simply retiring six orangutans from TV and movies. The Martins’ decision may represent the end of an era, leaving no trainers in Hollywood to supply orangutans for the entertainment industry. It also makes a strong welfare and conservation statement, demonstrating that “there are people in the entertainment industry that probably realize that cooperation is the way to go,” said Ross. But the future of these great apes is still not pristine.

Orangutans in captivity have earned a reputation for communicating with computers and working with tools and symbols. And two 2007 studies indicate that they may be more intelligent than chimps. Harvard psychologist James Lee found orangutans had the best problem-solving ability among the 25 primates studied. And Duke primatologist Carel van Schaik observed Bornean orangutans outwitting chimps, making rain hats from leaves and constructing leak-free roofs above their nests.

No stranger to these clever creatures, the entertainment industry has used this intelligence to its advantage by placing orangutans in movies, television shows and commercials from Clint Eastwood’s pet orangutan Clyde in the 1978 movie “Every Which Way But Loose,” to a live-in orangutan nurse called “Precious” in the now-defunct soap opera “Passions” to Aflac and Levi’s television commercials from the past few years.

Yet having amused the general public for decades, orangutans, with 97 percent of the same DNA as humans, are errantly perceived as subhuman clowns.

The depiction of chimps in movies, television shows, and commercials has led some people to think that these and other apes are not endangered, according to “Inappropriate Use and Portrayal of Chimpanzees,” a March 2008 review in Science magazine authored by Ross, Shumaker, and other scientists.

“This lack of awareness generally translates into a lack of concern and caring,” said Zoo Atlanta’s Perkins.

Contrary to their portrayal on the screen, the orangutan species is definitely at risk. On the two Pacific islands where orangutans still live in the wild — Sumatra and Borneo — their population has decreased by 14 and 10 percent respectively since 2004, according to a recent study released in the journal Oryx.

The expansion of palm oil plantations on these islands is largely to blame for this decrease. Indonesia and Malaysia, the countries that contain Sumatra and Borneo, represent 80 percent of the global palm oil trade. (Borneo is divided between the three countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei.)

And a study released in May by the Center for Orangutan Protection predicted that the orangutans living in a Bornean tropical jungle, which is home to almost half of the island’s orangutan population, could be extinct by 2011. A local population of more than 30,000 in 2004 has plummeted to just 20,000 orangutans.

To make matters worse, the average birth rate of once every eight years is the longest time between births among mammals. This severely hinders the orangutans’ ability to recover from these drastic drops in numbers.

So as the demand for biofuels powers the palm oil industry, it simultaneously threatens the orangutan’s native habitat and future existence. But with the exception of token orangutans scattered across a few theme parks, the transfer of the six orangutans from the Martins to the Great Ape Trust has for all intents and purposes shut down, at least, the business of training orangutans to be entertainers.

“For orangutans in the entertainment industry, I think we’re down to the single digits,” said Zoo Atlanta’s Perkins, “and that’s a pretty cool thing to say.”

(Source: LiveScience)

“Monkeys and apes are trying to tell us something. After all, some of the non-human primates that share 98.5% of our genetic code can and do talk to us.

“Take Kanzi, for instance; this bonobo chimp understands thousands of words, uses sentences, expresses emotions and concern for others; even talks on the phone. Whether certain primates, such as chimps and other apes, use language the same way people do remains a matter of scientific debate.

“But one thing about primates that scientists agree upon today is that they are among the most threatened animal species on Earth.

“Results of the most recent global primate assessment have been discussed recently at the annual International Primatological Society meeting, held in Edinburgh, Scotland. The survey was done as part of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and it is grim reading.

“Nearly 50% of the world’s 634 primate species and subspecies are in danger of going extinct. The situation is most dire in Asia, where more than 70% could disappear forever in the near future.”

“News reports of a global species extinction crisis appear every now and then. Somehow, the fact that hundreds and perhaps even thousands of species are lost daily - gone forever, irreplaceable - has not roused much alarm among the general public.

“Will it matter when the chimps, lemurs, gorillas and cotton-topped tamarins are all gone? After all, what has a monkey done for you lately? Right now, the message monkeys are sending could help us all have a healthier, more secure and prosperous planet.

“If these highly intelligent species are dying out, what does that mean for us, their human cousins?

“It means we have so seriously and destructively altered the Earth’s landscape that these creatures can no longer survive in their natural habitats. We’ve laid waste to forests from Latin America to Asia and Africa where these primates have lived and evolved, and where they are now perishing.

“The larger, global impact of this kind of massive forest destruction equals one of the greatest causes of global climate change - which finally has captured the public’s attention and is causing alarm. Twenty percent of greenhouse gas emissions that are accelerating global warming come from tropical forest destruction. In fact, deforestation makes Indonesia (one of the world’s three richest countries for primates) the third leading emitter of greenhouse gases.

“Habitat loss is the most serious threat to primates, closely followed by relentless hunting of some species to supply a luxury exotic meat market and for use in traditional medicines. In fact, in some places primates are literally being eaten to extinction. It is horrific to see these animals in the open air bush meat markets, being grilled on fire pits and sometimes even being blowtorched to remove their hair, their faces frozen in final screams of anguish.

“Forests where primates have historically occurred rely on these keystone species to remain healthy, productive ecosystems. Many monkeys and apes eat the forest fruit and are the primary seed dispersers. A forest that loses its primates becomes a forest without seedlings, unable to regenerate and thrive. That, in turn, has a direct impact on people who live in or near these forests and rely on the forest resources for many essential needs.

“There is plenty at stake for the entire planet if primates become extinct. And that’s not to mention our undeniable affection for these intelligent, fascinating creatures. We can see, and hear, ourselves in them.

“Kanzi and his sister Panbanisha, both born at a university research centre and raised by researchers, now live at Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they would be found naturally, bonobos are increasingly threatened, largely due to habitat loss and hunting.

“An increase in targeted local and international conservation efforts will be essential to help primates make it through this extinction crisis. We must help developing nations where many of these primates live identify economic development alternatives that will conserve, rather than destroy forests. Local people must be consulted and actively involved in finding the solutions that work for them and provide immediate and essential needs for their families.

“If primates are telling us to rescue them, they are also sending us a message that will help us rescue ourselves.”

Russell A. Mittermeier is president of Conservation International and chairman of global conservation group IUCN’s Species Survival Commission’s Primate Specialist Group

The World Conservation Union (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species says the main threat is habitat loss, primarily through the burning and clearing of tropical forests.

More than 70% of primates in Asia are now listed as Endangered, it adds. Sumatran orangutans are rated as “Critically Endangered” and are included among the 25 most-threatened species, while Bornean orangutans are listed as “Endangered.” Indonesia, which is home to both species, is ranked third in the world among nations with the highest percentage of threatened species (84%).

The findings form part of the most detailed survey of the Earth’s mammals, which will be published in October.

Other threats include hunting of primates for food and the illegal wildlife trade, explained Russell Mittermeier, chairman of global conservation group IUCN’s Primate Specialist Group and president of Conservation International.

“In many places, primates are quite literally being eaten to extinction,” he warned. “Tropical forest destruction has always been the main cause, but now it appears that hunting is just as serious a threat in some areas, even where the habitat is still quite intact.”

The survey, involving hundreds of experts, showed that out of 634 recognised species and subspecies, 11% were Critically Endangered, 22% were Endangered, while a further 15% were listed as Vulnerable. Asia had the greatest proportion of threatened primates, with 71% considered at risk of extinction. The five nations with the highest percentage of endangered species were all within Asia.

“It is quite spectacular; we are just wiping out primates,” said Jean-Christophe Vie, deputy head of the IUCN Species Programme. He added that the data was probably the worst assessment for any group of species on record. “The problem with these species is that they have long lives, so it takes time to reverse the decline. It is quite depressing,” Vie said.

Although habitat loss and deforestation were deemed to be the main threats globally, Vie explained how human encroachment into forests was also creating favourable conditions for hunters.

“This creates access, allowing people to go to places that they could not go in the past,” he said. “Primates are relatively easy to hunt because they are diurnal, live in groups and are noisy - they are really easy targets. Many of the Asian primates, like langurs, are 5-10kg, so they are a good target. Generally, you find that what is big and easy to get disappears very quickly.”

In Africa, 11 of the 13 kinds of red colobus monkeys assessed were listed as Critically Endangered or Endangered. Conservationists fear that two may already be extinct. The Bouvier’s red colobus has not been seen for 25 years, and no living Miss Waldron red colobus has been recorded since 1978.

The authors of the primate Red List did consider down-listing mountain gorillas to Endangered from Critically Endangered because the great apes had recorded a population increase. But they decided to delay reclassification as a result of five of the gorillas being killed in July 2007 by gunmen in the DR Congo’s Virunga National Park, which is still at the centre of a conflict between rebel forces and government troops.

Despite the gloomy outlook, the Red List did record a number of conservation successes. Brazil’s populations of golden lion tamarins and black lion tamarins were down-listed from Critically Endangered to Endangered.

“It is the result of decades of effort,” said Dr Vie. “The lion tamarins were almost extinct in the wild, but they were very popular in zoos so there was a large captive population. So zoos around the world decided to join forces to introduce a captive breeding programme to reintroduce the tamarins in Brazil.”

However the first attempts were not successful and the released population quickly crashed because the animals were ill-prepared for life in the wild, he recalled.

Ultimately, the success was a combination of ex-situ conservation in zoos and in-situ conservation by protecting and reforesting small areas around Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.

The findings, issued at the International Primatological Society Congress in Edinburgh, Scotland, will be included in a survey described as an “unprecedented examination of the state of the world’s mammals”, which will be presented at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in October.

(Source: BBC and OC Staff)

Tiger skins, orangutans and rare caged primates openly sold at markets in the heart of Indonesia’s capital are the most brazen and visible aspect of a thriving illegal wildlife trade.

Indonesia is struggling to take on a multi-million-dollar industry that is stripping the archipelago nation’s vast forests of endangered species for enormous profit by selling them to buyers around the world.

With corruption rife and authorities overwhelmed, conservationists say police and forestry officials have barely made a dent.

Activists and the government estimate Indonesia loses at least 80 million dollars a year through the illegal trade, with rare animals — dead and alive — being sold at huge mark-ups once they get to overseas markets.

“What’s interesting is that an orangutan caught in Kalimantan (on Borneo island) costs no more than three million rupiah (327 dollars) and is sold in Jakarta for five million rupiah,” said Asep Purnama from the non-government organisation ProFauna.

“Once they get to Taiwan they will sell for around 100 million rupiah and in Europe they’ll sell for 400 million,” he said, adding that an estimated 100 orangutans are taken every year from Kalimantan’s forests alone.
Purnama’s group estimates around 10,000 animals found only on Sumatra island were poached in 2007 to supply the illegal trade.

While some animals are shipped directly from Kalimantan or Sumatra to Malaysia or the Philippines, much of the trade is directed through the teeming animal markets of Indonesia’s major cities, Purnama said.

“Since the illegal wildlife trade in the markets is the result of wild poaching, stopping the illegal trade in the markets would reduce the poaching itself,” he said.

A short walk through Jakarta’s Jatinegara shows a flourishing trade. Peddlers sell slow lorises, a rare bug-eyed primate from Sumatra’s forests, for less than 10 dollars each as pets for middle-class families.

Most buyers likely don’t know trade in the seemingly cute animals is illegal — or that they usually die within weeks from the stress of captivity — but the sellers do, and they are extremely camera shy.

A few hundred metres (yards) away in Jatinegara’s gem market, however, one trader selling tiger skins was happy to show off her wares. The skins are from tigers killed more than a decade ago, she said, and the most valuable parts, the bones and meat, were long ago sold to China and Singapore. What was left would only be good for making handbags, she said.

Most of Jakarta’s animal trade, including at Jatinegara, comes through the city’s massive Pramuka bird market, the largest in Southeast Asia, according to Femke den Haas from the Jakarta Animal Aid Network (JAAN). Occasional raids have driven most of the high-profile endangered animals from clear view, but buyers from around the world still place orders for goods as exotic as tiger cubs and ivory, den Haas said.

“The bigger stuff you get from houses from behind (the markets) and the even bigger stuff, for example orangutans, you have to order,” she said.

Investigations by JAAN and other non-government organisations have found exotic birds brought by ferry from Papua in the country’s east and rare animals brought in from Sumatra by air-conditioned coach. “We call them the grandmother mafia network because all these grandmothers transport the animals,” den Haas said.

While conservationists have been pushing for a crackdown, they say authorities are often either under-resourced, corrupt or unaware of the problem.

“(For a prosecution) you need to pay the judges, you need to pay the police, you need to pay for the food in the police cell,” den Haas said. “The reason the justice system takes so long is that the judge says: ‘I didn’t know these species were protected, I have two sea turtles in my house’,” she said, adding this was a genuine anecdote from a recent trial.

Despite the slow progress, the forestry ministry says it is doing the best it can with limited resources.

“Regular enforcement is still going on. I see the enforcement making a lot of progress compared to the past,” said ministry biodiversity conservation head Toni Suhartono.

But the ministry can usually only muster small teams to go on raids, and they are often easily outwitted in the winding alleyways of the animal markets, Suhartono said.

“They’re very smart,” he said of the wildlife dealers. “When we send people there they disappear. It’s like hit and run,” he said, adding that low penalties meted out by courts mean even successful raids are not a strong deterrent.

Corruption within the ministry also made enforcement a challenge, Suhartono said, with officials earning a basic wage of only 1.3 million rupiah a month. ProFauna said a recent investigation found one forestry ministry officer in Medan in northern Sumatra moonlighting as a smuggler. Another investigation by the group in 2007 found ministry officials had sold off confiscated ivory that had been stockpiled as evidence in a poaching trial.

(Source: Association Presse France and OC staff)

New findings by the Borneo Conservation Trust (BCT) show that orangutans are surviving in pockets of forest within the oil palm plantations in Sabah and that it is possible for the orangutans to travel and live within the plantations.

“This initial finding is part of the effort to realise our goal towards creating a contiguous forest within the landscape and thus will benefit a wider range for wildlife habitat and movement,” said BCT Chief Executive Officer, Cyril Pinso.

BCT has been commissioned by Malaysia Palm Oil Corporation (MPOC) to undertake a survey of the orangutan population in Sabah, including those residing within oil palm plantations.

Pinso said recent reports that majority of the isolated orangutans in the Kinabatangan area would go extinct in less than 50 years if nothing is done is true.

BCT is a state-mandated tax-exempt NGO established in 2006, and promoted by the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Environment. It was incorporated under the Trustee’s Ordinance 1951, Cap. 148 (Sabah), to deal with the pressing needs to preserve the habitat and the migration route of Borneo’s most endangered wildlife along the Kinabatangan and the Segama Rivers.

This migration route referred to as BCT Green Corridor is part and parcel of BCT’s mission.

As a first token step, BCT has bought five acres in the Kinabatangan area to connect this corridor, supported by funds from Japanese individuals.

At the same time, it also raised awareness to deal with the continuing challenges concerning our conservation efforts for the benefit of wildlife and the environment, including restoring Malaysia’s image in the oil palm industry.

In recent years, Sabah oil palm plantation companies have been accused of being insensitive to the existence and the well-being of the highly endangered large mammals of Borneo such as the orangutan, Sumatran Rhino, Bornean Elephant and Probocis Monkey.

As a result of this negative portrayal of the industry, the MPOC (responsible for marketing and promotion of oil palm products worldwide) has taken a serious interest and affirmative action to environmental sustainability, biodiversity conservation and wildlife preservation.

Pinso said the survey was in collaboration with the Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Project (KOCP), a conservation project operated by a private non-governmental organisation called HUTAN, which is based in Kinabatangan Sabah, and has been working towards the conservation of the OU in Sabah since 1998.

In addition, the recent signing of a Tripartite Agreement between BCT, MPOC and Bursa Malaysia at the recently concluded International Palm Oil Sustainable Conference (IPOSC) at Kota Kinabalu in April 2008 is “timely and applauded”.

Further conservation measures undertaken through this networking would be to ensure that oil palm plantations are doing their part in ensuring that the building up of good wildlife corridor in the Kinabatangan / Segama areas, planting fruit trees as food sources for wildlife, re-stocking the river reserves with trees species helps increase biodiversity and food sources for these animals.

(Source: Malaysia Daily Express News)

The first two orangutans – a 19-year old female named Katy (pictured above) and her three-year old son, Rocky – arrived at the Des Moines, Iowa, facility on July 12. The remaining four will follow over the course of the summer.

“This is wonderful news, not only for the orangutans that worked in entertainment, but also for wild orangutans in Indonesia,” said Norm Rosen, president of the Orangutan Conservancy. “The idea of laughing at an orangutan in a television commercial or a greeting card might seem harmless, but there is a very direct correlation between the way we view orangutans in America or Europe and the way they are perceived in Southeast Asia.”

Added Rosen: “The sooner we stop regarding orangutans as props, the sooner we’ll be able to make effective arguments to the governments of Indonesia and Malaysia to protect them and the forests in which they live.”

The six orangutans – two males and four females – were donated to the Great Ape Trust of Iowa by Steve Martin’s Working Wildlife, which was the last major supplier of trained orangutans for television, films and advertising. Rocky was generally regarded as the most visible orangutan in media today, having appeared in recent television advertisements for Capital One and Aflac and an Elle magazine spread with pop star Fergie of the Black-Eyed Peas.

The transfer follows almost six months of careful negotiations with Steve Martin’s Working Wildlife, which were begun by Orangutan Conservancy vice president Doug Cress following discussions with Dr. Rob Shumaker, director of the orangutan research program at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa and a member of the Orangutan Conservancy board of directors.

“This was a matter of finding common ground,” Cress said. “Nobody was ever that far apart in terms of the issues. We all understood what was at stake, and what this meant. We just had to find a way to make it work logistically.”

Steve Martin and his wife, Donna, were convinced to donate their orangutans and cease that aspect of their business after visiting the Great Ape Trust of Iowa facilities in June.

Steve Martin said he believes the orangutans will have a good quality of life at Great Ape Trust. “You can tell they are going to have a wonderful home here,” he said. “We are extremely happy to see the facility and the upgrade in their socialization opportunities.”

(Source: Orangutan Conservancy)

JAKARTA — The leaders of Indonesia and Brazil have agreed that their developing nations, home to much of the world’s remaining tropical forest, would cooperate on biofuels after talks covering climate change and food.

The two nations signed an agreement on July 12 for Indonesia to send experts to Brazil to study its biofuel developments, said Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

“Brazil has been successful developing bioethanol and of course Indonesia can learn from the research and development,” Yudhoyono told a news conference after talks with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Brazil, a pioneer of mass ethanol usage in cars, has been mixing the sugar cane-based fuel with gasoline for decades, as well as running a vast fleet of vehicles on pure ethanol.

Indonesia, the world’s biggest palm oil producer, has also been pushing biofuels to cut the use of costly petroleum products, and aims to make mandatory the use of a 2.5 percent blend of biodiesel by September. Indonesia’s forests in Sumatra and Borneo are home to the world’s last remaining wild populations of orangutans.

The biofuel sector has come under attack from green groups for accelerating the destruction of forests, while some analysts blame it for contributing to soaring world food prices by diverting land that could be used for food crops.

The Brazilian president defended the biofuel sector and blamed international speculators for contributing to the current high food and oil prices.

“First at all, it is not ethanol or bio-fuel production that are responsible for the rise of food prices,” said Lula, who added that the thirst for energy from fast-growing China was also not the only reason oil prices had soared.

The world’s food problems would also be helped by reaching an agreement on the Doha round of World Trade talks that opened market access for agricultural products, Lula said.

Yudhoyono also said it was vital for richer nations to open up their agricultural markets to help reduce poverty.

The Brazilian president also said that richer countries should do more to cut greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.

Indonesia has been pushing for richer nations to pay poorer nations to retain their tropical forests, which are an enormous store of carbon and act like sponges to soak up greenhouse gases.

“No one wants to preserve our forests more than we ourselves but the most polluting countries they must start to discuss more seriously how to cut greenhouse gas emissions,” said Lula.

(Source: Reuters)

The Government of Indonesia will lodge a formal protest against Yale University over its newly released environmental performance index (EPI) report, which ranked Indonesia among the world’s least environmentally friendly countries.

The university’s EPI report, published in Newsweek’s July 7-14 edition, ranked Indonesia 102nd out of 149 countries, mainly because of widespread deforestation.

State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar said the data used in the report was out of date.

“The report is not fair. It is absurd because all the data is invalid. I will send my special staff to Yale to protest their researchers,” he said.

Amanda Katili, the ministry’s special expert on climate change, will leave for the United States on Monday.

“I will present Yale researchers with the new forestry data. This data is available at the Forestry Ministry website and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) website,” Amanda told The Jakarta Post on Saturday. “It is the researchers’ own fault if they don’t understand Bahasa Indonesia. They could have contacted us for the latest data before publishing the EPI ranking.”

The report claimed 85 percent of Indonesia’s carbon emissions came from deforestation.

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 “Where the two biggest carbon emitters, China and the United States, have coal plants and cars to blame, the No. 3 culprit — Indonesia — produces 85 percent of its carbon emissions from forest,” the report in Newsweek said.

It said forests were almost wiped out on heavily populated Java, while Sumatra lost 35 percent of its forests and Kalimantan lost 19 percent in the 1990s. Deforestation is also threatening the Sumatran rhinoceros and orangutan with extinction.

“In the forestry component of Yale and Columbia’s Environmental Performance Index, Indonesia comes in last with a score of zero,” it said.

The 2008 EPI ranks 149 countries on 25 indicators, and tracks six established policy categories: environmental health, air pollution, water resources, biodiversity and habitat, productive natural resources and climate change.

Indonesia has 120 million hectares of rain forest.

The deforestation rate between 1987 and 1997 was 1.8 million hectares annually. From 1998 to 2000, it rose sharply to 2.8 million hectares per year because of severe forest fires, before falling back to 1.8 million hectares per year between 2000 and 2006.

Forestry watchdog Greenomics Indonesia also protested the report for putting Malaysia in 26th place.

“Indonesia’s forests along the border with Malaysia in Kalimantan have long been the main source of timber for illegal loggers from Malaysia,” Greenomics executive director Elfian Effendi told the Post.

He said the world’s biggest importers of wood, including the United States, the European Union and Japan, bought most of their wood products from Malaysia and China.

“It is common knowledge wood in Malaysia and China comes from Indonesian forests. So why are these countries, which exploit our forests, considered more environmentally friendly?” he said.

(Source: The Jakarta Post)

“Ambassador Mahal: Face of a Dying Species,” was written by Jan Uebelherr, who followed each step of the decision to transfer Mahal, a 10-month old Bornean orangutan, from his home at the overcrowded Cheyenne Mountain Zoo to the zoo in Milwaukee. The transfer was enacted only after Mahal was rejected by his birth-mother.

Uebelherr compared Mahal’s battles to adjust to his new life with those of orangutans in the jungles of Borneo and Sumatra, which are racing towards extinction as rainforests disappear and humans close in. Experts predict that wild orangutans will become extinct in the wild by 2025 unless drastic measures are taken to protect them.

In addition, a children’s storybook, Little Mahal and the Big Search for a Real Mom, has been published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and is available to purchase ($3.95) online.

To read “Ambassador Mahal: Face of a Dying Species,” please go to http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=766448.

Conservation action essential to survival of orangutans, found only on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, must be region-specific to address the different ecological threats to each species, said Wich and his co-authors, a pre-eminent group of scientists, conservationists, and representatives of governmental and non-governmental groups. They convened in Jakarta, Indonesia, in January 2004 to address the threats to orangutan survival and develop new assessment models to guide conservation planning.

New orangutan population estimates revealed in the July issue of Oryx reflect those improvements in assessment methodology – including standardized data collection, island-wide surveys, and better sharing of data among stakeholders – rather than dramatic changes in the number of surviving orangutans.

The experts’ revised estimates put the number of Sumatran orangutans (P. abelii) around 6,600 in 2004. This is lower than previous estimates of 7,501 as a result of new findings that indicate that a large area in Aceh that was previously thought to contain orangutans actually does not. Since forest loss in Aceh has been relatively low from 2004 to 2008, the 2004 estimate is probably not much higher than the actual number in 2008. The 2004 estimate of about 54,000 Bornean orangutans (P. pygmaeus) is probably also higher than the actual number today as there has been a 10 percent orangutan habitat loss in the Indonesian part of Borneo during that period.

“It is clear that the Sumatran orangutan is in rapid decline and unless extraordinary efforts are made soon, it could become the first great ape species to go extinct,” Wich et al. wrote. “Although these revised estimates for Borneo are encouraging, forest loss and associated loss of orangutans are occurring at an alarming rate, and suggest that recent reductions of Bornean orangutan populations have been far more severe than previously supposed.”

The new numbers underscore important issues in orangutan conservation. With improved sharing of data and deeper collaborations among stakeholders, the experts determined that 75 percent of all orangutans live outside of national parks, which have been severely degraded by illegal logging, mining, encroachment by palm oil plantations and fires due to a general lack of enforcement by regulatory authorities, who are either unable or reluctant to implement conservation management strategies.

However, some recent conservation successes – keyed on political and financial support, media attention and advocacy by conservationists – offer cause for cautious optimism that illegal logging in protected areas can be effectively reduced and improved management of protected areas can be attained, according to the experts.

“It is essential that conservation measures are taken to protect orangutans outside national parks, and these measures will by necessity be specific to each region,” Wich et al. wrote.

The experts reported positive signs that forest conservation is gaining prominence as a political agenda. For example, habitat loss has stabilized in some parts of Sumatra with a temporary logging moratorium in the province of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, where most of the island’s orangutans occur, both in and out of national parks. Opportunities also exist to develop reduced-impact logging systems on the island of Borneo, where most orangutans live in forests already exploited for timber.

Although other threats to orangutan survival exist, such as hunting in agricultural areas where human-orangutan conflicts exist, the biggest by far is forest destruction associated with the burgeoning palm oil industry in Indonesia and Malaysia. Together, they are the world’s largest palm oil producers with a combined global market share of 80.5 percent. Rapid expansion of the palm oil industry coupled with poor land-use planning are further pressuring forests and the orangutans who depend on them for survival.

For example, in Sumatra, the controversial Ladia Galaska road project in the Leuser Ecosystem will, unless halted, fragment two of the three largest remaining orangutan populations, Wich et al. wrote. A similar project in 1982 split the Gunung Leuser National Park, and the improved access facilitated uncontrolled illegal settlements inside the park, large-scale illegal encroachment and logging, and poaching of threatened species. Also cited as an example of faulty land-use planning was a mega rice project, funded primarily by Indonesia’s reforestation fund, which eliminated 10,000 square kilometers of peat swamp forest and killed an estimated 15,000 orangutans from 1996 to 1999.

“Both are examples of ill-advised projects with few benefits to local economies but major environmental costs,” Wich et al. wrote. “However, as such projects provide substantial revenue for a small group of individuals with considerable political influence, unprecedented political will is needed to prevent similar projects in the future.”
The experts’ report includes sweeping recommendations for:

• Effective law enforcement and prosecution to stop hunting orangutans for food and trade;
• Mechanisms to mitigate and reduce human-orangutan conflict in agricultural areas, including large-scale plantations;
• The development of an auditing process to assess the compliance of forestry concessions to their legal obligation to ensure orangutans are not hunted in concession areas;
• Increased environmental awareness at the local level, following examples set by the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program and the Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Project that promote awareness of conservation of forests and the importance of biodiversity;
• Development of mechanisms to monitor orangutan populations and forest cover, building on those in place on both Borneo and Sumatra;
• Continuation of surveys in less explored regions; and
• Continued improvement of survey methodology to include nest-decay rates.

“All efforts to monitor orangutans, however, will be to no avail unless the decline in numbers is halted, and this requires a change in political will,” Wich et al wrote. “It is essential that funding for environmental services reaches the local level and that there is strong law enforcement. Developing a mechanism to ensure these occur is the challenge for the conservation of orangutans.”

Great Ape Trust Director of Conservation Dr. Benjamin Beck said the paper makes a significant contribution to orangutan conservation discussion.

“First, we have an unambiguous, scientifically rigorous answer when regulators and policymakers ask us how many orangutans really remain, and how that compares to historical population sizes,” Beck said. “Those responsible for environmental stewardship cannot hide indecisively behind purported scientific uncertainty.

“Second, those answers are the results of pooled knowledge of nearly two dozen high-profile investigators who set aside their own professional reputations and agendas to collect data in a standardized format and share the results for a very high, common priority: the literal survival of the species that they study and love,” Beck continued. “In addition to being a critical contribution to orangutan conservation, this paper is an exemplar of collaboration among conservation scientists and practitioners.”

Dr. Rob Shumaker, director of orangutan research at Great Ape Trust and a member of the board of directors of the Orangutan Conservancy, said Wich’s paper is historically important and verifies the crisis situation for wild orangutans. “This represents enormous amounts of work from the authors and demonstrates their commitments to the science of orangutan conservation,” he said. “It’s a particularly notable achievement for Dr. Wich and continues his extraordinary dedication to the study of orangutans.

“It is my fervent hope that these data inspire action on the part of everyone who can positively affect orangutan conservation.”

In addition to his responsibilities at Great Ape Trust, Wich is co-manager of orangutan research at Sumatra’s Ketambe Research Center, one of the longest-running orangutan field study sites in the world.

(Source: Science Daily)