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 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 run 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
- 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 transmigrant (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 his 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 (OFI). |
