Indochina's primates face extinction<\/p>\n
By Denis D. Gray<\/p>\n
DEY AMBIL, Cambodia (AP): Within eyesight of a sign urging
\n\"Don't sell wildlife,\" a roadside vendor is peddling four slow
\nlorises -- little primates with sad luminous eyes -- to be burned
\nalive and churned into purported Chinese medicine.<\/p>\n
A gibbon, says Sem Sovan, can be ordered for US$200 and
\ndelivered while customers wait at his ramshackle hut, squirming
\nwith snakes, mynah birds and other illegal \"products\" from nearby
\nKirirom National Park.<\/p>\n
Once an Eden for primates, Cambodia along with neighboring
\nVietnam and Laos, are being rapidly emptied of these creatures by
\nmeat poachers, traditional medicine merchants and villagers
\nencroaching on their ranges.<\/p>\n
Remarkably, not a single species of primates, man's closest
\nrelative in the animal kingdom, was lost in the last century. But
\nglobal extinction is looming, and it is likely to occur first in
\nIndochina, says Frank Momberg of Fauna and Flora International.<\/p>\n
Four of the 25 apes, monkeys, lemurs and other primates listed
\nby the U.S.-based Conservation International as possibly facing
\nextirpation are found in Vietnam.<\/p>\n
Only some 100 individuals on a single island remain of the Cat
\nBa Island golden-headed langur while less than 200 Tonkin snub-
\nnosed monkeys, hunted for the medicine trade, hang on in two
\nareas of Vietnam, Momberg says. Almost as vulnerable are
\nDelacour's langur and the gray-shanked douc langur.<\/p>\n
\"The chances of them seeing the end of the century are slim,\"
\nhe says of the Hainan gibbon, perhaps the world's most endangered
\nprimate which lives in a few scattered places in Vietnam and on
\nthe Chinese island of Hainan. A tiny gene pool -- less than 50
\nindividuals -- survives.<\/p>\n
To avert extinction, conservationists stress, there must be
\nactive population management, including captive breeding, and
\nabove all safe, sufficiently large natural habitat - a shrinking
\ncommodity throughout Indochina.<\/p>\n
Even the Cardamon Mountains of southwestern Cambodia, long
\nprotected by war, malaria and their remote location, are
\nthreatened along with what is probably the world's largest
\npopulation of pileated gibbon.<\/p>\n
Preliminary surveys show the mountains shelter several hundred
\nto 1,000 of these gibbons, whose haunting songs once frequently
\nresounded through the jungles of Cambodia, Thailand and Laos. Now
\nthey are often death warrants.<\/p>\n
Ian Baird, a Canadian conservationist, recalls hearing a
\nfemale singing one dawn in the Cardamons, a hunter tracking the
\nsound, then silence.<\/p>\n
Baird witnessed the subsequent \"processing,\" the animal's skin
\nsold, the meat eaten and the bones used for so-called medicine.
\nAdult gibbons are also killed so their babies can be easily
\nsnatched for pets.<\/p>\n
Momberg, Indochina program manager at Fauna and Flora
\nInternational, hopes he has found one formula for salvation.<\/p>\n
In a mountain forest of northern Vietnam, the England-based
\nFFI is seeking to preserve the western black crested gibbon by
\ninvolving a half dozen poor tribal villages in their fate.<\/p>\n
\"A reserve is not enough. We need the communities,\" Momberg
\nsays. \"If the community doesn't want to care for them that's the
\nend.\"<\/p>\n
Momberg wants the villagers around the Che Thao forest to
\nestablish the boundaries of the reserve and select the rangers. A
\nweekly radio program, which includes conservation news, has been
\nstarted and former wildlife traders have been converted to
\nteachers.<\/p>\n
\"These people don't know they are harboring a gibbon that
\nexists nowhere else,\" he says. \"But they can develop a pride that
\nthey are hosting the only population in the world.\"<\/p>\n
A mortal danger to these gibbons and other primates in
\nIndochina is the area's proximity to China, where the appetite
\nfor exotic meat, medicine and aphrodisiacs seems insatiable, and
\ngrowing as the country's economic prosperity increases.<\/p>\n
Thousands of primates which once chattered and sang in
\nIndochina's jungles are reduced to powdered bones, dried feet,
\nblood and wine concoctions and monkey brains on Chinese plates.<\/p>\n
In the sweltering, pungent bowels of Phnom Penh's Chinatown,
\naround Orasay Market, skins of slow lorises lie artistically
\ndraped over jute bags in open-fronted shops. Sem Sovan, the
\nwildlife vendor, says he sells about 10 a month to Chinese
\nmedicine traders in the Cambodian capital for US$50 a piece.<\/p>\n
He says that burning them alive increases the potency of the
\nmedicine, and drinking their blood mixed with rice wine is great
\nfor stomach aches.<\/p>\n
On the Net: International Primate Protection League:
\nhttp:\/\/www.ippl.org Fauna and Flora International:
\nhttp:\/\/www.fauna-flora.org<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/indochinas-primates-face-extinction-1447893297",
"image": ""
},
"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
}