Kalimantan orangutan on brink of extinction

Kalimantan orangutan on brink of extinction

Rusman
The Jakarta Post/Samarinda

Suparlan was shocked when he saw the state of his banana
plantation. Trees were lying on the ground and bananas were
strewn about everywhere.

The farmer assumed the perpetrators were pigs, so he was
stunned to find an orangutan trapped in a net he set up near the
plantation. He could not bring himself to kill the orangutan, so
he released him.

To Suparlan's relief, the orangutan headed for the Kutai
National Park, some five kilometers from his banana plantation in
East Kalimantan.

"This was not the first such incident. Last year, several
orangutans were found looking for food in residential areas and
captured," said Suparlan.

More orangutans are being forced to look for food outside of
the forest because their habitat has shrunk dramatically in
recent years due to illegal logging and the clearance of land for
plantations and farms.

According to data from the Indonesian Forum for the
Environment (Walhi), Kutai National Park consisted of two million
hectares in 1934, but had shrunk to 306,000 hectares by 1957. In
1997, the park was down to 198,604 hectares and Walhi estimates
it has since lost another 25,600 hectares due to illegal logging.

"And today the forest is continuing to shrink due to illegal
logging and land clearance," said Syarifudin, the director of
Walhi's East Kalimantan office. There are currently thought to be
606 orangutan living in the national park.

The number of orangutan in the park is falling as more of the
animals die from a lack of food, as well as from poaching.

Residents report that local middlemen sell baby orangutans to
animal traders for about Rp 200,000. The orangutans eventually
make their way to animal markets, where they are sold for
anywhere between Rp 2 million and Rp 10 million.

A spokesman for the Borneo Orang Utan Survival Foundation,
Aditya Yudhistira, said there were a number of factors behind the
declining orangutan numbers in East Kalimantan.

He said these factors included forest fires, the illegal trade
in orangutans and habitat destruction.

The foundation is currently raising some 200 orangutans, which
will be given to the East Kalimantan Natural Resources
Conservation Body before being released back into the wild.

"The 200 orangutans were confiscated from people who captured
the animals for their own gain," said Aditya.