Sumatran orangutans face extinction as peace comes

Sumatran orangutans face extinction as peace comes

Jeremy Lovell, London

Rebuilding after December's devastating tsunami and the dawn of
peace in Indonesia's Aceh province could mean annihilation for
the region's orangutans.

The area is the last refuge on Sumatra island of the timid and
highly intelligent "people of the forest" which live high in the
trees of dense rainforest and are already on the endangered list
as their habitat shrinks under human onslaught.

"It is a double-edged sword," Ian Singleton, scientific
director of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program, said of
the return to normality after a separatist conflict. "As peace
breaks out so the orangutans could be wiped out."

He said a combination of illegal logging for export and
reconstruction after the killer tidal wave plus resumption of
legal logging put on hold by the civil war was to blame.

"Everybody is raring to go. It is full steam ahead and it
doesn't look good for the orangutan," said Singleton, in London
on Thursday for the launch of the first World Atlas of the Great
Apes and their Conservation.

The U.N.-sponsored book charts the dwindling ranges of the six
species of great apes -- western and eastern gorillas,
chimpanzees, bonobos and Bornean and Sumatran orangutans.

Already numbers of Sumatran orangutans have plunged to around
7,000 from 85,000 in 1900 and Singleton estimates they could be
down to less than 250 within 50 years as their habitat is
literally hacked to pieces for profit.

Indonesia's Ministry of Forestry calculates an area of
orangutan habitat half the size of Switzerland is lost each year.

"Orangutans are prima donnas. They are very sensitive to
change," Singleton said.

He said the authorities were well aware of the problem and
were talking a good fight. But there was little relation between
plans on paper and what was happening in practice.

"It is corruption. Aceh is a stunning resource. It is a matter
of trying to persuade them to protect it," he told Reuters. "But
there is huge pressure to get rich quick and that doesn't augur
well."

Every night convoys of vehicles carrying timber can be seen
leaving the forests -- taking with them the future of the
enigmatic great ape which only exists in northern Sumatra and on
nearby Borneo.

"The trade is worth millions of dollars, and you need money to
fight it. You can't stop it with a few thousand dollars here and
there," he said.

But Singleton said if logging, hunting and the replacement of
vast tracts of forest by oil palms for Western cosmetic
industries could be halted then orangutan numbers could be
stabilized on Sumatra.