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.