The big red primate of the forests of Borneo and Sumatra, the

The big red primate of the forests of Borneo and Sumatra, the
orangutan, is a kind of wise man among apes and tends to look at
the world from on high both in the literal and figurative sense,
says French researcher Marc Ancrenaz.

He speaks with respect and admiration of the creatures whose
daily life he has shared for the last five years in Sabah, an
area of Malysia located in the northeastern part of the island of
Borneo.

"When he accepts our presence in his natural habitat," says
Ancrenaz, "it's not because he's interested in us. At most, we're
just part of his landscape. He lives high in the trees and
doesn't give the impression of being interested in earthbound
human cousins."

Old local legends say orangutans, which 'people of the forest'
in Malay, were once upon a time humans who went off to live in
the forests because they had had enough of quarrels in their
villages. They were said to have climbed up into the trees to
live above humankind.

"When I contemplate an orang-utan, that's exactly the way I
see him," said Ancrenaz: "I feel about him what I've never felt
about any other animal."

Orangutans are very much at home in the forest: and studies
conducted by the Hutan research project in Sabah indicate the
importance of their contribution to the environment.

When an orang-utan moves about, builds himself a nest, or gets
into a rage, he breaks branches, creating an aperture in the
forest overhead canopy and thereby allowing sunlight to reach the
undergrowth and foster plant growth.

Because of their size -- orangutans are the biggest of all
tree dwellers with a male weighing as much as 100 kilograms or
220 pounds -- they consume large fruits whose seeds they then
spread through the forest in their excrement.

The germinating power of these partly digested seeds is
sometimes three times or even four times greater than seeds which
simply fall to earth.

So orangutans actually boost the growth of the essential
foodstuffs they consume.

But for how long will they remain the gardeners of the forest?

Latest statistics estimate that there are some 13,000
orangutans in Sabah. But there are no more than 30,000 to 40,000
of them in the whole of Borneo, and just 5,000 in Sumatra.

Although they are officially protected as a threatened
species, orangutans could become extinct without particularly
strict measures, due to hunting and the destruction of their
natural habitat.

Their continued existence is directly linked to the habits of
human beings as consumers.

They say the collective pattern of human consumption is
rapidly destroying the habitats in which orangutans and other
animals live.