Twice as many orangutans, but future just as bleak

Twice as many orangutans, but future just as bleak

Jacqueline Mackenzie, Contributor, Jakarta

The most detailed count of wild orangutans in the last decade has found that there are between 50,000 and 60,000 orangutans left in the tropical forests of Sumatra and Borneo, twice as many as had been estimated in recent years.

However, a conference of international orangutan experts at the Schmutzer Primate Center in Jakarta recently has also found that the species has declined by a third in the past decade, and will become extinct in around two decades, if nothing is done to halt the trend.

"New survey data and computer modeling techniques revealed several new populations of orangutans in Central and western Kalimantan. It's clear that we have greatly underestimated the numbers in Borneo," said Dr. Willie Smits, Chairman of Borneo Orangutan Survival (BOS) Foundation, said to be the world's largest primate conservation project.

"But this is not great news, because the rate of decline of the species through habitat destruction and poaching is just as horrendous. If this continues, in 20 years there will be no orangutans left in the wild."

The conference also heard about recent efforts by Indonesian authorities to stop poaching, with seven prosecutions of illegal traders in the last six months.

However, these prosecutions have made little impact on the illegal trade, according to Dr. Smits. He estimates a thousand infant orangutans, whose mothers are shot in order to capture them, were smuggled into countries such as Thailand and Malaysia in 2003.

"You have to remember that only 50 percent of the babies survive the shooting of the mother," said Dr. Smits.

"We have so many with bullets in the eyes and brains and near the heart, and they are only the survivors. Many others die the moment the mother is beheaded, as sometimes the babies get their arms and hands cut off too."

Many more babies then die on the roads to the big cities, as the wrong diet gives them diarrhea and yet others die from stress. So each of the thousand represents two more thousand orangutans that never made it to trade.

By Dr. Smit's calculation, a total of 3,000 babies and 3,000 mothers - 4,500 females - are lost from the remaining orangutan population each year.

"Even if you had 200,000 orangutans, you're still losing them very, very fast. The only thing the extra numbers do say is that it is not yet too late to save them."

"Oil palm plantations are now vigorously expanding all over Borneo, into the lowland rain forests which are orangutan habitat," said Dr. Smits.

"The plantations create small pockets of rain forest where the orangutans are starving, opening the way for hunters. They eat the meat of the orangutan, they shoot them to sell the skulls to stupid tourists, they sell the baby orangutans in international trade."

But the main cause of habitat destruction continues to be illegal logging, which has increased since the push for local autonomy in recent years.

"More than half of all the wood cut in Indonesia is illegal, there is no control," said Dr. Smits.

"The concessions, that try to protect their own timber, they are now disappearing also and the people go freely wherever they want. It's really like the wild west."

The fact that the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation is now the world's largest primate conservation project is not something that makes Dr. Smits proud.

"I would only be proud if I could close down these rehabilitation centers, if there was no need to take in more babies. The centers mean we're failing to save the wild orangutans."

But Dr. Smits does not believe the situation is hopeless. He sees the recent prosecution of illegal traders as an indicator that change is taking place.

"The fact that illegal traders are trying to campaign against the current enforcement of the law is a good indication that we must be getting deep into the comfort zone of some people," he said.

He also gauges his effectiveness according to the number of death threats he receives, and in the past month he's received two hundred.

"My family has moved twice already because of the terror against us -- our effectiveness means we are bound to have huge fights coming up," he said.

"But we should not run away from the conflict. It's the eleventh hour for this great ape species, and if I did not believe it could be saved, I would not be doing the things I do now."