Orangutan rescue in Aceh

One morning, an orangutan evacuation team arrived in a hilly area with only a few rubber trees left in Aceh Tamiang.

The 15-member team from the Leuser Ecosystem Management Agency (BPKEL), the Sumatra Orangutan Conservation Program (SOCP), the Orangutan Information Center (OIC) and the Aceh Orangutan Forum (FORA) was walking on red soil newly leveled for plantations.

The red land, cleared of rubber trees by workers of PT Bahruny, an estate company owned by Oil Palm Business Association (GAPKI) chair Joefly J Bahroeny, is located in Rimba Sawang village, Aceh Tamiang, bordering North Sumatra.

Atop an almost dead rubber tree was an orangutan and its one-year-old offspring, sitting and basking in the morning sun.

Their long, golden brown hair was in sharp contrast to their skinny bodies due to undernourishment.

“These orangutans were trapped in this location as workers started felling rubber trees for oil palm plants,” said OIC volunteer Krisna Ketapel.

Krisna is a local resident recruited by the OIC, an NGO engaged in watching over and monitoring orangutans emerging from forestland to enter the estates around his village home in Rimba Sawang.

The team’s visit to the plantations was meant to evacuate the orangutans isolated in the location, where only a small number of rubber trees can still be found. The other hills around it were already denuded and converted into circling terraces for oil palm planting.

The presence of orangutans was detected before they were slaughtered by estate workers while leveling the area. “We estimate hundreds of them are still trapped with the widespread land clearing operation for new plantations,” Krisna said.

Krisna has often witnessed orangutans going down to the estates near his village, usually from the protected forest in the Leuser ecosystem zone, only four kilometers from the closest plantations.

Rampant illegal logging and land reclamation for estates are seen as considerably disturbing the habitat of orangutans in the areas adjacent to the Leuser zone. The activity also increases the intensity of conflict between wildlife like tigers and elephants and man.

“In the last two to three years we’ve been informed of the orangutans frequently trapped in estates particularly in Aceh or North Sumatra border areas or asked to evacuate them,” said Ian Singleton, director of the SOCP.

The SOCP is a collaboration between the government and several NGOs like PanEco Switzerland, the Lestari Ecosystem Foundation (YEL) and the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS) in Germany, focusing on orangutan conservation in Sumatra and covering orangutan rescue, quarantine and release.

Previously, the SOCP evacuated orangutans from several locations in Aceh and North Sumatra. In addition, it also confiscated protected animals from individuals or orangutans from communities that had domesticated them.

According to Ian Singleton, the opening of estate areas in Aceh Tamiang began in 2005 in the early period of peaceful agreement between the Free Aceh Movement and the Indonesian government. Prior to the accord, land clearing wasn’t so widespread because Aceh was embroiled in armed conflict.

Now, when there’s conflict between animals and men during reclamation, estate owners tend to urge NGOs or environmental activists to intervene by moving or catching the animals without understanding the underlying causes of the problem. Estate companies are even prepared to fund the relocation of trapped orangutans.

“The media has frequently initiated the discourse that estate companies should contact NGOs or authorized agencies when they find orangutans in their land clearing areas for relocation,” noted Singleton. In his view, this is not a desirable solution, nor will it be favorable to the animals concerned. In reality, this method doesn’t much prevent the slaughter of orangutans lost in plantations.

“We’re convinced the number of orangutans killed in the process of land clearing has been far bigger than the total rescued, especially in areas where the government and environmental activists find it hard to monitor,” he said. In Aceh Tamiang, there are tens of thousands of hectares of rubber and oil palm estates owned by estate firms and individuals, mostly bordering the Leuser ecosystem – recognized by UNESCO as one of the world’s ecosystems.

The BPKEL managing the zone has revoked estate licenses many times for encroaching on protected forestland within the Leuser ecosystem.

Since 2009, the BPKEL has canceled 26 estate permits for illegal operations in restricted areas, covering 3,700 hectares of oil palm plantations and thousands of hectares of land already cleared but not yet planted.

“The pressure on this conservation zone will be greater and more severe unless strict control is exercised, particularly with the opening of an access road in the area close to Leuser,” said Badrul, conservation manager of the BPKEL. To prevent graver damage and the loss of rare animals’ habitats, this agency has been restoring the original estates and forest areas by replanting them with various trees.

Courtesy of The Jakarta Post/ article and photos by Hotli Simanjuntak  2/17/12

An illegal wildlife trader in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia has been sentenced to seven-months in jail for owning and selling orangutans.

Since 1924, when the Indonesian law was written, there have only been three traders sentenced for this type of crime, and this is the first occurrence in Sumatra.

The case began with the confiscation of a young male orangutan named Julius last July in Mardinding, in the province of North Sumatra. The unnamed trader was trying to sell the three-year-old orangutan.

A surprise raid by the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry’s Directorate-General for Forest Protection and Nature Conservation (PHKA), working in conjunction with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Wildlife Crime Unit and the veterinarian and staff of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP), resulted in the arrest.

“We are hopeful that this prosecution sends a clear message that illegal wildlife trade will not be tolerated in Indonesia,” said Dr Noviar Andayani, Director of the WCS Indonesia Program.

Ian Singleton, Director of Conservation for the PanEco Foundation and the person in charge of the SOCP, added: “It’s absolutely fantastic to finally have a prosecution of an illegal orangutan ‘owner’ in Sumatra, but it’s also long overdue. With this sentence, as long as it is widely publicized in the region, anyone considering capturing, killing or keeping an orangutan illegally will certainly think twice about it, and hopefully the numbers being killed and kept in the coming years will begin to decline.”

Julius, the rescued orangutan, is now being cared for at the SOCP’s quarantine center near Medan, with just over 50 other orangutans also being prepared for a return to the forest.

Although there have been over 2,500 confiscations of illegally held orangutans in Indonesia since the early 1970’s, the first actual prosecution of an illegal orangutan owner occurred in Borneo in 2010, nearly one-hundred years after the law was enacted.

by Tom Mills The Orangutan Conservancy 2/16/12

“None of the certifiers are prepared to back APP’s claim that their certifications demonstrate its sustainability. This is another blow to the credibility of APP’s massive global greenwash campaign,” said WWF International forest program director Rod Taylor in a statement.

In responding to complaints from environmentalists that its operations are responsible for large-scale destruction of native forests, APP often touts various certification standards which it says demonstrate its commitment to sustainability. Yet the new WWF survey found that these standards don’t apply across all of the paper giant’s operations — APP’s suppliers in Indonesia continue to harvest and convert natural forests. Nor do the certification standards necessarily prove that APP’s forest management practices are “sustainable”, according to WWF:
WWF asked the nominated certification schemes and assessors whether they supported the APP claim and also asked for detail of what specific APP products or operations were covered by their certifications. The survey covered the key social and environmental measures of free prior and informed consent by landowners and protection of high conservation value forests for forest operations and forest clearance for plantations.”

None of the schemes or assessors endorsed the APP statement, with major certifier SGS noting that “None of the TLTV (legality) evaluations conducted by SGS and the statements issued by SGS provide the company with the right to claim that their operations are ‘sustainable forest management’ ” and “The SGS certificates/statements do not support the claim of ‘sustainability’.”

No certificate or assessment issued evaluated the sustainability of the APP group as a whole. The Indonesian voluntary certification scheme LEI said it “did not have data of all APP operations”.

Key but neglected dimensions of sustainability were whether conversion to plantation involved the clearing of High Conservation Value (HCV) forest or whether those with traditional forest rights or tenure had given their “free, prior and informed consent” to the conversions. The LEI standard, for example confirmed that “The decision to establish forest plantation in certain area, either it was converting natural forest with HCV forest or deep peat and how it was conducted in relation to Free, Prior and Informed Consent is beyond LEI’s standard coverage.”
WWF also took on APP’s claims that its certifications prove it operates strictly within Indonesian law, noting that “none of the certifications demonstrated the legality of the APP wood supply as a whole.” It said APP’s conversion of deep peatlands for plantations was “legally contentious”.

WWF said the findings cast further doubt on APP’s stewardship of the environment, which it said was already in question due in part to its failure to fulfill past pledges to phase out sourcing of fiber from rainforest areas.

“No amount of public relations can change the fact that APP has bulldozed through their own 2004, 2007 and 2009 deadlines to stop feeding Sumatra’s natural forests through its pulp mills,” said Taylor. “Recent revelations that APP is developing the world’s biggest pulp mill in South Sumatra does not inspire any confidence of the company meeting its 2015 deadline for sustainable sourcing.”

For its part, APP denies it is developing the mill in South Sumatra, which it says “is in development by a plantation forest concession holder who currently supplies pulpwood to APP”.

Nevertheless, WWF says APP’s activities — no matter how APP portrays them — continue to threaten Sumatra’s increasingly rare native forests.

“APP’s claims of sustainability are not convincing to a host of major companies that have ceased to buy paper products from them,” said Taylor, adding that 13 out of the 20 companies listed in WWF’s report published last week have stopped buying APP’s Paseo brand products.

“APP should realize that performance, not promises and propaganda will get the world off its back. A key performance indicator would be for APP pulp mills to immediately halt all use of wood sourced by clearing tropical forests.”

Courtesy of Mongabay.com/February 15, 2012  photo courtesy of WWF – Indonesia

The girls’ interest in palm oil grew out of their concern from the age of 11 for endangered orangutans and their shrinking rainforest habitat in Indonesia and Malaysia, where much of the world’s palm oil originates.

The two 16-year-old Girl Scouts from Michigan, Rhiannon Tomtishen and Madison Vorva, who shared the award with four others from different nations, were recognized for campaigning to get Southeast Asian palm oil out of Girl Scout cookies.

They were among 15 finalists from 14 countries nominated for the prize honoring grassroots forest conservation efforts, marking the International Year of the Forest.

Last year, their efforts led to the Girl Scouts of the USA announcing a switch towards sustainable palm oil by 2015 as an ingredient in its Thin Mints, Tagalongs, Do-Si-Dos and other fund-raising cookies.

Also sharing the prize were Paul Nzegha Mzeka of Cameroon, Shigeatsu Hatakeyama of Japan, Anatoly Lebedev of Russia and Paulo Adario of Brazil.

“Each hero embodied innovative approaches and grass-roots initiatives that make a direct impact on the forests to which they have dedicated themselves,” a UN statement said.

“While these Forest Heroes come from varied backgrounds, they share a common courage, passion and perseverance that serve as inspiration to anyone wishing to make a difference for forests.”

The girls were nominated for the award by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“We are so honored to receive this award and it’s truly humbling to have our work recognized on the world stage,” said Vorva.

In 2007, they launched Project ORANGS (Orangutans Really Appreciate and Need Girls Scouts) to persuade the Girl Scouts to replace the palm oil in Girl Scout cookies with a sustainable alternative.

Last year, Girl Scouts of the USA and Kellogg’s, which produces cookies, developed a plan to transition to sustainable palm oil by 2015 and also pledged to reduce palm oil use across its entire product line.

Courtesy of The Jakarta Globe 2/10/12

This species cleansing has occurred despite the fact that the orangutan has been legally protected in Indonesia since 1924. Quite simply, in the last 40 years the number of legal cases brought against pet keepers, traders and orangutan killers can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

There was a case in November 2006 of people shooting a Sumatran orangutan (62 times with an air rifle) that had been released at the edge of Bukit Tigapuluh National Park in Jambi in October 2004. Six villagers received six-month jail sentences, but later the prison term was extended to eight months. Leuser, the orangutan in question, is now residing at a quarantine center run by the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program (SOCP) near Medan, in North Sumatra. He still has 48 air rifle pellets in his body and is blind in both eyes due to pellets lodged there.

There were also two prosecutions in June 2010 of people trading orangutans illegally in West Kalimantan. The seller was sentenced to eight months in prison and fined Rp 1 million (US$110). The buyer received a meager one month and 15 days in prison. A third person involved managed to evade prosecution altogether.

Yet, seemingly all of a sudden, a number of legal actions in support of orangutan conservation are finally hitting the headlines.

Many people will have seen recent articles in the media concerning the brutal killing of orangutans on an oil palm plantation in East Kalimantan, where they were slaughtered en masse for a bounty paid by the Malaysian company PT Khaleda Agroprima Malindo (PT KAM). For each orangutan killed, workers were allegedly paid Rp 1 million. This is an extremely shocking and disturbing case, but it is also an open secret that such practices are commonplace on new plantations.

An article on Dec. 9, 2011 in The Jakarta Post showed how the remains of more slaughtered orangutans were found in a concession belonging to PT Sarana Titian Permata II, part of the Wilmar International group, in Central Kalimantan. But no one there has yet been arrested or charged.

While the PT KAM case has attracted media attention, very few people are aware of an ongoing trial related to orangutans in Kabanjahe, North Sumatra. It concerns Julius, a 4-year-old male Sumatran orangutan confiscated in Mardinding, Karo regency, in July 2011. Forestry police arrested a man, identified by his initial as S, who was transporting Julius and offering him for sale. Unfortunately, however, the alleged “owner” of the orangutan, identified as R, has not yet been arrested or charged.

The law relating to protected species is actually simple. Law No. 5/1990 on the Conservation of Biodiversity and Ecosystems states clearly that keeping, injuring, capturing, trading and transporting protected species are criminal offenses, carrying sentences up to five years in jail and a Rp 100 million fine.

Nevertheless, it remains to be seen if Julius’ case in North Sumatra will be taken seriously by the three judges and the prosecutors. If not, and the defendant is acquitted, e.g. on some minor technicality, it really will reinforce the prevailing impression among conservationists that the Indonesian authorities, and society in general, really aren’t interested in protecting their country’s unique and exceptionally rich biodiversity.

Besides Law No. 5/1990, there are several other regulations that support orangutan conservation, which also seem to be routinely flouted and ignored. The Spatial Planning Law No. 26/2007, and its subsequent Government Regulation No. 26/2008, established the Leuser Ecosystem in northern Sumatra as a National Strategic Area for Environmental Protection. Presidential Instruction No. 11/2011 prevents the issuance of any new plantation and concession permits in primary forests and peat lands.

As the Leuser Ecosystem is home to around 80 percent of all the remaining Sumatran orangutans in the world, and as the peat swamps of Aceh province have the highest density of orangutans anywhere in the world, effective enforcement of these two laws alone would be an important step for orangutan conservation.

And so to another case currently making the news, in which it is claimed that a new permit issued for an oil palm plantation in the Tripa peat swamp forests on the west coast of Aceh, within the Leuser Ecosystem, is illegal, and that its issuance constitutes a criminal act or felony on the part of Aceh governor and a number of other key individuals involved in the process.

The Tripa peat swamp case actually consists of several different legal initiatives. A consortium of concerned NGOs has challenged the legality of the new permit in the Court of Civil Administration in Banda Aceh. Meanwhile, representatives of the communities living directly in Tripa, already fed up with losing their livelihoods, lands and lifestyles due to the destruction wreaked so far, have reported the governor of Aceh, who issued the permit, the company that received it, PT Kallista Alam, and a number of others at the National Police headquarters in Jakarta. They claim the issuance of the permit is a clear contravention of the National Spatial Planning law.

If these Aceh cases were to fail, the orangutan population in Tripa, recognized by the United Nations-backed Great Ape Survival Partnership (GRASP) as critical for the survival of the species, will continue to be devastated and ultimately be destroyed completely.

Perhaps for the first time, and long overdue, we finally seem to be seeing some clear sustained developments in law enforcement pertaining to conservation in Indonesia. But, it is probably too early to draw any solid conclusions.

Furthermore, even if convicted, the deterrent effect of these cases still depends on appropriate punishments being meted out. If sentences are too short or fines too little, it will once again bring into question the seriousness of those involved in enforcing the law in environmental and conservation cases.

Courtesy of  The Jakarta Post “Opinion” Section/ Panut Hadisiswoyo and Gunung Gea  2/8/12

Panut Hadisiswoyo and Gunung Gea are respectively chairman and vice chairman of FOKUS (Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Forum).

This agreement lays the foundation to improve a wildlife corridor between Tabin – Malaysia’s largest wildlife reserve and adjacent conservation areas.

Tabin Wildlife Reserve is one of the last areas on Borneo where large wildlife still coexist.

This includes the Bornean Rhino, Bornean Elephant, Orangutan, Banteng and Sun Bear.

But Tabin is almost completely isolated from other forests and surrounded by oil palm plantations.

“Connecting forest fragments is an integral part of our strategy to secure wildlife habitat in the long term,” said Dr Laurentius Ambu, director of the SWD.

The director added that it was necessary for the SWD to be active in promoting the reforestation work throughout areas with wildlife as corridors and forest patches are much needed for wildlife connectivity.

“At present there is an increase of reforestation work within wildlife landscapes in Sabah and we want them to be successful not only for the benefit of wildlife but also local communities who close to these areas,” said Laurentius.

The wildlife corridor will facilitate the migration of critically endangered wildlife through the newly established Segama Corridor Conservation Area.

It is hoped that eventually this will lead to a narrow but continuous corridor from Tabin up to Kulamba Wildlife Reserve, another important refuge for endangered species.

“To save endangered wildlife suffering from habitat fragmentation, we need to establish a network of protected areas of a sufficient size and quality.

This will prevent inbreeding of currently separated sub-populations and help to maintain healthy populations.

Tabin is absolutely crucial for the long-term survival of many threatened species and needs to be reconnected with adjacent forest land.

The outcome of our efforts will be a connected conservation area of more than 200,000 hectares, nearly twice as big as Tabin is today,” Robert Risch, one of the directors of the RFF.

In the MOU the State Government reassures that the restored area will remain protected excluding any conversion or logging in the future.

This emphasises the commitment of the government to wildlife conservation in Sabah and convinces donors to become involved.

“Our approach is to plant a wildlife corridor with many different local canopy and fruit trees that occur in natural forest.

Although this may sound evident, the concept of planting trees in high diversities is not practised in most reforestation projects.

Our project in Tabin and the surrounding area use a seedling stock that is high in species and genetic diversity to accelerate the regeneration of the original ecosystem,” shared Dr Philippe Saner, one of the directors of RFF.

Leipzig Zoo from Germany and private donors financially support this reforestation project.

“We support the forest restoration project of the RFF because we have a holistic conservation approach.

Conservation is not just focusing on certain species, it means also taking care of their natural habitat,” said Dr Joerg Junhold, director of the Leipzig Zoo.

Courtesy of Borneo Post online 2/6/12

The villagers of Muara Tae have lost more than half of their land and forest to mining and plantation companies. There are currently five companies with concessions in Muara Tae’s forests. The destruction started in 1971, with a logging company called PT Sumber Mas. In 1995, PT London Sumatera cleared forests for oil palm plantations. The following year, a coal mining company PT Gunung Bayan Pratama Coal started operations in the forests around Muara Tae. In January 2010, the local authorities issued concessions to two palm oil companies: Malaysian-owned PT Munte Waniq Jaya Perkasa and PT Borneo Surya Mining Jaya, a subsidiary of Sumatran logging, mining and plantation conglomerate Surya Dumai.

The plantation companies cleared the forest replacing it with oil palm monoculture. The coal mining company excavated a huge hole in the ground, destroying the forest and their rivers. “The Gunung Bayan’s mining areas got rid of many rivers,” Petrus Asuy a community leader in Muara Tae told Indonesian NGO Telapak.

“The Nayan River had Jebor, Tae, Telonyok, Telaga, Tengeliwai as its tributaries, so many of these rivers are completely closed. Quite sad if we look back to the times before the mining company came we had a peaceful life. The forest was vast, we found plenty of animals and fish to catch and the river was still all it was.”

Last year, Telapak produced a video about the villagers of Muara Tae and their struggle to protect their forests:

Telapak is working with the local community. In a November 2011 article that broke the story about Muara Tae, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) explained that according to Telapak, PT Munte Waniq Jaya Perkasa does not yet have a Commercial Usage Right permit issued by the National Land Agency (Badan Pertanahan Nasional, or BPN). Telapak “is seeking to work with the BPN to accommodate the community’s land claims in any final permit,” EIA wrote.

In theory at least, recognising the community’s land rights should be straightforward. In July 2011, at an international conference in Lombok, Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, head of both the Indonesian President’s Special Delivery Unit (UKP4) and the REDD+ Task Force, announced the Government’s intention to “recognise, respect and protect Adat [customary] rights”. He added that “Indonesia is committed to longer-term forest and land tenure reform.”

In an interview with Al Jazeera earlier this month, Hadi Daryanto, Secretary General at the Ministry of Forestry, explained that,

“If the provincial government has recognised this forest as an ancestral forest it means the government can take ownership on behalf of the community so nobody is allowed to sell these trees anymore, the government can intervene and tell the companies to stop working.”
Al Jazeera reported that the villagers “have applied for the special status, but the bulldozers are moving fast”.

The concessions in Muara Tae were awarded before Norway and Indonesia signed the Letter of Intent that established the US$1 billion REDD deal. The May 2011, two-year moratorium on new forest concessions cannot do anything about existing concessions (although the lack of a Commercial Usage Right permit must surely give some wiggle room for including at least one of the concessions in the moratorium).

Unfortunately, this is another example of Norway’s two-faced approach to forest protection. Norway actually stands to profit from PT Munte Waniq Jaya Perkasa’s forest destroying operations. EIA reports that as of December 2010, Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) had US$6.7 million invested in TSH Resources, a palm oil and timber-focused holdings group in Malaysia, which since 31 October 2011 has owned 90% of PT Munte Waniq Jaya Perkasa.

EIA notes in its article from November 2011 that,

During the past year, EIA has been pressing Norway to address the serious conflicts of interest generated by GPFG’s financial investments. Muara Tae is a stark case in point, with GPFG having ethically compromising investments in the activities of the very firm carrying out deforestation.
In October 2011, EIA and Rainforest Foundation Norway wrote to Jens Stoltenberg, Norway’s prime minister, requesting that Norway takes action to address the issue of GPFG investing in rainforest destroying companies. Action is long overdue.

Meanwhile, the destruction of the forests in Muara Tae raises many issues of importance in the REDD debate in Indonesia, particularly the issue of land rights. While land rights is a complex issue, Muara Tae would be as good a place as any to implement the following clause in the Letter of Intent: “Take appropriate measures to address land tenure conflicts and compensation claims.”

Faith Doherty, EIA Forests Team Leader sums up the situation:

“The rhetoric from the President of Indonesia on curbing emissions by reducing deforestation is strong but on the front line, where indigenous communities are putting their lives at risk to protect forests, action is sorely missing.

Giving these communities, such as the Dayak Benuaq, the rights they deserve is a vital step to reduce catastrophic levels of deforestation in Indonesia.”

Courtesy of: redd.monitor.org/by Chris Lang 1/26/12

Ian Redmond, a tropical field biologist and conservationist, said primates and other fruit-eating animals were crucial to forests because of their role in seed dispersal.

“Fruit-eating animals have been long known to play a very important role in the life cycle of tropical forests, with between 75 to 95 percent of tree species having their seeds dispersed by such animals,” he said.

But that key role, he warned, is in jeopardy because of human activity.

“I feel that we have to turn that around. I know that the only populations of great apes that are known to be increasing are the two tiny populations of mountain gorillas who got down to fewer than 300 each,” Redmond said.

“Other gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, gibbons are all declining.”

He is pushing for efforts to save the animals to be included in schemes to reduce carbon emissions through deforestation and forest degradation, known as REDD Plus. That way, he says, money for these projects can also go toward primate conservation schemes.

“Conservation is not an optional extra that you might add on if it’s convenient,” Redmond said.

“It’s integral [to REDD Plus]. If you want to have permanence in your forest carbon store, you need the animals as well as the plants.”

He said Indonesia was one of the countries that was best placed to push these efforts because it was home to the endangered orangutan, the only great ape species in Asia.

Others species such as chimpanzees, gorillas and bonobos are only found in Africa.

“The hope is that there will be a realization that forests are not just an ornamental part of our planet, but that they are integral to the function of our biosphere and future survival,” Redmond said. ”

Laura D’Arcy, the Zoological Society of London’s co-country coordinator in Indonesia, said these efforts could start with preserving peat forests for their high carbon content.

“This would benefit orangutans who prefer these habitats compared to tropical forests on mineral soil, because the high water level in peatlands allows flowers and fruit to be available all year long for orangutans,” she said.

Eleven of 17 active REDD projects being carried out in Indonesia are in peat swamp forests. D’Arcy said this was a “win-win” situation for apes and humans alike because of the high value of carbon that could be offset for emissions caused by the conversion of forests to palm oil plantations elsewhere.

“Peat swamp forests have low-yield production of palm oil, reducing the cost of carbon emissions required in areas with high density,” she said.

“But that’s bad news for more high-yield, mineral soils, which are more biodiverse than peat forests.”

Courtesy of  The Jakarta Globe/By Ronna Nirmala/Photo by Ronna Nirmala

From the Forest: 

Reflections on the Conservation Value of Research

in Gunung Palung National Park,

                         West Kalimantan, Indonesia                            

                                                                           by

                                                           Andrew J. Marshall

I first went to the tropics in 1994 with a strong desire to help “save the rainforest.” I aspired to become a scientist who would discover important things about animals and plants, facts that would demonstrate the importance of tropical forests and the necessity of preserving them. I wanted to make a difference. At the time I didn’t know much about tropical forests, but I had read enough to know that they were extremely complicated places and that we lacked answers to some of the most basic biological questions about how rainforests worked. I also knew that rainforests were under threat, a fact that was clear to anyone who paid even passing attention to the media. The rates of forest loss reported in the Amazon basin seemed to me inconceivable.  How could areas the size of football fields be disappearing in the blink of an eye? Who was allowing this to happen? Why?

Despite grim projections about the fate of tropical forests, my first years of work there were filled with an optimism, zeal, and sense of possibility that I can vividly remember. I believed in the value of scientific research, that a deeper understanding of tropical forests and their inhabitants must help conservation. I thought my research was important and that I was helping to protect the Indonesian forests that I had come to love.

Now, years later, I question how effective I have actually been. Like many of my colleagues, helping to protect threatened forests and animals is a major justification for my work. It is, however, often uncomfortably difficult to point to clear evidence that demonstrates our contributions. In part, this is because objective assessment of the effects of conservation research is difficult; conservation threats and opportunities are highly situation specific, so we must compare the results of our activities against the unknowable outcome if we had not intervened at all. Still, by most objective measures, conservation research has generally fallen short of expectations– precious forests continue to disappear, populations of endangered species continue to shrink. It is reasonable to question what value scientists add to conservation. Do tropical forests need more scientific researchers, or would conservation be better served by training more lawyers, activists, economists, development workers, and forest rangers?

We know that research can contribute meaningfully to conservation. Intervention by dedicated scientists has almost certainly prevented populations of endangered species from extinction–Mountain Gorillas, American Bison, and Southern White Rhinoceroses are classic examples. Similarly, the day-to-day presence of researchers at field stations across the tropics is beneficial for conservation as it can facilitate law enforcement, provide alternative income to local communities, and promote awareness of the importance of biodiversity and its protection. Involvement of students in research projects can help train the next generation of conservationists and natural resource managers. But in each of these examples, it is usually the personal commitment, social involvement, and political actions of individual scientists that make a difference, not the results of their scientific research. As important as these ancillary benefits are, many of us would like the results of our science, not merely our presence, to make a difference. This is not easy to do and I am personally far from satisfied with my own ability to ensure that the results of my field studies are directly relevant to conservation.

I am certainly not the first to question the relevance of much scientific research– at least as currently conducted– for real world conservation efforts. For recent and thoughtful discussion of this topic in an Indonesian context I commend to readers the writing of Dr. Erik Meijaard, who along with Dr. Douglas Sheil and others has eloquently made the case that researchers have not contributed to conservation nearly as effectively as we might. The goal of my essay is not to tackle these larger questions, important though they are. Instead, I choose to focus on some work in which I have been involved at Gunung Palung National Park that demonstrates ways in which basic field research might provide useful information that can assist conservation efforts.

To date, much of my research has sought answers to very simple questions about tropical forests and the animals that live in them. Why are some tropical forests more productive than others? What determines the types of animals that can live in a particular forest habitat? How do differences in the quality of forest habitats affect the animals that live in them? Although these questions are simple, they are fundamental to our understanding of the structure and function of tropical forests. They are also difficult to answer because they require study of animals in many different habitats. Comparisons of results from distant study sites are difficult to interpret as they are usually confounded by differences in study period, methods, and biogeographic history. The Cabang Panti Research Station in Gunung Palung National Park, West Kalimantan, Indonesia provides a unique opportunity to overcome these limitations. Within our trail system are seven highly distinct types of tropical forest that differ substantially in their soils, drainage, elevation, plant communities, and patterns of productivity. These differences occur over the scale of a few kilometers, permitting comparison of the effects of key variables (such as plant productivity) on animal populations while controlling for others (like biological history and presence of diseases and predators). These forest types are all essentially undisturbed by humans and are still inhabited by the full set of animals thought to have occupied them for at least the last several thousand years. Undisturbed tropical forests– especially lowland forests such as those found at Cabang Panti– are now very rare in Indonesia, and the presence of healthy animal populations and a high diversity of forest types is unparalleled. These unique qualities first attracted my friend and mentor Dr. Mark Leighton and colleagues to open Cabang Panti in the mid 1980’s and have drawn researchers to the site ever since.

Cabang Panti Research Station

 The field methods my research team and I employ to answer simple questions like those posed above are likewise rather simple. They entail two components: 1) describing and monitoring each of the forest types and 2) determining how animal populations are affected by variation in the forest across space and through time. We use a series of botanical plots to assess the types of plants in each forest type and measure their productivity over time. There are ten plots in each of the seven forest types, and each month we visit every one of the more than 6,000 plants in these plots to determine whether they are flowering or fruiting. This provides us with a sensitive measure of spatial and temporal changes in plant food availability for animals. We monitor animal populations and their diets by walking standardized four kilometer survey walks in each of the seven forest types four times per month, and conduct more detailed observations on target primate species to better understand their behavior, diets, and demography. Below I briefly describe two ways that these data can produce non-obvious insights that can meaningfully inform our efforts to conserve threatened species. The examples relate to two non-human primate species, both of which are endangered and serve crucial roles in maintaining the healthy functioning of Indonesian tropical forests.

Schematic map of the Cabang Panti research area, indicating the seven forest types mentioned in the text

At even this relatively preliminary stage in the analysis, our results suggest a number of important lessons for orangutan conservation. First, all forest types contribute to maintaining the orangutan population at Gunung Palung and are therefore worthy of protection. Even the montane forest, which is normally largely devoid of orangutans, housed the entire orangutan population in our study site during one of the months in our sample. Second, peat swamp forests are especially important for orangutan preservation because they provide sustenance during lean periods when food is unavailable in their preferred lowland forests. Indonesian peat swamps are at great risk, both due to forest fires and the fact that they contain a number of prized timber species that attract loggers. Their status as orangutan fallback habitats provides added incentive for their protection. A final lesson, related to the first two, is that the absence of orangutans from an area during certain periods does not necessarily imply that the area is irrelevant for orangutan conservation. During one period of more than four months we did not observe any orangutans in the peat swamp forest, even though we know this habitat is likely crucial for their long-term viability at Gunung Palung. If a  short study were conducted in the peat swamp during this time that aimed to assess the importance of this forest type for orangutans it would conclude precisely the wrong thing: that peat swamp forest is unimportant for the orangutans at Gunung Palung. This is dangerous and disconcerting, especially when one considers that some major conservation groups have strongly advocated using rapid surveys to assess an area’s conservation importance.  

3-D depiction of Gunung Palung National Park, including (in blue) the Cabang Panti research trail system

The second study examined the demography and population ecology of Bornean White-Bearded Gibbons (Hylobates albibarbis). As part of my dissertation research, I lived at Cabang Panti for two years, gathering detailed data on the quality of the seven forest types for gibbons and examining how this variation in habitat quality affected the 33 gibbon groups that I was monitoring. Some of these groups had territories in high quality forests, while others lived in much poorer quality habitats. The montane forests appeared to be particularly low quality, and I noticed that at high elevations gibbon groups tended to be smaller than in the lowlands, and contain very few infants. I wondered what the long-term consequences of these patterns might be and created a simple mathematical model to examine the demography of gibbon populations at Cabang Panti. The results were striking, showing that groups living high on the mountain were not reproducing enough to maintain a viable population there. The clear implication was that the montane forest was inadequate to support gibbons and that the only reason they persist there is because of emigration from the high quality lowland forests, where gibbons were reproducing well.

As with the orangutan population study, this simple demographic result has important implications for conservation of gibbons at Gunung Palung. First, it clearly shows that gibbons inhabit forests that cannot support them in the long term, meaning that a rapid survey conducted at Gunung Palung would erroneously suggest that the montane forest is good gibbon habitat. This is, of course, the converse of the third lesson derived from the study I describe above: in the orangutan study, the absence of animals did not mean that a habitat was unimportant; here, the presence of animals does not necessarily mean that a habitat is important. Second, because lowland, source forests are being disproportionately lost due to logging, fire, and agricultural encroachment, the conservation status of gibbons at Gunung Palung is worse than it appears. As lowland forests are being lost, those concerned about gibbon conservation might find consolation in the knowledge that gibbons can be found high atop the mountain, well away from most forest destruction. In reality, however, since the montane forests cannot themselves support gibbons, gibbon populations there would likely go extinct if lowland forests were lost– even if the montane forest itself were never logged.

The final implication is more subtle, but no less important. Those of us interested in maintaining populations of threatened animals frequently use computer simulations known as Population Viability Analyses to assess the anticipated outcomes of various threats and management alternatives. We make every effort to inform our models using data from wild populations on birth rates, death rates, abundance, and so forth. This seems like good practice– using real data is, after all, desirable. The problem is that most long-term studies are conducted in the best quality habitats, where vital population parameters likely indicate “best case scenarios.” It is understandable that scientists want to study in places where they will see the largest number of animals, but if we use information gathered at such sites in our models we are likely using estimates of crucial parameters that are overly optimistic and not representative of many, perhaps most, places that our study species occupy. This would lead to biased and dangerously optimistic conclusions about, for example, the chances of population persistence or a species’ ability to rebound from habitat degradation.

In closing, I return to the personal question that I implied at the outset: has conservation at Gunung Palung been meaningfully advanced by my scientific research? Of course I would like to think so, although I am not at all sure that it has. Conservationists– or, more specifically, scientists involved in conservation– are often portrayed as pessimists. According to the stereotype, we tend to focus on bad news rather than good news, threats rather than opportunities, failures rather than successes. It is hard not to be acutely aware of the perilous state of nature conservation in much of the tropics and the uphill struggle required to achieve even modest goals. But in realty, most of us are, at heart, optimists. We believe that small groups of committed people can make a difference. We can envision a future in which the needs of wildlife and the needs of humanity are not seen as competing goals. We place great hope in the burgeoning indigenous conservation movements across the tropics. If we didn’t believe these things, we would have given up long ago. But optimism is not the same thing as demonstrable success, and I still wrestle with the question of how best to make a real difference.

At present I try to take some comfort in the knowledge that the results and lessons for conservation I discussed here would not have emerged without ongoing, continuous monitoring of primate populations and their habitats over a period of many years at Cabang Panti. This emphasizes the importance of long-term research, at Gunung Palung and elsewhere. There is still much that we need to know that only extended field studies can tell us. This has always been true, but in an era of rapid climate change and unprecedented human alteration of the environment the need for field studies conducted over periods of many years has never been greater. Only the long-term perspective of such studies can adequately document the effects of climatic and environmental change on tropical forests and the cascading effects on the species that inhabit them. In recent years, shrinking research funding and decreased political enthusiasm (at least in Indonesia) have made the protection and support of established research sites harder than ever. These challenges mean that hard work is needed to keep these valuable resources open and functioning. In the end, perhaps my best contribution will simply be having had a hand in keeping our research station viable.

Pak Ali, Andy and Busran

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Dr. Andy Marshall is an ecologist, conservation biologist and evolutionary anthropologist who works primarily on primates and tropical rain forests. For the past sixteen years, he has mainly focused on research and conservation in Indonesia, where he has conducted more than sixty months of fieldwork. Andy is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California,Davis. He and Dr. Cheryl Knott co-direct the Cabang Panti Research Station in collaboration with the Gunung Palung National Park Bureau. He would like to take this opportunity to express heartfelt thanks to his long-term field staff and sources of research funding (especially The Orangutan Conservancy, The Leakey Foundation, The Hellman Foundation, and UC Davis).

                                                  Article written by Andrew J. Marshall January 2012/OC Edit by Tom

                                                      Orangutan photo on side banner courtesy of  Tim Laman

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The high water level in peatlands allow flowers and fruit to be available all year long for orangutans, said Laura D’Arcy, the Zoological Society of London’s Co-Country Coordinator in Indonesia. “Across Borneo, you can clearly see that where they have peatland forests, there’s a higher density of orangutans,” she said at the sidelines of a workshop on great apes held in Bogor, Indonesia, today.

There are about 1.3 Bornean orangutans, or Pongo pygmaeus, in a hectare of peatland forests compared with only one orangutan in lowland forest on mineral soil, according to a study by Paoli et al, published in Carbon Balance and Management journal in 2010. The number of the endangered species has dropped by over 50% in the last 60 years, according to the IUCN, with the latest estimate of between 45,000 to 69,000 orangutans across Borneo (Singleton et al, 2004).

Forests have received renewed attention as the global community recognizes the role that they play in storing carbon and the potential to slow global warming by reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, known as REDD+. With fresh funds coming in under climate change schemes, environmentalists are studying how to include biodiversity conservation as a co-benefit to keeping trees for the sake of carbon and are urging for its corporation into such schemes.

Carbon credits generated from protecting forests that have “charismatic” species like orangutans and tigers would get first preference from buyers, said D’Arcy. “The company can put them as flagship species and say that the credits they’re buying go directly into conserving these species,” which will improve its public image.

In terms of biodiversity in general, lowland forests on mineral soil have much higher biodiversity levels than peatlands, according to Paoli et al. About three-quarter of Indonesia’s 140 plant species categorized as critically endangered can be found in forests on mineral soil, while those on peatlands only have 15 percent of them.

Looking from emissions perspective, forests on peatlands store about eight times more carbon than mineral soil, including above and below ground storage, according to the study. Protecting these resources is therefore key in the fight against climate change.

A report from Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP), in collaboration with PanEco, ICRAF, YEL and GridArendal, calculated that the carbon value of swamp forests in Sumatra, Indonesia, was between US$7,420 and $22,090 per hectare for a 25-year period. The carbon value of forests on non-peatlands was estimated to be between $3,711 and $11,185 per hectare in the same period, according to the study, which was published last year. In comparison, oil palm plantations, which give the highest yield of all land use types, were estimated to worth $7,832.

Economic calculations show that “it doesn’t make sense to clear forests on peatlands,” said Johannes Refisch, GRASP Programme Manager. A conservation scenario would benefit local communities more than the business as usual scenario, while providing the same level of income for the local and central government, he said.

Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26 percent from business-as-usual levels by 2020 and by 41 percent with outside assistance. As much as 85 percent of the country’s emissions come from deforestation and land use change.

The workshop “Linking Great Ape Conservation and Poverty Alleviation: Sharing Experience from Africa and Asia” will take place on 11-15 January 2012, including a field trip to Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. The event is organized by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

Story Courtesy of Forests blog/Leony Aurora/Photo courtesy of Terry Sunderland/CIFOR