With only a month to go before our fifth annual Orangutan Conservancy/ Orangutan Veterinary Advisory Group (OC/OVAG)  Workshop,we have just been notified that our workshop is the recipient a large grant from the SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund.  The substantial grant will aid us enormously in realizing this year’s gathering of wildlife veterinarians in Bogor, Indonesia.

“It is incredibly exciting to get a grant from the SeaWorld and Busch Gardens Conservation Fund,” explained Dr. Raffaella Commitante, board member of OC and the coordinator of the annual workshop.  “When someone has the confidence in our work to give us funding, it is a very strong validation of the important work we have been doing with our OC/OVAG workshops.”

And that work will commence again on June 24th in Indonesia when we unite the largest group of  orangutan veterinarians yet to share their knowledge and results with each other.  After the workshop these front-line heroes will go back to their field sites, which include wild, released and sanctuary orangutans,  across Indonesia and Malaysia to continue to contribute to the fight against orangutan extinction through overall health care.

OC thanks everyone at the SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund for their generosity and belief in our ongoing mission.

Please read more about this important workshop on our OC/OVAG page.

But we still need your help too.  If you’d like to join us and support this endeavor please consider a donation now to the Orangutan Conservancy by clicking here.

Haze from fire and burnt tree stumps within recently cleared peatland forest; ©Ifansasti/Greenpeace

from mongabay.com

The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) has evicted Indonesian palm oil giant Dutapalma Nusantara for violating key principles for sustainability.

Dutapalma Nusantara, which is also known as Darmex Agro or Duta Palma, was found to have violated three RSPO principles: converting deep peat for a plantation, clearing forest without a high conservation value (HCV) assessment, and using fire to open land. The company repeatedly failed to address the issues, which were raised by the Indonesia Community Mapping Network via RSPO’s complaint system.

“The Executive Board finds that PT Dutapalma Nusantara / PT Darmex Agro have not demonstrated commitment to address the issue nor acted in compliance with the Code of Conduct,” said the RSPO in a statement posted on its web site. “Despite numerous directives from the RSPO to resolve the complaint, there was complete reticence and lack of response from the company. The company merely attempted to refute the allegations by using the issue of ownership of the companies involved.”

“Therefore, the Executive Board has decided to terminate the RSPO membership of PT Dutapalma Nusantara and PT Darmex Agro with immediate effect on the grounds indicated above. In concurrence with this, PT Dutapalma Nusantara/PT Darmex Agro must remove all references to the RSPO on its website and from all other communication in whatever form within seven (7) days from the date of this letter.”

This excerpt from a news article appeared on and is courtesy of mongabay.com. To read the full article click here.

Tripa rainforest burns in this 2012 image. (photo courtesy of SOCP)

Apriadi Gunawan for The Jakarta Post

Conservationists in Medan, North Sumatra, have urged the government to take swift action to stop the destruction of orangutans’ habitat, as their population in North Sumatra and Aceh was on the verge of extinction.

ProFauna Indonesia chairman Rosek Nursahid said their habitat had been decimated due to ongoing deforestation in both provinces.

He said the current orangutan population was estimated at around 6,000 with the largest concentrations in West Leuser, East Leuser and Rawa Singkil in Aceh, while a limited number could still be found in the Batang Toru Forest in North Sumatra.

Rosek added that North Sumatra and Aceh were vital for the conservation of orangutans because the Sumatran orangutan was only found in the wild in the two provinces.

“We are concerned that the Aceh and North Sumatra provincial administrations do not care about the orangutans; evident from the increasing amount of deforestation in both provinces, which has become a serious threat to the orangutan population,” Rosek said during a rally recently.

This excerpt from a news article appeared in and is courtesy of The Jakarta Post and can be read in its entirety here.

The photo is courtesy of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP).

Protected forest: A security post stands in a restoration area of Sei Betung forest in Langkat regency, North Sumatra.

Dinda Bethari, Medan, for the Jakarta Post

It takes more than two hours to travel from Medan to Besitang district, Langkat regency, North Sumatra. West of this district is a wildlife sanctuary extending from Central Aceh regency in Aceh to Bahorok district, Langkat regency, better known as Mount Leuser National Park (TNGL).

Housing protected animals like orangutans, elephants and crocodiles, the park is in critical condition as thousands of hectares are being deforested for farming and plantations, resulting in occasional floods in Besitang district.

In a nursery at the park, thousands of seedlings are cultivated for replanting to restore Sei Betung, a 9,734-hectare area in the TNGL zone. “From five nurseries in TNGL, 125,000 seedlings have grown since June 2012. We are aiming to plant 165,000 seedlings until June 2013 in Sei Betung,” said Panut Hadisiswoyo, director of the Sumatra Orangutan Conservation Foundation — Orangutan Information Center (YOSL-OIC).

This excerpt from a report appeared in and is courtesy of the Jakarta Post.  To read the full article click here.

A rescued male Sumatran orangutan learns to climb tree branches at the quarantine center of Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program in Sumatra. (AFP Photo/Romeo Gacad)

By Angela Dewan for the Jakarta Globe

Sibolangit. A baby Sumatran orangutan swings playfully on a branch at an Indonesian rescue center, a far cry from the terror he endured when his pristine rainforest home was razed to the ground.

Now alarm is growing at a plan activists say will open up new swathes of virgin forest on Sumatra island for commercial exploitation and lay roads through a vital ecosystem, increasing the risk to many endangered species.

The plan, which Aceh authorities say aims to open up a small amount of forest for communities to develop, is set to be approved by Jakarta despite its moves towards extending a national moratorium on new logging permits.

Green groups say such policies illustrate how the ban can be circumvented to open up new areas for deforestation, threatening to boost Indonesia’s already high emissions of carbon dioxide.

“This plan is a huge threat to species living in the forest, especially orangutans, tigers and elephants that live in the lowland forests that will likely be cleared first,” Ian Singleton of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program told AFP.

Environmentalists warn that some one million hectares — around the size of Cyprus — could be opened up in Aceh province for exploitation by mining, palm oil and paper companies. Officials dispute that figure.

There are particular fears about part of the project which would lay roads through the Leuser ecosystem, an area of stunning beauty where peat swamp and dense forest surround waterfalls and mountains poking through clouds.

The area, mostly in Aceh, is home to around 5,800 of the remaining 6,600 critically endangered Sumatran orangutans as well as elephants, bears and snakes including King Cobras.

Singleton warns that cases like that of the baby ape, rescued from Leuser, would rise dramatically if the road project goes ahead, as orangutan populations need long, uninterrupted stretches of forest to survive.

This excerpt from a news article appeared in and is courtesy of the Jakarta Globe. To read the full article please click here.

photo courtesy of Mongabay.com

from Mongbay.com

An initiative that aims to improve the social and environmental performance of  palm oil production is faltering in its mission by failing to establish strong  performance standards on greenhouse gas emissions and pesticide use, argues a  new statement issued by WWF, the initiative’s biggest green supporter.

The  statement, published on the eve of a major meeting of the Roundtable  on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), says that RSPO certification alone can no longer  be considered an adequate measure of environmental sustainability for  “progressive” companies. It says companies that aim to minimize the impact of  their palm oil production, trade, and/or consumption should now target  performance standards that include public reporting of greenhouse gas emissions,  eliminating the use of Class 1A and 1B pesticides, and establishing policies  that exclude the purchase of oil palm fruit from illegally cleared or occupied  lands. Those standards were excluded from the recently updated RSPO principles and  criteria, which will go to a vote at the RSPO meeting on April 25 in Kuala  Lumpur.

The statement from WWF is especially significant given the  group’s role in the formation and progress of the RSPO. For years WWF has pushed  for producers, traders, and consumers to adopt RSPO certification as the  standard for responsible production and use of palm oil. The effort has resulted  in a steady increase in RSPO-certified palm oil’s market share, but also  complaints from some environmentalists who say the initiative does not go far  enough to limit deforestation, conversion of peatlands, or social conflict.

This excerpt from a news article appeared on and is courtesy of Mongabay.com.  To read the full article click here: http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0423-rspo-pandcs.html?fbfnpg#tYvZcg8u4GUAOJzv.99

Two excellent sites to learn more about palm oil and the RSPO are Palm Oil Consumer Action at  http://www.palmoilconsumers.com/index.html and Say No To Palm Oil at http://www.saynotopalmoil.com/palm-oil.php. 

The website for RSPO is http://www.rspo.org/.  The website for WWF is http://worldwildlife.org/.

A worker harvests palm fruit in a plantation owned by PT Tinting Boyok Sawit Mandiri (TBSM) in Sanggau district, West Kalimantan. Photo: (Antara/Jessica Helena Wuysang)

by Anggi M. Lubis for the The Jakarta Post

The Indonesian Palm Oil Association (Gapki) has opposed the government’s plan to prolong a two-year forest moratorium, slated to end in May, saying that such an extension would only hamper the expansion of the country’s palm oil sector.

Indonesia, through Presidential Instruction No. 10/2011, had set a two-year moratorium to halt the commercial use of a total 65.2 million hectares of primary forests and peatland in an attempt to curtail deforestation and reduce greenhouse gases.

The moratorium, which resulted from an Indonesia–Norway bilateral agreement with a US$1 billion potential carbon transaction, will expire on May 20.

Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan has declared the moratorium a success, saying that the move has slowed the country’s deforestation rate to 450 hectares per year during 2010-2011 from 3.5 million hectares per year in the period of 1999-2002.

Indonesia has pledged to cut back its carbon emissions by 26 percent from the current 2.1 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) by 2020, and by 2012 Indonesia had cut 489 billion tons of CO2e or 16.57 percent of the target.

“Such progress shows that the country needs to continue the forest moratorium,” Zulkifli said in a speech read during a national seminar held in Jakarta on Tuesday, further emphasizing the government’s plan to go on with the moratorium.

A two-year moratorium was enough to curb deforestation and to lower carbon emissions, but an extension would only incur losses to palm plantation companies that had contributed much to the state income, Gapki’s director of law and advocacy Tungkot Sipayung said.

Tungkot said that the government should focus on protecting primary and conservation forests, and let loose the usage of peatland deemed as prospective palm plantation land.

“The moratorium will limit the opportunity to develop our country’s palm oil production. We already have a 1999 Forestry Law to monitor the matter, therefore a longer forest moratorium is not needed,” he said, adding that data gathered from various sources showed that peatland planted with palm could reduce carbon emissions more than peatland left dormant.

Gapki’s data is in contrast with research reports from various international institutions and environmental organizations that say emissions from logging and drainage on peatland have contributed significantly to Indonesia’s greenhouse gas emissions, including methane.

Palm plantation expansion has long been blamed for rampant deforestation, while high demand for palm oil has driven rapid forest loss in several areas such as in Sumatra and Kalimantan.

Indonesia, the world’s largest palm oil producer with an annual output of over 26 million tons, has been expanding its oil palm estates by 200,000 hectares a year, which are mostly developed by large companies.

This excerpt from a news article is courtesy of the Jakarta Post and can be read in its entirety here.

Aceh has world-renowned biodiversity, including critically endangered orangutans, rhinos, elephants and tigers. This change would also undermine its incalculable value as a major carbon sink.

Imagine an area nearly half the size of New Jersey suddenly cut to the ground.  Well, that’s exactly what is about to occur in Indonesia according to a report recently submitted to the Orangutan Conservancy.

A Canadian mining company announced Tuesday that it expects the governor of Sumatra’s Aceh province to allow it and other extractive industries to destroy 1.2 million hectares of valuable and currently protected rainforest.

The company, East Asian Minerals, claims in a press release to be working closely with government officials and to have staff in Aceh lobbying to reclassify large tracts of the province from “protected forest” to “production forest.”  The company’s website also states that it has hired a senior government official, former Golkar Deputy Chairman Fadel Muhammad “to help them with these efforts.”

Fadel, former Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries and former Governor of Gorontalo Province, in addition to being the former Deputy Chairman of Indonesia’s’ Golkar Party, was re-named as a corruption suspect by the Attorney General’s office last week after several previous investigations over recent years. He is accused of misusing Rp 5.4 billion (US$ 567,000) from the 2001 provincial budget during his tenure as Gorontalo’s governor. Edward Rochette, the Canadian mining company’s CEO, said, “In his advisory role, Bapak Dr. Fadel will provide invaluable assistance to enable the projects in Indonesia to move forward in a timely and sustainable manner.” He appears either unaware or unconcerned regarding the charges facing Dr. Fadel.

“This spatial plan is being developed via a highly ‘unhealthy’ process, in which foreign corporations are intervening and driving local policy”, said Dedi Ratih, Spatial Planning Campaigner for WALHI  Indonesia (Friends of The Earth Indonesia) “Reclassification of these forests is clearly not in the best interests of Aceh’s local communities, but instead in the interests of massive natural resources exploitation. This plan should be rejected immediately”

Opening these areas to mining, logging, and palm oil production would have disastrous consequences for the people of Aceh and huge areas of rainforest habitat of global importance for its exceptional biodiversity. These forests are home to critically endangered Sumatran orangutans, tigers, rhinos and elephants.

“This world renowned protected area -the Leuser Ecosystem – is the only place on earth where orangutans, rhinos, tigers and elephants are found side by side and the least real hope for the survival of viable populations of each of them. Not to mention the myriad of other threatened species residing there” said Dr Ian Singleton, director of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme. “If these plans proceed, their future is in immediate jeopardy.”

According to the statement from East Asia Minerals, Tgk. Anwar, chairman of the Aceh Provincial Government’s Spatial Planning Committee, “Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry has accepted ‘almost 100 percent’ of the province’s new spatial plan, which would zone large blocks of previously protected forest for mineral extraction, timber concessions and oil palm plantations.” He goes on to admit that “Aceh has the most forest cover of any province in Sumatra, but has lost more than a third of its forests in the past 20 years.”

East Asia Minerals has already been drilling and mining at its Miwah mine in Aceh, one of its three operations in the province. The company noted that the reclassification “will allow it to fully exploit the area’s mining potential and expand exploratory drilling – pushing into areas that are currently protected.”

It also explained how it is “working closely with Government officials in the country and has representatives on the ground in Aceh to obtain reclassification of the forestry zone from from “protected forest” to a “production forest”.” The company states on its website that it plans to expand its excavations in all directions from the Moon River, which flows near to the Miwah site.

Land Already Viewed as “Too Dangerous for Logging”

Areas of the forest that have previously been identified as too high or too steep to be converted for palm oil – or having inappropriate soil to grow oil palms – have already been identified for protection under existing planning laws. These same areas are likewise completely inappropriate for other extractive uses, including logging and mining.

Illegal logging and mining is already taking place in these concessions – with terrible consequences for both the forest and the incredible biodiversity it supports. As East Asia Minerals itself acknowledges, Aceh has already lost more than a third of its forests in the past two decades alone. The new plan would also approve an extensive new network of roads, which would open up the area to yet more forest destruction and encroachment leading to catastrophic consequences for communities and agriculture downstream. The region is already prone to natural disasters that cause hundreds of deaths and huge economic losses each year.

“This is a dangerous move,” said Graham Usher, a landscape protection specialist who worked on a major review of Aceh’s forestry sector for the previous Governor. “Aceh’s people have experienced countless devastating landslides already in the past that were caused by exactly this kind of forest clearing and disregard for planning laws. This will result in yet more lives lost in coming years and immeasurable losses to local economies.”

Usher added “the East Asia Minerals press release is one of the strangest that I have ever seen. It essentially suggests that they and other extractive companies are effectively driving public policy, namely spatial planning, in Aceh. Not only is this a shocking admission of flawed governance, but the company even seems proud of it! Spatial planning should be based on sound scientific analysis of land suitability and environmental risks: not the profit margins of foreign companies!”

Singleton noted the plan would result in the highly publicized Tripa peat swamp forest losing its protected status and the loss of their potentially extremely valuable carbon stocks, that could be traded in international markets. Peat swamps capture and store carbon at higher rates than other forests, and are particularly valuable in mitigating the effects of climate change. “Aceh would be far better off in the future if instead of trashing the resources it has left to the benefit of the highest bidder, it worked towards a more sustainable economy,” he concluded.

A male orangutan hangs from a tree in Gunung Leuser National Park in Langkat district of the Indonesia’s North Sumatra Park. (Photo : Reuters)

by Catherine Griffin for Science World Report

A rare species of orangutan can be found in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo. Only numbering about 200 individuals, these primates are listed as the most severely threatened orangutan worldwide. Now, they may be getting a little extra protection. The Government of Sarawak is planning on protecting this population for future generations.

This sub-species of orangutan is known as the Pongo pygmaeus. Like other great apes, these orangutans are highly intelligent, and display advanced tool use and cultural patterns in the wild. In fact, some have even witnessed these creatures using makeshift spears to catch fish. The third heaviest living primate after the two species of gorilla, it can weigh as much as 220 pounds. It consumes everything from wild figs to leaves to seeds to bird eggs to insects. It’s estimated that only 3,000 to 4,500 of these animals still exist in the world, 2,000 of which live in Sarawak in Batang Ai National Park and Lanjak-Entimau Wildlife Sanctuary.

Yet this new population was unknown until now. It was only through the efforts of field surveys that they were discovered at all. Researchers covered 154 miles of transects in the hilly, undulating terrain in central Borneo. They were eventually able to locate 995 nests in the area, including fresh ones.

Bornean orangutans continue to drop in population numbers. The species suffers from deforestation due to the creation of oil-palm plantations, and are sometimes hunted.

This excerpt from a news story appeared in and is courtesy of Science World Report. it can be read in its entirety by clicking this link.

An adult orangutan looks down from its treetop home as the forest in Ketapang, Borneo, is bulldozed (Caters)

Terrified primates were saved in Borneo last week as their homes were destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations – and charities say their plight is becoming ever more desperate.

Clutching desperately to branches as their home is destroyed beneath them, this is the heartbreaking moment starving orangutans were saved from a bulldozed Borneo rainforest.

The terrified animals were found clinging to the last remaining trees of a forest in Ketapang, West Kalimantan, where trees are being bulldozed to make way for a palm oil plantation.

Among those saved from the brink of death were a pregnant female orangutan, and a mother and baby who refused to let go of each other during the horrific ordeal.

Rescuers from UK charity International Animal Rescue (IAR) and the local forestry department in Ketapang, moved in to save the creatures in Borneo after receiving a call for help from the company, Bumitama Gunajaya Agro, which belongs to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.

This excerpt from a news article is courtesy of Yahoo News UK & Ireland and can be read in its entirety by clicking here.