Orangutan Conservancy

There have probably been at least 2,800 confiscations of illegally kept orangutans in Borneo and Sumatra since the early 1970s. In the same period, millions of hectares of orangutan forest have also been destroyed for plantations and other uses, and thousands of orangutans killed, starved and burned to death in the process.

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.
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The state government, represented by the Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) and the Rhino and Forest Fund (RFF), signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) during the Sabah Wildlife Conservation Colloquium.

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.
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The Dayak Benuaq Indigenous People of Muara Tae in East Kalimantan are defending their last remaining area of forest against two palm oil companies. “This is the last remaining forests that we have and the only land we have to survive. If my forests are gone, our lives will end,” says Pak Singko, a leader of the Dayak Benuaq of Muara Tae.

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.
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Developing primate conservation projects, particularly for great apes, can contribute toward the long-term health of forests and to carbon sequestration schemes, scientists contend.

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.
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