We have fewer than 10 years to save the orangutans
Posted by at Jul 19th, 2008 in Climate Change
Filed under: News , Climate Change Orangutans are intelligent and expressive great apes found only in Borneo , where they are endangered , and Sumatra where they are critically endangered. It is almost incomprehensible, but experts predict that orangutans could be extinct within ten years! These gentle giants are the victims of forest fires, unsustainable logging practices, and mining , all of which threaten their habitat. They face an even more deadly attack from palm oil plantations , which have taken over vast swathes of rain forest at a terrifying rate in the past ten years. Ironically, the use of palm oil as a biodiesel fuel has contributed to the rapid growth of these farms. Like humans, orangutans have a very long “childhood.” Young orangutans stay with their mothers for the first six or seven years of their lives. Sadly, poachers often kill the mothers in order to get the babies, which they sell in the (illegal) exotic pet trade. When the babies are rescued from these monsters, they need constant care, just like a humans. Places like Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rehabilitation and Reintroduction Center in Borneo help injured and orphaned baby orangutans. First by keeping them alive, and then by helping them learn the skills so they can be reintroduced into the wild. To find out what you can do to help, plus to see some ridiculously cute photos of baby orangutans, check out some of these organizations that are trying to save the orangutan:
World Wildlife Fund
The Nature Conservancy
Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation Indonesia
Borneo Orangutan Survival UK
The Orangutan Crisis Coalition
The Center for Great Apes
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Tags: babies, bos, endangered
It is often asked, “How many orangutans are left?” The numbers themselves do not matter. What matters is that the rate of decline is increasing, and unless something is done, the wild orangutan will go extinct. Once remaining populations become so small and fragmented, there will be no way to recover the species, as these small populations will be genetically unviable in the long run.
What also matters is the welfare angle of this decline 5000 are dying unnaturally–either from starvation as a result of habitat destruction or from human-wildlife conflict. Working with orangutans for 14 years now, I see them as individuals capable of emotions and pain. The loss of just one of these is heartbreaking. 5000 is genocide.
We have a moral obligation to save these sentient, intelligent cousins of ours from this brutality. I do not subscribe to the view that we need to keep orangutan numbers up so our children have a chance to see them in the wild. Orangutans do not exist for our benefit. They themselves have a right to life, regardless of whether we get the added benefit of gazing upon them in their world one day.
The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation is the largest primate rescue project in the world. We look after close to 1000 rescued orangutans presently, and have rescued and released more than 1000 others so far. We are the only organisation actively rescuing the wild orangutans from certain death in these oil-palm plantations. 2 weeks ago we released a further 25 wild orangutans rescued from oil-palm plantations into a remote protected forest in the north of Central Kalimantan. This release site could potentially support more than 1000 orangutans, making it a viable population. BOS also manages the Mawas Reserve, a forest of 360,000 hectares, home to some 3500 wild orangutans. If BOS can continue to protect populations like those in our release site and in Mawas, we can prevent the extinction of the orangutan in the wild. Find out more at http://www.savetheorangutan.co.uk.
Michelle Desilets
Founding Director
Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation UK
The Sumatran Orangutan Society (SOS) is also working hard in Sumatra to help protect the critically endangered orangutan. If you would like to support our projects, check out our website and we are actively looking for people who would like to help start chapters in their country. This is an urgent situation for the orangutans, tigers, elephants and rhinos as well as the Leuser Ecosystem in Sumatra.