The main goal of CDOCs is to develop a successful working model on how to apply information and communication technologies on rainforest and orangutan conservation as well as environment education for local communities living adjacent to Gunung Leuser National Park, a UNESCO Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra. GLNP is one of the richest tropical rainforests in Indonesia inscribed as the world heritage together with Kerinci Seblat National Park and Bukit Barisan National Park. It lies in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam and North Sumatera Provinces covering 1.094.692 hectares. Tangkahan and Bukit Lawang Ecotourism Areas exploit the beauty of nature as well as flora and fauna diversity as to enjoying and learning media for the coming visitors. Recently, ecotourism development in these area is needed as to promote to the conservation efforts for the sustainability of the GLNP.

The CDOC aims to:

• Increase both ecotourism guide and local community capacity to develop ecotourism through IT media.
• Be the local hub for IT training activities and online publications for GLNP community groups around Bukit Lawang and Tangkahan.
• Be a conservation information centre together with the community groups to promote awareness of the importance of GLNP, conservation and ecoutourism.

Each CDOC is an environmental and information technology learning facility for locals, and visitors alike, to engage in local conservation issues and promote awareness. Facilities and services include:

• Free computer, Internet training and ongoing support to the local community and Eco Tourism Guides.
• Donation based Internet services for visitors.
• Community Library and information resources.
• A Mobile Awareness Unit Library with Internet facilities, which will travel to some villages bordering the GLNP area.
• Website support for local Institute.

Please feel free to contact and meet our CDOC staff in Bukit Lawang and Tangkahan if you need to obtain our CDOC services.

CDOC Tangkahan

CDOC Bukit Lawang

Creating a sense of pride in the area of Gunung Leuser National Park as local wealth and heritage of the world is an important aspect to form a local support. How to build the involvement of all parties especially the local communities to jointly contribute to protecting and preserving the area of TNGL is a must and pride is what underlies the birth of awareness of the importance of protecting and maintaining the area Gunung Leuser National Park (TNGL) as a buffer system of human life.

Pride Campaign is an effort to create such pride in building support for the interests of all parties and a conservation constituency for the area of Gunung Leuser National Park which is an important habitat for many important species such as Sumatran orangutans, elephants, tigers and other protected species. Pride campaign conducted by Yayasan Orangutan Sumatran Lestari- Orangutan Information Center (YOSL-OIC) with support from the RARE and in cooperation with the Gunung Leuser National Park Central Office (BBTNGL).

Starting from the meeting of stakeholders in the Besitang region of Gunung Leuser National Park, which was held in February 2009 and attended by all components, from the Central Office of TNGL, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s), district governance, village governance, community leaders, representatives of community groups (KSM ), has produced a systematic mapping problem. There are six threats that affect the sustainability of the TNGL forest area currently and in the future. Departure from the six issues, the threat of encroachment is a threat and issues that will try to answer by all components through Proud Campaign (Pride Campaign).

Theory of Change (TOC)

teori-perubahan-kampanye-bangga-rare-pride-campaign

The theory of change is the tools used to plan, develop the capacity, evaluate, and analyze campaign results. Descriptive help understand the changes (social or environmental) is expected to occur and strategies to encourage these changes. In short the theory of change developed in this proud campaign is: To reduce encroachment of forest areas and forest areas to maintain the Gunung Leuser National Park Region VI SPTN Besitang in the eastern part of Gunung Leuser National Park, a UNESCO assessment as World Heritage Site and one habitat important for Sumatran Orangutan, agro forestry systems are less expensive and will be introduced permanently. Local farmers will be informed about the importance of a home TNGL last for primate species that are threatened with extinction, the benefits of environmental services and benefits of adopting TNGL agro forestry systems. This new technique will offer higher incomes and more sustainable for them and at the same time maintaining They also will be introduced to the concept of agro forestry systems, receive training and technical assistance to use the techniques and ultimately adopt and practice new techniques. System of alternative livelihoods will also be introduced. During the first year of an expected 30% adoption of techniques by the local farming community village one target of the 4 target villages. Pride Campaign in Besitang forest areas will see success if encroachment is reduced and the population of Sumatran orangutans survive “.

Strategies to reduce the threat of conservation (Barrier Removal)

To make a change will require an alternative for people not to engage in clearing activities will be the future. Poly-culture agro forestry pattern recognition will be introduced through the development of agro forestry as a demplot place for farmer groups to learn about the implementation and benefits of agro forestry. Strategy is expected to provide benefits to the community in order to optimize the function and use of their land beyond the Gunung Leuser National Park (TNGL) forest. With increasing technical knowledge to apply agro forestry and community know the benefits, is expected to reduce the need for agricultural land/plantation, and the pressure and the threat of TNGL forest clearance will be reduced in the future.

Mobilize the community audiences with Social Marketing Approach.

Pride Campaign in communities around Gunung Leuser National Park (TNGL) Besitang region will be implemented with the social marketing approach. Creating a sense of pride and build a conservation constituency not only provides information to the people, because knowledge alone will not be enough to make social change. In this social marketing practice can act to influence the target groups to voluntarily accept, reject, shed or change an attitude and behavior for the progress of individuals, groups and entire communities. Of course, social marketing can play an important role for analyzing the behavior based on values that apply, selecting target groups and behaviors that need to be changed and “sell” the idea of change to support and become an important part of rain forest conservation of Gunung Leuser National Park in Besitang region, North Sumatra in particular.

Increasing public knowledge, building support for a positive attitude, and participation of all community, governments, conservation organizations, both nodes of local groups will be given a new face in the conservation of Gunung Leuser National Park in Beistang region. For the Pride Campaign is designed as an attempt to build unity and enhance the strength of local support, raise the participation of all components to give the best of each potential in each group. And in the end all of the elements can tell “One Heart to Protect Leuser”.

Rhett A. Butler

Palm oil both a leading threat to orangutans and a key source of jobs in Sumatra by Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com

An interview about orangutan conservation and the complexities of palm oil  by Rhett A. Butler with Panut Hadisiswoyo and David Dellatore of the Orangutan Information Centre and Helen Buckland of the Sumatran Orangutan Society.

Of the world’s two species of orangutan, a great ape that shares 96 percent of man’s genetic makeup, the Sumatran orangutan is considerably more endangered than its cousin in Borneo. Today there are believed to be fewer than 7,000 Sumatran orangutans in the wild, a consequence of the wildlife trade, hunting, and accelerating destruction of their native forest habitat by loggers, small-scale farmers, and agribusiness.

Gunung Leuser National Park in North Sumatra is one of the last strongholds for the species, serving as a refuge among paper pulp concessions and rubber and oil palm plantations. While orangutans are relatively well protected in areas around tourist centers, they are affected by poorly regulated interactions with tourists, which have increased the risk of disease and resulted in high mortality rates among infants near tourist centers like Bukit Lawang. Further, orangutans that range outside the park or live in remote areas or on its margins face conflicts with developers, including loggers, who may or may not know about the existence of the park, and plantation workers, who may kill any orangutans they encounter in the fields.

Working to improve the fate of orangutans that find their way into plantations and unprotected community areas is the Orangutan Information Centre (OIC), a local NGO that collaborates with the Sumatran Orangutan Society (SOS). Founded by Panut Hadisiswoyo, OIC runs outreach and education programs to help local people better co-exist with orangutans and the park. Its “OrangUvan,” a bus equipped with a library and a mobile cinema, regularly visits villages to make children and adults aware of conservation efforts and the importance of protecting forests. OIC also operates tree nurseries and replanting programs to help restore livelihoods where unsustainable logging and environmental degradation have pushed villagers to illegally cut timber from the national park. Further, OIC is preparing the next generation of conservationists and ecotourism guides, running how-to workshops on surveying forest conditions and orangutan density, boat handling, nature photography, composting and organic farming, and responsible nature guiding (that doesn’t harm orangutans or the environment). In conjunction with the Orang Utan Republik Foundation, OIC runs a scholarship program for Indonesian University students that aims to help enable them become key members of the conservation movement in Sumatra and inspire others to care for nature and their environment.

OIC is also working to engage the palm oil industry, a challenge since oil palm expansion is both a leading driver of deforestation and an important source of jobs in the region. While many large palm oil companies are eager to shed the perception that they are a threat to orangutans, plantation developers continue to drive destruction of important orangutan habitat, especially in unprotected areas. Deforestation, as well as drainage of carbon-dense peatlands, is also a huge source of greenhouse gas emissions, undermining claims that palm oil is necessarily a “green” source of fuel and vegetable oil. Indeed, palm oil produced on newly deforested lands is actually the opposite—a larger source of carbon dioxide than conventional fossil fuels. But demonizing all palm oil is neither productive nor fair. Oil palm is the world’s highest yielding oilseed, generating substantially more vegetable oil per unit of land than soy, rapeseed/canola, or corn. Further, the crop has become an important source of income in much of rural Sumatra, while serving as an inexpensive foodstuff for local people and the world.

Is there a way to balance palm oil production and environmental aims? Some environment groups are advocating a ban on all palm oil, but given rising demand for edible oils, especially in China and India, this is an unlikely solution. Other groups, including SOS and OIC, are hopeful that the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), a multi-stakeholder body devising a certification standard that aims to improve the environmental performance of palm oil production, could be the path forward, provided the scheme is credible. But credibility is elusive when RSPO members (whom are not necessarily certified palm oil producers; they are only required to pay a membership fee to be part of RSPO) are found to be attempting to game the system, breaking rules and refusing third-party compliance monitoring. Such practices risk turning RSPO into little more than another greenwashing initiative, a concern that has already turned away some potential supporters, including a few major buyers of palm oil who are now seeking other vegetable oil options. Still, OIC believes that in the end a credible RSPO will be better for orangutans and better for business than the alternative—continued destruction of tropical forests and peatlands.

In a series of interviews conducted in Medan and Bukit Lawang (Sumatra) and via e-mail, Panut Hadisiswoyo and David Dellatore of OIC, and Helen Buckland, UK Director of the Sumatran Orangutan Society, talked about their efforts to save the world’s rarest orangutan species as well as the “palm oil paradox.”

You can read the complete interview on mongabay.com website:

Palm oil both a leading threat to orangutans and a key source of jobs in Sumatra

*** Mongabay.com is the effort of Rhett A. Butler and unless noted otherwise (usually at the top or bottom of a page), all content and pictures on mongabay have been written or produced by Rhett. Rhett can be contacted via email here. Further background on Rhett is available at the FAQs/Interview page.

With more than one million unique visitors per month, Mongabay.com is one of the world’s most popular environmental science and conservation news sites. The news and rainforests sections of the site are widely cited for information on tropical forests, conservation, and wildlife.

Statement of Need

There is an urgent need for conservation action in order to retain viable wild populations of orangutans. Once widespread throughout the forests of Southeast Asia, they are now confined to two islands in Indonesia and Malaysia, where two genetically distinct species exist: the Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii) and the Bornean orangutan (P. pygmaeus). Between 1950-2000, 40% of Indonesia’s forests were cleared, reducing ground cover to 98 million hectares (FWI/GFW, 2002). Forest cover in Sumatra was reduced by 61% from 1985-1997 due to logging, infrastructure development, internal migration, and plantation development (McConkey, 2005), and there are now less than 900,000 hectares of orangutan habitat left standing on the island, restricted to the northernmost provinces of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam and North Sumatra (Singleton et al., 2004). Habitat loss has not been restricted to private land, as vast tracts of the Gunung Leuser National Park, part of the UNESCO “Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra” World Heritage Site, which is also located within the Leuser Ecosystem (considered the last stronghold of the Sumatran orangutan), have also been degraded or converted and lost to plantation agriculture. Populations have declined from an estimated 12,770 in 1994, to an estimated 6,624 in 2008, with the downward trend continuing to this day (Singleton et al., 2004; Wich et al., 2008). Thus the Sumatran orangutan is now classified as Critically Endangered and listed as one of the top 25 most endangered primates in the world (IUCN, 2008).

Introduction

Experts in the field of orangutan conservation agree that the conversion of high conservation value forests to monoculture oil palm plantations is now the most urgent threat to the orangutans’ continued existence in the wild (Buckland, 2005; Nellemann et al., 2007). As land is cleared for development, this can cause wildlife, including orangutans, to be forced into sparse forest fragments with poor resource availability and low carrying capacity (Nellemann et al, 2007), and/or crossing through or becoming isolated on lands developed by humans, which can result in crop-raiding or unintentional crop damage. Perceived as a threat to both the community and profits, these endangered and protected species, flagships for the conservation of rainforests, are considered as pests and are killed or captured and sold into the pet trade (Brown and Jacobson, 2005; Nijman, 2005; Shepherd et al., 2005).

Thus it was the goal of the Orangutan Information Centre (OIC) to initiate the Plantation Roadshows Human-Wildlife Conflict Mitigation Programme to enhance the engagement of local communities in conservation activities in orangutan habitat areas and stimulate community-led solutions to human-orangutan conflict issues. The acceleration of further plantation development has dramatically increased incidents of direct conflict between humans and orangutans (Yuwono et al, 2007, Husson et al, 2002), resulting in substantial economic losses in areas bordering protected areas (Hill 1997, Naughton-Treves et al, 1998). However the assumption often made by farmers: that orangutans enter plantations in order to raid crops for food, is a misconception, as in actuality it is more likely that due to decreased habitat availability the animals are often obliged to cross through these lands to move between isolated forest fragments.

Executive Summary

The roadshow programme took place in 18 villages adjacent to orangutan habitat located in the Langkat and Pak-Pak Barat districts of the North Sumatra province of the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. This involved a series of screenings of targeted conservation films focusing on the orangutan and the destruction of its habitat, with the screening and distribution of a specialised conflict mitigation training film for orangutan encounters in plantations. Active and passive techniques to mitigate conflict were also introduced and demonstrated, so that local people better understand the issues and are able to implement the techniques which are safe for both orangutans and people. The roadshow was also accompanied by interactive focus group discussions, the collection of data regarding local communities’ attitudes towards conservation and their environment through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, and complementary outreach activities such as educational exhibitions.

In total 1,694 people participated in the programme, with over 2,500 reached through general education and awareness efforts and materials distributed. It is apparent that those involved in the training were better prepared to coexist with their animal neighbours, through an improved perception of orangutans and also an increased ability to deal with any problems in a humane, nonlethal manner. Also through the more generalized environmental educational aspect of the initiative, they gained better knowledge and awareness about the importance of protecting orangutans and their forest homes.

Read full report by downloading the Oil-Palm Plantation Roadshows Performance Report Final in PDF Version.

The deal is the largest so-called debt-for-nature swap the U.S. government has organized so far under the U.S. Tropical Forest Conservation Act and its first such pact with Indonesia, which has one of the fastest deforestation rates in the world, losing an area of forest the size of Switzerland annually.

Conservation International, the U.S.-based conservancy group, helped organize the deal, and has contributed $1 million to help reduce the debt. “This is a huge boost for people and wildlife of Sumatra, and demonstrates a forward-looking policy on the part of the U.S. government,” said Jatna Supriatna, vice president of Conservation International Indonesia.

Under the deal, Indonesia will pay the nearly $30 million into a trust over eight years instead of repaying it to the U.S. government. The trust will issue grants for critical forest conservation work in 13 forest areas in Sumatra.

The U.S. in the past has organized smaller debt-for-nature swaps with countries like Guatemala, Botswana, the Philippines and Peru. Under the Tropical Forest Conservation Act of 1998, developing nations with a significant tropical forest, a democratically-elected government, and an economic reform agenda, are eligible for debt forgiveness in return for conservation efforts.

Indonesia’s massive deforestation rates makes it the world’s third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide behind the United States and China due to the forest fires set each year on peat lands to clear forests. Deforestation has picked up in the past decade due to a break down in law and order, but President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who is standing for re-election next month, has made clamping down on illegal logging a priority.

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124633204676171767.html

Perched halfway up a tree near a bend in the Seumayan River, a young orangutan lounges on a branch, eating fruit. In the distance, smoke rises from an illegal fire, one of dozens lit to wipe out the virgin rainforest and replace it with oil palm plantations.

It’s burning season on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, where vast tracts of vegetation are being torched and clear-felled to meet the soaring global demand for palm oil. The pace is especially frenzied in the peat swamp forests of the Tripa region, one of the final refuges of the critically endangered orangutan – and a company owned by one of Britain’s most venerable trading groups is among those leading the destructive charge.

Prized for its productiveness and versatility, palm oil is used in everything from lipstick and detergent to chocolate, crisps and biofuels. Indonesia and Malaysia are the world’s biggest palm oil producers – but they also shelter the last remaining orangutans, found only on Sumatra and Borneo islands in the same lowland forests that are being razed to make way for massive plantations.

In Indonesia, one of the largest palm oil companies is Astra Agro Lestari, a subsidiary of Astra International, a Jakarta-based conglomerate which is itself part of Jardine Matheson, a 177-year-old group that made a fortune from the Chinese opium trade and is still controlled by a Scottish family, the Keswicks, descendants of the original founders.

Conservation groups are targeting supermarkets in Britain to alert consumers to the effects of the palm oil explosion. But The Independent can reveal that Jardines, registered in Bermuda and listed on the London Stock Exchange, is implicated through Astra Agro in ripping out the final vestiges of orangutan habitat.

Environmentalists are dismayed by the activities of Astra Agro, one of the main companies operating in Tripa under permits that were awarded during the 1990s by the notoriously corrupt Suharto government. They point out that Tripa belongs to the nominally protected Leuser EcoSystem, renowned for its exceptional biodiversity, and claim that the plantation businesses are contravening a logging moratorium as well as engaging in illegal practices including burning land.

Greenpeace UK says: “It’s scandalous that a British company is bankrolling the destruction of Indonesia’s rainforests and peatlands. We need to see big firms like Jardines withdrawing investment from companies involved in rainforest clearance.”

Orangutans are vanishing at an alarming rate in Borneo but in Sumatra their situation is even more precarious. The Sumatran orangutan – more intelligent and sociable than its Borneo cousin and with a unique culture of tool use – is likely to be the first great ape species to go extinct.

There are believed to be just 6,600 individuals left, mostly living in unprotected areas of Aceh province. Their lowland forests remained relatively undisturbed during the long-running separatist war in Aceh, but since a peace agreement was signed in 2005, it has been open season.

The primates are now splintered across 11 pockets of jungle, with only three populations considered viable. Another three, including Tripa, are borderline viable. Elsewhere, the orangutans – which use sticks to extract insects from trees and seeds from fruit – are effectively extinct. As their territory shrinks, along with their food supplies, the apes are increasingly coming into conflict with humans. Farmers shoot those caught raiding crops; babies are captured and sold as pets. Adults discovered in oil palm plantations may be hacked to death with machetes.

In Tripa, more than half of the 62,000 hectares of ancient forest has gone. As well as being home to endangered species including the sun bear and clouded leopard, the peat swamps acted as a protective buffer during the 2004 tsunami. They also hold gigantic carbon stocks which are now being released, exacerbating climate change. “If you can’t save Tripa, what can you save?” asks Denis Ruysschaert, forest coordinator for PanEco, a Swiss environmental organisation.

Sumatra is a beautiful island, with jungle-clad mountains and picturesque villages where long-horned water buffalo wander. But it is difficult not to be shocked by the colonisation of the landscape by one short, stumpy tree: oil palm. The monoculture is a desolate sight, stretching for miles, relieved only by charred hillsides dotted with tree stumps – cleared land awaiting yet more oil palms. Trucks rattle past, laden with the prickly red fruit from which oil is extracted. In Aceh, they call it the “golden plant” – the cash crop that is lifting the province out of poverty and helping it rebuild after the tsunami. “Recently there’s a frenzy to plant oil palm,” says Fransisca Ariantiningsih, who works for Yayasan Ekosistem Lestari (Yel), an Indonesian conservation group.

On Sumatra’s west coast, a small-time farmer, Raluwan, is nursing his seedlings. Ten families, he explains, have logged and burnt 100 hectares of land. Each hectare will yield four tonnes of fruit, fetching 800 Rupiah (47 pence) a kilo.”I used to grow chilli, but palm oil is a very economical crop,” he declares. “You don’t need much pesticide or fertiliser.” Raluwan knows orangutans live in the nearby forests. “I don’t care,” he says. “I’ve got to feed my family.”

However, many are missing out as the industry grows to meet demand from Europe, the US, China and India. Most plantation workers are migrants from Java and in Tripa, communities that depend on the swamps for water, fish and medicinal plants are suffering.

Kuala Seumayan is hemmed in by plantations. Villagers say they no longer have space even to bury their dead. “Since the forest has been chopped down, it’s difficult to get food,” says one elder, Darmizi. In the Seumayan River, youngsters dive for freshwater clams while children squeal and splash in the placid brown waters. It’s an idyllic scene, but something is missing: the sights and sounds of the forest. The only wildlife consists of a hornbill and two long-tailed macaques. Indrianto, a forestry manager, says: “This used to be all peat swamp, with many trees and animals. Now it’s all oil palm. Before, I heard animal calls. Now I hear only chainsaws.”

By chance, we spot an orangutan in a solitary tree. Tripa has just 280 apes left. The young male, its fur glowing in the afternoon sun, curls one arm lazily over an upper branch.

A black slick floats on the water: sludge from one of many canals dug to drain the swamps. The arduous procedure is considered preferable to planting on fallow land, which would require negotiations with landowners. This way, the companies also get to sell the timber. As you fly over Tripa, the scale of destruction becomes clear. The green tangle of the forest, in all its riotous variety, abruptly gives way to giant rectangles, laid out with geometrical precision and studded with thousands of palms.

Riswan Zen, a spatial analyst for Yel, last flew over in 2007. “So much forest gone, and all in two years, my God,” he says, gesticulating at a satellite imaging map. “If nothing is done, there’ll be no forest left in one to two years.”

Tripa, designated a priority conservation site by the UN, could hold 1,500 orangutans if the forest was allowed to regenerate. Prospects seem slim, although Indonesia – one of the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, thanks to deforestation – claims to be committed both to saving the orangutan and combating climate change.

Fewer than a quarter of Indonesian producers have joined the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, a global organisation promoting sustainable practices. (Astra Agro is not among them.) Even in Aceh, where Governor Irwandi Yusuf, a former rebel leader, has proclaimed a “Green Vision”, authorities seem unwilling to crack down on the powerful oil palm companies.

So far, Jardines, whose colourful history inspired a series of novels by James Clavell, has resisted pressure to rein in its Indonesian subsidiary. In a statement to The Independent, Jardines – whose interests include the Mandarin Oriental hotels and Asian branches of Starbucks and IKEA – said Astra Agro’s plantations “function in full compliance with … environmental impact studies”.

Astra Agro says it plans to develop only half of its 13,000 hectares in Tripa because of conservation concerns, and it denies any illegal activity.

Ian Singleton, a Briton who heads PanEco’s Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme, has no doubt that oil palm is the biggest threat to the orangutan: “I see the orangutan as a test case. Are we serious about trying to conserve the planet’s ecosystems? If we are, let’s prove it by saving a species like the orangutan. We know where the orangutans are; all we have to do is protect the forests. If we’re serious about conservation, this is where we start.”

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/oil-boom-threatens-the-last-orangutans-1714157.html

Related Post: UK Firm Plans to Log Habitat of Critically Endangered Orangutans for Palm Oil Production

Images showing oil palm plantation concessions and forest cover change from 1990 to 2005 in Tripa. Courtesy of YEL/PanEco Foundation

A Scottish firm has been implicated in funding a plan that would destroy the rainforest habitat of critically endangered orangutans in Sumatra.

Jardine Matheson Holdings is the majority shareholder of Astra Agro Lestar, a palm oil company that plans to develop the peatland forests of Tripa in Aceh Province for oil palm plantations. Environmentalists say conversion of the forest would destroy a biologically rich ecosystem that serves as a buffer against natural disasters in a region that bore the brunt of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed more than 225,000 people. Draining of the carbon-dense peat soils would also accelerate climate change by releasing vast amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

In a series of statements, members of the coalition blasted Jardine and its chairman Sir Henry Keswick, who was knighted this month in the Queen’s birthday honors list.

“It’s scandalous that a British company is bankrolling the destruction of this vital part of Indonesian rainforest,” said Greenpeace forest campaigner James Turner. “If the executives at Jardines don’t stop this they will be rightly accused of speeding up climate change, destroying a vital tsunami buffer zone and driving the Sumatran orangutan to the brink of extinction.”

“It is frankly shocking that the Chairman of Jardine Matheson has been knighted for services to British business interests overseas, while his company is actively contributing to the demise of the critically endangered Sumatran orangutan,” said Helen Buckland, UK Director, Sumatran Orangutan Society (SOS). “British businesses must be held accountable for their part in the destruction of this globally important area of forest.”

“The crisis facing Tripa Swamp Forest demonstrates just how ruthless this industry can be,” said Michelle Desiliets, Director of the Orangutan Land Trust. “A UK-based company, chaired by an individual recently knighted for services to British business interests overseas and charitable activities in the UK, provides the investment for such destruction, and as such, surely cannot claim to have any interest in Corporate Social Responsibility.”

Orangutan refuge

Twenty years ago Tripa was home to around 1,500 orangutans but hunting and habitat destruction have reduced the population to around 280, or about 4 percent of the 6,600 Sumatran orangutans that remain in the wild.

Trip is one of Sumatra’s few remnant lowland forests. Since 1975, the extent of primary forest cover in Sumatra has decreased by more than 90 percent due to logging, agricultural expansion, and plantation forestry — especially rubber and oil palm.

“This case in unfortunately just one example,” said Alex Kaat from Wetlands International. “Throughout Indonesia and Malaysia, we see that the last remaining peatswamp forests are cleared for palm oil production to meet the growing demands for vegetable oils and biofuels.”

While the oil palm is the world’s most productive oilseed — far outstripping canola or soy — conversion of forests and peatlands for its cultivation has sparked alarm among environmental groups concerned by its impacts on biodiversity and climate. The worries have been supported by a series of studies published since 2007 in peer-reviewed scientific journals showing that biodiesel produced from palm oil grown at the expense of these ecosystems is worse for the planet than conventional fuels. In response, some industry members say they will avoid developing high conservation value forests and peatlands for new plantations, instead focusing on degraded grasslands and improving yields on existing plantations. The Indonesian government has also restricted development of peatlands deeper than 10 feet (3 meters) for oil palm. Still some firms continue to develop contentious parcels, sometimes in direct conflict with local communities.

Source: http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0623-tripa.html

What’s more, an established market would help buoy orangutans, pygmy elephants and other threatened species.

“I think it’s our best chance we’ve ever had to conserve forests,” said Oscar Venter, a conservation biologist at the University of Queensland in Australia. “There is a big potential positive here for the twin objectives of climate mitigation and biodiversity protection.”

Deforestation in the tropics accounts for about 20 percent of global greenhouse emissions — more than from any other source, including vehicles. Animals that live in native forests suffer as their habitats disappear.

In Indonesia, which emits the most land-generated greenhouse gasses of any country in the world, most forests are cut down to make way for oil palms. The industry is extremely profitable, and it’s growing quickly. Palm oil appears in a large number of food products and is used for biofuel.

One idea to prevent palm plantations from replacing ever more tropical forests is to set up a type of carbon market based on payments for reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD). Instead of selling land to be developed, a country could sell carbon credits to an international market. Other countries could buy these credits to make up for exceeding limits set by the Kyoto Protocol or its successor. Purchased credits would guarantee that a certain plot of forest would remain standing.

In order for the system to work, a country like Indonesia would need to make as much or more money from selling the credits as it can make from developing palm plantations. Venter and colleagues wanted to know if that were possible.

First, the researchers looked at the financial reports of oil palm companies to figure out how much money palm plantations were actually bringing in. Those calculations included profits from oil and from the timber that is cut down to make way for the palms.

Next, they considered all of the carbon produced when land is cleared for oil palm development. The value includes decomposition and burning of timber and vegetation. The team estimated these numbers over the next 30 years for all 808 palm plantations planned for forested areas in Kalimantan, the Indonesian region of Borneo. Overall, that area includes 3.3 million out of the country’s 27 million hectares of forest habitat.

To match potential profits from oil palms, credits would have to cost between $10 and $33 per ton of carbon dioxide emitted, the team reported in the journal Conservation Letters. In current markets, prices range between $2 and $30 per ton.

“If this had come out and said we would need to price carbon at $100 to $200 a ton to make this feasible, we would have said, ‘Oh crap. This is not going to help us,’” said Peter Kareiva, Chief Scientist at the Nature Conservancy in Washington, D.C. “This was a big deal to us to find out. It means we’re going to invest in resources to make sure we do it right.”

For wildlife, that investment would be well worth it. Forty of Kalimatan’s 46 threatened mammals live in areas that are slated to become palm plantations, the study found. Orangutans are a particularly high-profile example.

The good news, Venter said, is that threatened mammal populations are twice as dense in areas that have the richest (and therefore cheapest) sources of carbon — in places, for example, where the forest is thick and undisturbed.

“Conservationists had optimism that this carbon market was going to help them solve a lot of problems, but that all depends on where the animals live,” Kareiva said. “It turns out that if in fact you go into this carbon business to slow down climate change, you will also get wildlife protection. It’s like a free bonus.”

Source: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/06/19/carbon-credits-orangutan.html

Such behaviour has never before been recorded in any great ape species.

The two incidences occurred just one month apart in the same region of forest in Indonesia.

The conservationist who witnessed both incidences suspects they were examples of aberrant behaviour, triggered by stressful living conditions suffered by both mothers.

Humans aside, chimpanzees were the only great apes known to engage in cannabilism, the eating of members of the same species. The behaviour had also been inferred but not seen in gorillas, after the remains of infants were found in the faeces of two adults.

But until now, no ape has been recorded eating its own offspring.

“Cannibalism has been documented in chimpanzees and reported in gorillas. Never before has any ape species been seen treating its own offspring as a consumable resource,” says David Dellatore of Oxford Brookes University, in Oxford, UK.

That was until Dellatore begun tracking orangutans living in Bukit Lawang, an area of forest within the Gunung Leuser National Park in Sumatra, Indonesia.

Dellatore, who now works with the Sumatran Orangutan Society based in Medan, Sumatra, initially monitored the physical health of once captive orangutans that have been rehabilitated and released back into the wild.

But soon he noticed that tourists in the area were interacting closely with the apes. Despite a ban on doing so, some tourists would feed or touch the semi-wild apes. So Dellatore switched his research to monitoring the behavioural health of the orangutans, following them from dawn till dusk.

During this research he twice witnessed female apes he recognised eating the corpses of their recently deceased babies.

“While following Edita, whose infant had just died in the forest, on the eighth day myself and my assistant Tumino saw her begin to consume the corpse,” Dellatore says.

“At first we did not believe it, but there was no mistaking it. Edita was engaging in filial, or mother-infant cannibalism.”

“Then a month later I was following Ratna by myself, whose infant had also just died, and observed her also cannibalising her dead infant.”

Seeing the first instance surprised Dellatore, while he found the second even more shocking.

“Such behaviour had never been seen before in more than four decades of orangutan research. Surely it’s not happening here twice in a one month period?” Dellatore recalls asking himself.

But Dellatore managed to collect further evidence of the second event. “I recovered a fallen piece of the infant’s skeleton that Ratna spat out, as well as rather clear video footage of the event.”

Grieving mothers

Dellatore is unsure why the orangutans behaved so. “It makes little evolutionary sense for orangutan females to kill their infants, nor is there any evidence that this happened here,” he reports in the journal Primates.

But he points out that it is not uncommon for orangutans and other nonhuman primate mothers to carry their deceased infants. “It may be part of a grieving process,” he says.

Indeed, Edita, a 23 year old female, carried and protected the body of her one year old infant for seven days, occasionally inspecting it while vocalising a whimper. Only on the eighth day did she start to consume it, when it was already heavily decomposed. Twenty year old Ratna’s seven month old infant appeared unwell a few days before death.

Dellatore is reluctant to make any definitive claims as to why the behaviour occurred. But he suspects that the mothers’ stressed upbringing may have triggered their later actions.

“Semi-wild orangutans are all exposed to considerable traumas, such as witnessing the deaths of their own mothers,” he says. To feed the pet trade, an orangutan is often captured from the wild as an infant, with its mother being killed as she would not otherwise let her baby go. Captive orangutans also suffer long periods of social isolation.

“Studies have shown that early social deprivation can have deleterious effects on later levels of cognitive ability. It is possible that the cannibalism events are an extension of these effects,” he says.

Although rare, mothers have been recorded cannibalising their infants in a few species of monkey. In galagoes, another primate species also known as bushbabies, the behaviour has been linked to stressful living conditions.

The presence of tourists may also be stressing the apes.

Dellatore supports proper ecotourism in the area, which can bring in important funds that can help conserve the great apes. But he says too many tourists visit and interact with the apes without a sense of environmental or social responsibility.

His organisation is running an ecotourism development programme in Bukit Lawang to try and mitigate these problems.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8058000/8058365.stm

The research, done by scientists from the University of Pittsburgh and the Buffalo Museum of Science, reject as “problematic” the popular suggestion, based on DNA analysis, that humans are most closely related to chimpanzees, which they maintain is not supported by fossil evidence.

Jeffrey H. Schwartz, professor of anthropology in Pitt’s School of Arts and Sciences, and John Grehan, director of science at the Buffalo Museum, conducted a detailed analysis of the physical features of living and fossil apes that suggested humans, orangutans, and early apes belong to a group separate from chimpanzees and gorillas.

They then constructed a scenario for how the human-orangutan common ancestor migrated between Southeast Asia, where modern orangutans are from, and other parts of the world and evolved into now-extinct apes and early humans.

The study provides further evidence of the human-orangutan connection that Schwartz first proposed in his book “The Red Ape: Orangutans and Human Origins, Revised and Updated”.

Schwartz and Grehan scrutinized the hundreds of physical characteristics often cited as evidence of evolutionary relationships among humans and other great apes like chimps, gorillas, and orangutans, and selected 63 that could be verified as unique within this group (that is, they do not appear in other primates).

Of these features, the analysis found that humans shared 28 unique physical characteristics with orangutans, compared to only two features with chimpanzees, seven with gorillas, and seven with all three apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans).

Schwartz and Grehan then examined 56 features uniquely shared among modern humans, fossil hominids-ancestral humans such as Australopithecus-and fossil apes.

They found that orangutans shared eight features with early humans and Australopithecus and seven with Australopithecus alone.

The occurrence of orangutan features in Australopithecus contradicts the expectation generated by DNA analysis that ancestral humans should have chimpanzee similarities, according to Schwartz and Grehan.

Schwartz and Grehan pooled humans, orangutans, and the fossil apes into a new group called “dental hominoids,” named for their similarly thick-enameled teeth.

They labeled chimpanzees and gorillas as African apes and determined that although they are a sister group of dental hominoids, “the African apes are not only less closely related to humans than are orangutans, but also less closely related to humans than are many” fossil apes.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Health–Science/Science/Humans-related-to-orangutans-not-chimps-or-gorillas-/articleshow/4670642.cms