In December 2007, President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono launched Indonesia’s Strategy and Action Plan for
National Conservation of Orangutans. Quoting the president from his speech,
“this will serve as a blueprint for our efforts to save some of our most exotic
but endangered wildlife.” Furthermore, the president said that “the Orangutan
action plan formally endorses Indonesia’s commitment to orangutan conservation
as expressed in 2005 when Indonesia signed the Kinshasa Declaration on the
Protection of Great Apes in the Democratic Republic of Congo.”
And a final quote: “A key understanding that stems
from this Action Plan is that to save orangutans, we must save the forests. And
by saving, regenerating, and sustainably managing forests, we are also doing
our part in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, while contributing to
sustainable economic development of Indonesia. Successful orangutan
conservation is the symbol of responsible management of the earth’s resources.”
Excellent stuff. Finally a ray of hope for
Indonesia’s endangered species.
We are now over six years into the 10 years action
plan, so signs of progress should be easy to find. The action plan commits
Indonesia to stabilizing all wild populations by 2017. With habitat loss and
hunting being the main threats, this simply means that all remaining wild
orangutan populations should either be incorporated in formally protected areas
or other compatible land uses, such as sustainably managed timber concessions,
and that conservation laws should be enforced.
Unfortunately there is almost no sign of such
progress. In the six years since the plan’s launch, not a single orangutan
population has experienced a land use change that will make it any more likely
to survive. No new protected areas have been set up for orangutan conservation.
And few if any plantation licenses have been canceled because of the presence
of orangutans, and the area subsequently turned into permanent forest estate.
In fact, the opposite has happened. Vast areas of
orangutan habitat have been converted to oil palm. The Tripa swamps in Aceh are
a prime example of disastrous conservation management and the total irrelevance
of Indonesia’s stated commitment to orangutan conservation.
But other examples abound. An example from
Kalimantan is the situation around the Danau Sentarum National Park. In 2007,
the orangutan population here was estimated at 500 individuals in 109,000
hectares of deep peat swamp forest. But as you read this, excavators are taking
down trees and clearing peat land for planting oil palms in those same swamp
forests. Give it a few more years, and most of those 500 orangutans will be
gone, starved to death, caught and stuck in a cage, clubbed over the head, or
set on fire, as sometimes happens.
A cynical interpretation would be that a population
of zero animals is stable after all, exactly as prescribed by the action plan,
but I doubt that this is what the president had in mind in 2007.
Now, to be upfront, I was heavily involved in the
development of Indonesia’s orangutan action plan. Indonesia, we thought,
urgently needed some kind of government-endorsed strategy for the conservation
of orangutans and many other threatened species. The idea was to develop the
national strategy, then translate this into local strategies at province and
district level, ultimately leading to recommended land use changes that are
compatible with conservation, and allocation of sufficiently large budgets and
institutional support to ensure that those areas are effectively managed.
Step one was taken, and a bit of step two, but that
was pretty much it. I would be very interested to know what further steps are
envisaged by the Directorate General of Forest Protection and Nature
Conservation (PHKA) for implementing the action plan. How much is the present
budget allocation and how many staff are assigned to the process? Also, what
are the annual targets and milestones, and what corrective actions are taken
when it is clear that those targets are missed?
Indonesia has an additional target for its key
conservation species, including the orangutan. This prescribes a goal of 3
percent population growth, which is even more ambitious than stabilization.
Surely, the authorities realize that this target is never going to be met.
After all, every year, several thousand orangutans
in Kalimantan are killed in conflicts with people or for food, as reported in
three recent studies in the journals PLOS ONE and Biological Conservation.
Also, another study in PLOS ONE shows that Kalimantan lost 123,428 square kilometers
(four times the area of the Netherlands) of lowland forest, i.e., prime
orangutan habitat, between 1973 and 2010. Not all of this area was within the
orangutan range, but with good orangutan habitat in Kalimantan containing up to
3 orangutans per square kilometer, it gives some indication of the scale of the
population decline.
I may be misreading the numbers, but there seems to
be a slight discrepancy between the loss of some 100,000 orangutans over 40
years, and the official goal to increase the population by 3 percent.
More than anything, Indonesia needs to realize what
it is losing along with its orangutans. It is obviously not helping the
country’s “green” image. More importantly, the present race to convert most
lowland forest areas to plantations for the production of oil palm, rubber,
timber, and pulp and paper, is going to generate large environmental costs that
will mostly be borne by its rural and urban people.
For example, developing plantations on low-lying
peats will inevitably lead to massive flooding after the peat has decomposed
and the plantations are basically standing in semi-permanent lakes. No forest,
no palm oil yields, no agriculture, no development.
Economic and social development is needed, but
badly planned and implemented development primarily benefits the few who are
lucky enough to own a plantation, mining lease, or timber concession, and those
that help them in the process. The science and knowledge is there to guide
development that ensures optimal economic, social, and environmental outcomes
in the short and longer term. Our Borneo Futures initiative, for example, has
plenty to say about this.
After all, section 14, article 33, of Indonesia’s
constitution states that “the land and the waters as well as the natural riches
therein are to be controlled by the state to be exploited to the greatest
benefit of the people.” Also, “the organization of the national economy shall
be based on economic democracy that upholds the principles of solidarity,
efficiency along with fairness, sustainability, keeping the environment in
perspective…”
This to me seems pretty clear about the
responsibilities of the government.
I strongly urge Indonesia’s government institutions
to uphold their national and international commitments and legal duties towards
environmental protection and social fairness. I also urge them not to ignore
the extensive scientific information on what works and what doesn’t in natural
resource use, and based on that create and implement realistic policies for
sustainable development and species conservation. Only thus will orangutans
have any chance to survive in this country.
Erik Meijaard is a long-term conservation scientist
based in Jakarta. Among other activities, he coordinates the science-based
Borneo Futures initiative.
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