Camp Leakey,
Kalimantan. The bushes shook violently and the female orangutan froze. Her baby
clutched her tightly before the two quickly disappeared into the Borneo
undergrowth. As the bushes parted, a broad-shouldered male orangutan strutted
to the feeding platform.
Dominating the fruit on offer, the male great ape
dared the other orangutans in the trees to challenge him for the food.
The endangered orangutan is a solitary animal and
it is rare to sight these great apes in groups, but this is Camp Leakey in
Tanjung Puting National Park in Indonesia and home to around 6,000 rescued
orangutans.
The park in Central Kalimantan province has been protecting great apes
for 38 years, but its success is now a problem as the reserve does not have
sufficient space and resources to sustain any more apes.
Yet Dr. Birute Galdikas, 69, who heads the Orangutan Foundation
International (OFI), has some 300 more rescued orangutans in her care waiting
for a release back into the wild.
Galdikas’s OFI is desperately trying to buy 6,367 hectares of land
opposite the park, which includes a vital stretch of land along the Sekonyer
River, to accommodate the extra apes – price tag $2.5 million.
But the OFI, which relies on donations and money from ecotourism, has
only been able to raise a third of that amount.
“We have to protect this stretch of land,” Galdikas told Reuters
following an eco-trip to Camp Leakey to visit some of the rehabilitated great
apes returned to the wild.
“If we lose this river edge, where are all the proboscis monkeys going
to go? Where are all the [300] orangutans going to go?”
Protecting the forest habitat of the orangutan has become as important
as rescuing the great apes if the species is to survive, says Galdikas, who
came to the Tanjung forest when she was 25 years old and has spent 44 years
trekking through forests and wading up to her armpits in swamps to protect
orangutans.
Palm oil
Global demand for palm oil, which is found in supermarket products from
margarine to lipstick and shampoo, and is also used as a biofuel, has helped
drive deforestation.
Oil palm plantations now surround Tanjung Puting National Park, cutting
corridors through which orangutans and other wildlife use to cross from one
large forest to another.
Indonesia, which is ranked fifth in countries with the most annual tree
cover loss, imposed a 2011 moratorium on clearing primary natural forests and
peat land.
President Joko Widodo in April extended the moratorium for two years and
expanded it to cover 1 million hectares. The government also increased
penalties for illegal logging.
But the moratorium applies only to new areas of forest. Forests in
existing commercial concessions are not protected and as a result oil palm
plantations have expanded.
Palm oil production in Indonesia rose from 10.5 million hectares in 2013
to an estimated 11.44 million hectares in 2015, according to the Agriculture
Ministry.
Togar Sitanggang, secretary general of the Indonesian Palm Oil
Association, put expansion this year at about 300,000 hectares, and said it was
limited to areas already given permits a few years ago. He said a pledge on
sustainable development, new forest laws and a soft market were slowing
expansion.
Indonesia says palm oil is important for development because it reduces
poverty by bringing roads, schools and other infrastructure to rural
communities and generates five million jobs that benefit 15 million people.
And a government biofuels policy, which aims to cut fossil fuel imports
and save $1.3 billion, is encouraging small landholders to turn to palm oil
production. Under the policy, each liter of diesel must contain 15 percent
biofuel.
“The problem is allowing landholders in Indonesia taking part of the
forest for palm oil plantations – what is good for the economy may not
ultimately be good for the forests,” Galdikas said.
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