apes in danger

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Tuesday September 13, 2005 -

The Star

 

Apes in an atlas

 

By JEREMY LOVELL

 

The first detailed global map of the world’s great apes – from gorillas to

orang utans – shows they are in deep trouble. Published by the United

Nations, The World Atlas of Great Apes and their Conservation United

Nations, illustrates the need for concerted international action.

 

The 23 states in which the apes live in the wild are among the world’s

poorest. Poverty, encroachment caused by logging and population growth, the

booming bush meat trade, disease and climate change are threatening entire

species.

 

The atlas says 16 of the states where the eastern and western gorillas,

bonobos, chimpanzees and Sumatran and Bornean orang utans roam have per

capita incomes of less than US$800 (RM3,040) a year.

 

Already more than a dozen key locations – from Cameroon to the Democratic

Republic of the Congo – have been identified as priority sites for gorillas

and chimpanzees, and more are expected to be added in coming years.

 

 

The atlas was published a day after conservationists called for a five-year,

US$30mil (RM114mil) plan to try to save some of the most threatened great

ape species in Africa.

 

In Asia, orang utans are predicted to lose nearly half of their habitat

within five years through mining, logging and human encroachment.

 

“Within a generation, without better protection, we could see species

becoming too depleted to survive long term in the wild,” said atlas editors

Julian Caldecott and Lera Miles.

 

It is not only human activities that are threatening to eradicate the great

apes – diseases like Ebola haemorrhagic fever are also speeding their

demise.

 

Another report by global conservation organisation World Wide Fund for

Nature and wildlife trade monitor TRAFFIC says between 200 and 500 Borneo

orang utans are traded in Indonesia each year, part of an illegal trade that

is driving the primates towards extinction. The vast majority are infants

sold as pets.

 

The report said at least one other orang utan died with each infant trade,

usually the mother, meaning the total loss from the wild each year was

likely to be much higher. It estimated the total population of orang utans

in Kalimantan to be as low as 40,000. The annual removal of such a large

number of orang utans from the wild could be a death sentence for the

population, it added.

 

To date, no one had been prosecuted for involvement in the trade. “This is

an alarming finding,” said James Compton, director of TRAFFIC South-East

Asia. “It clearly shows that there is a large discrepancy between what

national conservation laws aim to achieve and what happens on the ground.”

 

An orang utan costs about US$400 (RM1,520) on Indonesia’s main island of

Java, two to three times the original price paid to hunters in Kalimantan,

the report said.

 

Capturing, killing, possessing and trading orang utans is illegal in

Indonesia where violations can lead to a maximum five-year imprisonment.

Indonesia’s Forestry Ministry calculates an area of orang utan habitat half

the size of Switzerland is lost each year.

 

Already, numbers of Sumatran orang utans have plunged to around 7,000 from

85,000 in 1900 and the Sumatran Orang utan Conservation Programme estimates

they could be down to less than 250 within 50 years as their habitat is

literally hacked to pieces for profit.

 

They also say if logging, hunting and the replacement of vast tracts of

forest for oil palm plantations could be halted, then orang utan numbers

could be stabilised on Sumatra. – Reuters

 

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