Orangutans Face Greater Threat

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Illegal logging is destroying forests in South-East Asia quicker than

had been feared, with dire implications for orangutans, a UN report

has said.

The practice threatens many other species in the region, the United

Nations Environment Programme says.

 

If no action is taken, the report says, 98% of forests on the islands

of Sumatra and Borneo may be gone by 2022.

 

This would have serious consequences for local people and wildlife

including rhinos, tigers and elephants.

 

" The situation is now acute for the orangutans, " the authors wrote.

 

" The rapid rate of removal of food trees, killing of orangutans

displaced by logging and plantation development, and fragmentation of

remaining intact forest, constitutes a conservation emergency. "

 

The rate of loss has accelerated in the past five years. The present

projection of 2022 for the disappearance of most suitable orangutan

habitat outstrips a Unep report which came up with an estimate of

2032.

 

'Smuggled timber'

 

Unep blamed a shadowy network of multinational firms for increasingly

targeting Indonesian national parks as one of the few remaining

sources of commercial timber supplies.

 

Indonesia made a plea for Western consumers to reject smuggled

timber.

 

" We are appealing today to the conscience of the whole world: do not

buy uncertified wood, " said Rachmat Witoelar, Indonesia's environment

minister.

 

He said illegal logging was ravaging 37 of his country's 41 national

parks, and now accounted for more than 73% of all logging in

Indonesia.

 

" It is not being done by individual impoverished people, but by well-

organised elusive commercial networks, " said Achim Steiner, head of

Unep.

 

Indonesia's government has deployed its military on at least three

occasions in recent years to confiscate timber and chase loggers out

of its parks - and has begun training quick response ranger teams to

police protected areas.

 

Habitat loss

 

But experts say the new units remain crippled by a lack of funds,

vehicles, weapons and equipment, and face a huge threat from ruthless

loggers, who are often protected by heavily armed militia commanded

by foreign mercenaries.

 

Combined with forest fires, encroachment by farmers on their

dwindling habitat and poaching, illegal logging is having a

devastating impact on orangutans, which once numbered hundreds of

thousands across South-East Asia.

 

The UN report, compiled using new satellite images and Indonesian

government data, said orangutan habitat was being lost 30% quicker

than was previously feared.

 

It was estimated in 2002 that there were about 60,000 of the primates

left in the jungles of Borneo and Sumatra. Some ecologists say the

number has now been halved.

 

A month ago, the European Union and Indonesia agreed to negotiate a

pact aimed at ending illegal logging by providing guarantees forest

products imported to the EU are verified as legal. The EU is the

third largest market for Indonesian timber after China and the US.

 

The US and Indonesia signed a similar pact last year. But experts say

the amount of investment in the logging companies from the

industrialised world vastly outstrips donor efforts to help Jakarta

combat the illegal practice.