Indonesia’s Endangered Orangutan
Palm Oil and Pet Trade Threaten World’s Only Arboreal Great Ape
Nov 7, 2007
The only great ape not found in Africa, the orangutan is also the only one that is primarily arboreal, or tree dwelling. Two subspecies of this primate occur in disparate parts of Indonesia, the Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelli) and the Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus). Originally inhabiting much of Southeast Asia and into Southern China, the islands of Indonesia are their last stronghold.
Origin of the Name
Their name, Orang Hutan or People of the Forest, derives from a traditional belief that they were humans trying to avoid working or becoming a slave by hiding in the forest. This simple concept protected them from being killed as food for many years.
Why Orangutans are Endangered
Orangutan babies are cute and social, making them tempting as pets. To get young orangutans for this market, the mother is shot. It is estimated that for every orangutan that makes it into the pet trade 4 or 5 die. Some fall to the forest floor when their mother is killed, others succumb to human disease, malnourishment or maltreatment in the hands of traders.
That number does not take into account the adult females lost to the breeding population, often in their prime reproductive years. As forest is logged for development, other adult orangutans end up near villages, often drawn by cultivated fruit. They are shot as pests or taken for food, especially in years when the rice crops fail.
Many will remember the devastating fires in Indonesia over the last few years. Much prime orangutan forest habitat was destroyed in those blazes. Illegal logging and the development of palm oil plantations continue to reduce forests on the islands every day.
Mining and farming round out the list of threats to this endangered great ape. Estimates are that as many as 2000 orangutans, out of a population of only 50,000 to 60,000 animals, are lost every year. It is expected that the orangutan will be completely extirpated from the Kalimantan forests of Borneo by 2010 unless deforestation and development are controlled quickly.
Efforts to Understand and Protect the Orangutan
Dr Birute Galdikas, one of the three famous female students of Dr Louis Leakey, has spent more than 30 years with the orangutans of Indonesia. Like her counterpart in the chimpanzee world, Jane Goodall, much of her time today is spent in conservation efforts.
Orangutan Foundation International, founded by Dr Galdikas and Dr Gary Shapiro, a former student, approaches orangutan conservation on several levels. Research continues but is balanced by forest conservation, education and awareness programs and rehabilitation and reintroduction of orphaned orangutans.
Forest preservation often takes the form of turning expired logging concessions into reserves. These areas are then reforested through OFIs botanical nursery. Areas at the edges of national parks or reserves are also replanted to expand shrinking orangutan habitat.
Awareness raising and education occurs both locally, where people are directly affected by the presence of the orangutan, and internationally, where gaining support for great ape conservation brings in much needed funds and political influence.
The rehabilitation and reintroduction project takes young orangutans confiscated from the pet trade and nurses them back health. They are then gradually reintroduced to the forest to learn important survival skills.
The work of OFI, and other orangutan conservation organizations, protecting the remaining orangutans and increasing their available habitat, may be all that stands between these great apes and extinction in the wild.
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