Niall McKay
Illegal logging is destroying the equatorial rain forests of Indonesian Borneo, bringing the island, once known as the lungs of Asia, to the brink of an ecological disaster.
Not only has 95 percent of the forest legally set aside for logging been cleared but nearly 60 percent of protected national parkland has been illegally logged, according to a new report in this week's Science by professor Lisa M. Curran of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.
The illegal timber is turned into plywood and is exported to other parts of Asia. It is also used to build furniture for Japanese, European and U.S. markets. The island of Kalimantan's valuable old growth, called meranti (Philippine mahogany), is used for hardwood flooring and provides wood trim for luxury automobiles.
If the current rate of destruction continues, the report says, Kalimantan, which is about the size of Texas, will be completely stripped of its rain forests in the next three years. This will have a drastic effect on the wildlife, the native population and the local weather patterns. Animals such as Malaysian sun bears, hornbills, bearded pigs and orangutans are rapidly becoming endangered species, according to the report.
The report combined aerial and satellite photographs with data from geographical mapping systems and remote sensing devices. It was carried out between 1999 and September 2003.
"Already, what is left (of the forest) is too small and too fragmented to support many of the species that depend on the forest," said Curran, director of the Tropical Resources Institute at Yale University. "For the first time we have seen large mammals, such as orangutans and Malaysian sun bears, wild boar, starving."
There are more than 420 different birds and 222 mammal species in Kalimantan, half of which depend on the rain forests for survival. Furthermore, the indigenous people of Borneo, the Dyaks, depend on boar as a primary source of protein.
"Clearly the animals are in crisis," said Curran. "In Gunung Palung National Park in West Kalimantan, for example, the orangutan population will drop by a third in the next couple of years."
Curran said she believes that at the current rate of decline, many of the rain-forest animals will become extinct in less than 10 years. "We won't see extinctions until we reach some sort of threshold," she said. "We are very close to that threshold now and once we reach it will be too late to stop."
The rapid growth of oil palm plantations, which have undergone a 40-fold increase since 1992, is further exacerbating the problem because large areas of the rain forest have been clear-cut to make way for the crop, and the plantations serve as barriers to migrating animal populations.
Kalimantan's rain forests' growth cycles interact with the El Niño weather system. Forest fragmentation has transformed El Niño from a regenerative force into a destructive one. As the forest is cleared, droughts become more frequent and severe, giving rise to more frequent wild fires.
Borneo is the first land mass the El Niño-Southern Oscillation weather system hits. And the El Niño wildfires in Borneo and Brazil in 1997 and 1998 created more carbon dioxide emissions than the whole of Western Europe's industrial output, according to Curran.
There are many explanations offered for the destruction of the rain forest, including a lack of oversight from a decentralized government and opportunism by locals.
But Curran said she believes that the real causes of the destruction of the forest are international demand for the timber, a massive industry suffering from a lack of legal timber, and corruption that started during, but is not limited to, the former Suharto dictatorship.
Over the past two decades, the volume of timber harvested on Borneo exceeded that of all tropical wood exports from Latin America and Africa combined. At its height in the mid-1990s it was a $9 billion-a-year industry. Now it's nearly gone -- more than 90 percent of the Indonesia's timber production is illegal.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Wild Orangutans Declining More Sharply In Sumatra And Borneo Than Thought
ScienceDaily (July 6, 2008) — Endangered wild orangutan (Pongo spp.) populations are declining more sharply in Sumatra and Borneo than previously estimated, according to new findings published this month by Great Ape Trust of Iowa scientist Dr. Serge Wich and other orangutan conservation experts in Oryx – The International Journal of Conservation.Conservation action essential to survival of orangutans, found only on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, must be region-specific to address the different ecological threats to each species, said Wich and his co-authors, a pre-eminent group of scientists, conservationists, and representatives of governmental and non-governmental groups. They convened in Jakarta, Indonesia, in January 2004 to address the threats to orangutan survival and develop new assessment models to guide conservation planning.
New orangutan population estimates revealed in the July issue of Oryx reflect those improvements in assessment methodology – including standardized data collection, island-wide surveys, and better sharing of data among stakeholders – rather than dramatic changes in the number of surviving orangutans.
The experts’ revised estimates put the number of Sumatran orangutans (P. abelii) around 6,600 in 2004. This is lower than previous estimates of 7,501 as a result of new findings that indicate that a large area in Aceh that was previously thought to contain orangutans actually does not. Since forest loss in Aceh has been relatively low from 2004 to 2008, the 2004 estimate is probably not much higher than the actual number in 2008. The 2004 estimate of about 54,000 Bornean orangutans (P. pygmaeus) is probably also higher than the actual number today as there has been a 10 percent orangutan habitat loss in the Indonesian part of Borneo during that period.
“It is clear that the Sumatran orangutan is in rapid decline and unless extraordinary efforts are made soon, it could become the first great ape species to go extinct,” Wich et al. wrote. “Although these revised estimates for Borneo are encouraging, forest loss and associated loss of orangutans are occurring at an alarming rate, and suggest that recent reductions of Bornean orangutan populations have been far more severe than previously supposed.”
The new numbers underscore important issues in orangutan conservation. With improved sharing of data and deeper collaborations among stakeholders, the experts determined that 75 percent of all orangutans live outside of national parks, which have been severely degraded by illegal logging, mining, encroachment by palm oil plantations and fires due to a general lack of enforcement by regulatory authorities, who are either unable or reluctant to implement conservation management strategies.
However, some recent conservation successes – keyed on political and financial support, media attention and advocacy by conservationists – offer cause for cautious optimism that illegal logging in protected areas can be effectively reduced and improved management of protected areas can be attained, according to the experts.
“It is essential that conservation measures are taken to protect orangutans outside national parks, and these measures will by necessity be specific to each region,” Wich et al. wrote.
The experts reported positive signs that forest conservation is gaining prominence as a political agenda. For example, habitat loss has stabilized in some parts of Sumatra with a temporary logging moratorium in the province of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, where most of the island’s orangutans occur, both in and out of national parks. Opportunities also exist to develop reduced-impact logging systems on the island of Borneo, where most orangutans live in forests already exploited for timber.
Although other threats to orangutan survival exist, such as hunting in agricultural areas where human-orangutan conflicts exist, the biggest by far is forest destruction associated with the burgeoning palm oil industry in Indonesia and Malaysia. Together, they are the world’s largest palm oil producers with a combined global market share of 80.5 percent. Rapid expansion of the palm oil industry coupled with poor land-use planning are further pressuring forests and the orangutans who depend on them for survival.
For example, in Sumatra, the controversial Ladia Galaska road project in the Leuser Ecosystem will, unless halted, fragment two of the three largest remaining orangutan populations, Wich et al. wrote. A similar project in 1982 split the Gunung Leuser National Park, and the improved access facilitated uncontrolled illegal settlements inside the park, large-scale illegal encroachment and logging, and poaching of threatened species. Also cited as an example of faulty land-use planning was a mega rice project, funded primarily by Indonesia’s reforestation fund, which eliminated 10,000 square kilometers of peat swamp forest and killed an estimated 15,000 orangutans from 1996 to 1999.
“Both are examples of ill-advised projects with few benefits to local economies but major environmental costs,” Wich et al. wrote. “However, as such projects provide substantial revenue for a small group of individuals with considerable political influence, unprecedented political will is needed to prevent similar projects in the future.”
The experts’ report includes sweeping recommendations for:
- Effective law enforcement and prosecution to stop hunting orangutans for food and trade;
- Mechanisms to mitigate and reduce human-orangutan conflict in agricultural areas, including large-scale plantations;
- The development of an auditing process to assess the compliance of forestry concessions to their legal obligation to ensure orangutans are not hunted in concession areas;
- Increased environmental awareness at the local level, following examples set by the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program and the Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Project that promote awareness of conservation of forests and the importance of biodiversity;
- Development of mechanisms to monitor orangutan populations and forest cover, building on those in place on both Borneo and Sumatra;
- Continuation of surveys in less explored regions; and
Continued improvement of survey methodology to include nest-decay rates.
Great Ape Trust Director of Conservation Dr. Benjamin Beck said the paper makes a significant contribution to orangutan conservation discussion.
“First, we have an unambiguous, scientifically rigorous answer when regulators and policymakers ask us how many orangutans really remain, and how that compares to historical population sizes,” Beck said. “Those responsible for environmental stewardship cannot hide indecisively behind purported scientific uncertainty.
“Second, those answers are the results of pooled knowledge of nearly two dozen high-profile investigators who set aside their own professional reputations and agendas to collect data in a standardized format and share the results for a very high, common priority: the literal survival of the species that they study and love,” Beck continued. “In addition to being a critical contribution to orangutan conservation, this paper is an exemplar of collaboration among conservation scientists and practitioners.”
Dr. Rob Shumaker, director of orangutan research at Great Ape Trust, said Wich’s paper is historically important and verifies the crisis situation for wild orangutans. “This represents enormous amounts of work from the authors and demonstrates their commitments to the science of orangutan conservation,” he said. “It’s a particularly notable achievement for Dr. Wich and continues his extraordinary dedication to the study of orangutans.
“It is my fervent hope that these data inspire action on the part of everyone who can positively affect orangutan conservation.”
In addition to his responsibilities at Great Ape Trust, Wich is co-manager of orangutan research at Sumatra’s Ketambe Research Center, one of the longest-running orangutan field study sites in the world.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adapted from materials provided by Great Ape Trust of Iowa.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Extinct Pygmy Elephants Found Living on Borneo
"Extinct" Pygmy Elephants Found Living on Borneo
John Roach
for National Geographic News
April 23, 2008
A gift exchange between Asian rulers several centuries ago may have inadvertently saved a population of elephants from extinction, according to a new study.
Today a small population of unusually placid and genetically distinct elephants lives in the northeast corner of Borneo, a Southeast Asian island shared by Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei (see map).
Scientists have long wondered why the elephants' range is so restricted and why they are less aggressive than other wild elephants in Asia.
The new research suggests the elephants may have descended from a population of elephants that originally lived on the island of Java in what is now Indonesia (see Indonesia map).
The finding is based on an analysis of archaeological and historical records. It supports a long-held local belief that the elephants arrived there from the island of Sulu, which is now part of the Philippines.
The sultan of Java is thought to have sent the Javan elephants as a gift to the sultan of Sulu. For unknown reasons, descendants of the elephants were subsequently shipped to Borneo and abandoned.
Back on Java, the original population went extinct by the end of the 18th century, after the arrival of Europeans in Southeast Asia.
The gift to the sultan of Sulu may therefore have inadvertently kept the lineage alive.
"There's a lot of literature on these exchanges between the different courts," said Michael Stuewe, an elephant biologist for WWF, an international conservation organization.
"These elephants may be the oldest example of a wild [mammal] population that is saved without intention to do so by royalty and through a captive detour," Stuewe said.
DNA and Archaeology
Stuewe was not an author of the new study, but he was part of the research team that showed the Bornean elephants to be a genetically distinct population of Asian elephants.
He began studying them in 1999 as part of a project to determine how to protect wildlife from the rapid conversion of Southeast Asian forest habitat into palm oil plantations.
He noticed then that the elephants were unusual—shorter and rounder than other Asian elephants and with longer tails.
"They were like little cartoon figures of an elephant," he said.
(See photos of pygmy elephants below and the threats facing them.)
His colleagues at Columbia University in New York conducted DNA analysis in 2003 and found the Bornean population to be genetically distinct.
The team concluded the elephants were likely isolated on the island when the last land bridges connecting Borneo to the mainland disappeared some 18,000 years ago.
WWF's Junaidi Payne was a co-author of the genetics study and the new paper.
He and co-authors Earl of Cranbrook and Charles M.U. Leh were unable to find archaeological or historical evidence confirming the existence of so-called pygmy elephants on Borneo beyond a few centuries.
They concluded that the most plausible explanation is the Bornean elephant population "consists of remnant survivors of the extinct Javan population."
The study, the authors add, raises the importance of the Bornean population and suggests other large mammals could be saved from extinction by removal from threatened habitat to safer locations.
The research was published last week in the Sarawak Museum Journal.
Palm Oil Threat
Simon Hedges is the Asian elephant coordinator for the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society.
He said the new study makes a "plausible case" that the Bornean population is descended from the Javan elephants but that more research is needed before firm conclusions can be drawn.
If the authors of the new study are correct, he added, the remnant Javan population on Borneo will be important for genetic reasons, since it would contain material thought lost from the gene pool.
However, the population will likely be given less of a conservation priority, since it is outside its original wild range.
"[Such] factors are generally seen as downgrading the importance of such populations versus the truly wild animals," he said.
WWF's Stuewe noted that if the finding is confirmed, it will mark another instance in which royalty had inadvertently saved a mammal from extinction.
A similar fate met the alpine ibex, a mountain goat whose remaining population was protected by an Italian king in the 1850s, captive-bred by the Swiss, and reintroduced throughout the Alps in the 1900s.
European royalty imported Przewalski horses from Mongolia in the early 20th century for their stables. The wild horses went extinct in the 1960s. European captives were reintroduced to Mongolia in 1992.
"The ability of these large charismatic mammals to recover from what seem to be extreme [population] bottlenecks apparently is there," Stuewe said.
"There is a chance for these guys if you take care of them."
Palm Oil Threat
Today, Stuewe added, the elephants face new challenges from the rapidly developing palm oil industry in northeastern Borneo, where the remnant population is located.
Driven by surging demand from the biofuels industry, Stuewe said the forest is being converted to palm oil plantations at increasing rates.
"And unfortunately," he said, "oil palm plantations are to elephants what a candy store is to little kids—they just love them."
The love, however, is not shared by plantation managers who view the elephants as a nuisance and kill them. Biologists estimate about a thousand elephants remain on Borneo.
The only hope for these elephants now is protection of the lowland forest as nature reserves or sustainably managed logging concessions, Stuewe said.
Hedges, of the Wildlife Conservation Society, noted the palm oil expansion threatens a host of species on Borneo.
"One ultimately hopes that some of the expansions of the oil palm industry are going to be controlled and done in an appropriate way so that the whole suite of species at risk isn't wiped out," he said.
John Roach
for National Geographic News
April 23, 2008
A gift exchange between Asian rulers several centuries ago may have inadvertently saved a population of elephants from extinction, according to a new study.
Today a small population of unusually placid and genetically distinct elephants lives in the northeast corner of Borneo, a Southeast Asian island shared by Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei (see map).
Scientists have long wondered why the elephants' range is so restricted and why they are less aggressive than other wild elephants in Asia.
The new research suggests the elephants may have descended from a population of elephants that originally lived on the island of Java in what is now Indonesia (see Indonesia map).
The finding is based on an analysis of archaeological and historical records. It supports a long-held local belief that the elephants arrived there from the island of Sulu, which is now part of the Philippines.
The sultan of Java is thought to have sent the Javan elephants as a gift to the sultan of Sulu. For unknown reasons, descendants of the elephants were subsequently shipped to Borneo and abandoned.
Back on Java, the original population went extinct by the end of the 18th century, after the arrival of Europeans in Southeast Asia.
The gift to the sultan of Sulu may therefore have inadvertently kept the lineage alive.
"There's a lot of literature on these exchanges between the different courts," said Michael Stuewe, an elephant biologist for WWF, an international conservation organization.
"These elephants may be the oldest example of a wild [mammal] population that is saved without intention to do so by royalty and through a captive detour," Stuewe said.
DNA and Archaeology
Stuewe was not an author of the new study, but he was part of the research team that showed the Bornean elephants to be a genetically distinct population of Asian elephants.
He began studying them in 1999 as part of a project to determine how to protect wildlife from the rapid conversion of Southeast Asian forest habitat into palm oil plantations.
He noticed then that the elephants were unusual—shorter and rounder than other Asian elephants and with longer tails.
"They were like little cartoon figures of an elephant," he said.
(See photos of pygmy elephants below and the threats facing them.)
His colleagues at Columbia University in New York conducted DNA analysis in 2003 and found the Bornean population to be genetically distinct.
The team concluded the elephants were likely isolated on the island when the last land bridges connecting Borneo to the mainland disappeared some 18,000 years ago.
WWF's Junaidi Payne was a co-author of the genetics study and the new paper.
He and co-authors Earl of Cranbrook and Charles M.U. Leh were unable to find archaeological or historical evidence confirming the existence of so-called pygmy elephants on Borneo beyond a few centuries.
They concluded that the most plausible explanation is the Bornean elephant population "consists of remnant survivors of the extinct Javan population."
The study, the authors add, raises the importance of the Bornean population and suggests other large mammals could be saved from extinction by removal from threatened habitat to safer locations.
The research was published last week in the Sarawak Museum Journal.
Palm Oil Threat
Simon Hedges is the Asian elephant coordinator for the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society.
He said the new study makes a "plausible case" that the Bornean population is descended from the Javan elephants but that more research is needed before firm conclusions can be drawn.
If the authors of the new study are correct, he added, the remnant Javan population on Borneo will be important for genetic reasons, since it would contain material thought lost from the gene pool.
However, the population will likely be given less of a conservation priority, since it is outside its original wild range.
"[Such] factors are generally seen as downgrading the importance of such populations versus the truly wild animals," he said.
WWF's Stuewe noted that if the finding is confirmed, it will mark another instance in which royalty had inadvertently saved a mammal from extinction.
A similar fate met the alpine ibex, a mountain goat whose remaining population was protected by an Italian king in the 1850s, captive-bred by the Swiss, and reintroduced throughout the Alps in the 1900s.
European royalty imported Przewalski horses from Mongolia in the early 20th century for their stables. The wild horses went extinct in the 1960s. European captives were reintroduced to Mongolia in 1992.
"The ability of these large charismatic mammals to recover from what seem to be extreme [population] bottlenecks apparently is there," Stuewe said.
"There is a chance for these guys if you take care of them."
Palm Oil Threat
Today, Stuewe added, the elephants face new challenges from the rapidly developing palm oil industry in northeastern Borneo, where the remnant population is located.
Driven by surging demand from the biofuels industry, Stuewe said the forest is being converted to palm oil plantations at increasing rates.
"And unfortunately," he said, "oil palm plantations are to elephants what a candy store is to little kids—they just love them."
The love, however, is not shared by plantation managers who view the elephants as a nuisance and kill them. Biologists estimate about a thousand elephants remain on Borneo.
The only hope for these elephants now is protection of the lowland forest as nature reserves or sustainably managed logging concessions, Stuewe said.
Hedges, of the Wildlife Conservation Society, noted the palm oil expansion threatens a host of species on Borneo.
"One ultimately hopes that some of the expansions of the oil palm industry are going to be controlled and done in an appropriate way so that the whole suite of species at risk isn't wiped out," he said.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
What's palm oil got to do with orangutans?
Source: The Economic Times - June 4, 2008
Palm oil is everywhere. This globally traded vegetable oil is found in thousands of products you buy off the shelf, including ice cream, chocolate, biscuits, crisps, lipsticks, toothpaste, soap, detergents, cosmetics. It is also present in things you eat like Maharaja Macs and gulab jamuns.
On May 1, the world's largest consumer goods company Unilever pledged it would switch to palm oil that did not sign a death warrant for orangutans. Wilmar, the world's largest palm oil producer and owner of 'Fortune' brand in India, said it is double-checking operations to ensure orangutans remain safe. But why are palm oil suppliers and consumers so concerned about orangutans, and should you worry too? ET helps you join the dots.
Palm oil is the world's cheapest oil. India, China and EU make up the world's largest consumers of palm oil. UK is the second-biggest importer of palm oil in EU, behind the Netherlands. Since 1995, there has been a 90% increase in palm oil use in the EU and this will rise drastically as companies use palm oil to make biodiesel.
US agribusiness giants Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Bunge and Cargill are among the largest global traders of palm oil.
Wilmar International, also an ADM affiliate, has been under attack from NGO Friends of Earth (Netherlands) for allegedly using unsustainable practices in its plantations. Wilmar has refuted the charges.
Cargill is the fourth-largest exporter of palm oil from Malaysia and holds 14,000 acres of plantations in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Unilever and Nestle are the top users of palm oil globally. For every 20 litres of palm oil produced in Indonesia, one litre ends up in Unilever's hands.
But palm oil's very success has sealed the fate of orangutans, whose population has declined 90%, along with hundreds of other animal species that live in rainforests.
Originally from Western Africa, the oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) has become the plantation crop of the 21st century. Where heat and regular rainfall combine, it can flourish.
And Southeast Asia has become its home with ever-increasing areas being given over to this high-yielding crop. Each decade since 1980, palm oil production has doubled, mostly in Malaysia and Indonesia.
These two countries produce lion's share of total global output, which is projected to double by 2020.
Keen to cash in on demand, plantation owners have been rapidly clearing rainforests by chopping or setting fire to the vegetation. As forests get cleared, orangutans, facing starvation, desperately seek food in the developing plantations, and are considered an agricultural pest. It is estimated that no less than 5,000 orangutans are killed every year.
At this rate, complete extinction of one of our closest relatives would occur within 10 years.
Activists, NGOs and even some government bodies in the EU raised an outcry against this wanton destruction of rainforests and animal life and called for a boycott of palm oil.
It touched a chord and even retailers such as Sainsbury?s and Tesco began talking of saving the orangutan and rainforests. Realising that their most valuable customers may soon refuse to do business, Indonesia and Malaysia rapidly began damage control.
Plantation owners, along with players such as Unilever, Nestle, Tesco, Sainsbury's, agreed to establishing a Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in 2004 that would certify production of oil from non-destructive plantations.
The certification criteria were agreed at the end of 2007 and are now being applied on a two-year trial basis. So within the next few months, the first tankers of sustainable palm oil will become available.
Unilever chairman Patrick Cescau said on May Day it will start using certified palm oil as it becomes available in the second half of 2008 and have all the palm oil it uses in Europe fully traceable by 2012. That's not all.
Last week, food made from sustainable palm oil hit UK supermarket shelves for the first time. The first food containing certified sustainable palm oil will be Sainsbury's fish fingers.
By August 2008, it will be the first supermarket to use certified sustainable palm oil in the 3 million bars of own-label soap it sells annually. It will also convert all its own brand products to using only sustainable palm oil by 2014.
The big question now is whether RSPO would make a genuine difference or is simply an eyewash to help companies appear politically correct. It's too early to tell. But everyone seems to agree that RSPO certification will make maximum difference if all players in the supply chain insist on only buying sustainable palm oil.
Meanwhile, a new generation of orangutan babies can hope for a longer life.
Palm oil is everywhere. This globally traded vegetable oil is found in thousands of products you buy off the shelf, including ice cream, chocolate, biscuits, crisps, lipsticks, toothpaste, soap, detergents, cosmetics. It is also present in things you eat like Maharaja Macs and gulab jamuns.
On May 1, the world's largest consumer goods company Unilever pledged it would switch to palm oil that did not sign a death warrant for orangutans. Wilmar, the world's largest palm oil producer and owner of 'Fortune' brand in India, said it is double-checking operations to ensure orangutans remain safe. But why are palm oil suppliers and consumers so concerned about orangutans, and should you worry too? ET helps you join the dots.
Palm oil is the world's cheapest oil. India, China and EU make up the world's largest consumers of palm oil. UK is the second-biggest importer of palm oil in EU, behind the Netherlands. Since 1995, there has been a 90% increase in palm oil use in the EU and this will rise drastically as companies use palm oil to make biodiesel.
US agribusiness giants Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Bunge and Cargill are among the largest global traders of palm oil.
Wilmar International, also an ADM affiliate, has been under attack from NGO Friends of Earth (Netherlands) for allegedly using unsustainable practices in its plantations. Wilmar has refuted the charges.
Cargill is the fourth-largest exporter of palm oil from Malaysia and holds 14,000 acres of plantations in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Unilever and Nestle are the top users of palm oil globally. For every 20 litres of palm oil produced in Indonesia, one litre ends up in Unilever's hands.
But palm oil's very success has sealed the fate of orangutans, whose population has declined 90%, along with hundreds of other animal species that live in rainforests.
Originally from Western Africa, the oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) has become the plantation crop of the 21st century. Where heat and regular rainfall combine, it can flourish.
And Southeast Asia has become its home with ever-increasing areas being given over to this high-yielding crop. Each decade since 1980, palm oil production has doubled, mostly in Malaysia and Indonesia.
These two countries produce lion's share of total global output, which is projected to double by 2020.
Keen to cash in on demand, plantation owners have been rapidly clearing rainforests by chopping or setting fire to the vegetation. As forests get cleared, orangutans, facing starvation, desperately seek food in the developing plantations, and are considered an agricultural pest. It is estimated that no less than 5,000 orangutans are killed every year.
At this rate, complete extinction of one of our closest relatives would occur within 10 years.
Activists, NGOs and even some government bodies in the EU raised an outcry against this wanton destruction of rainforests and animal life and called for a boycott of palm oil.
It touched a chord and even retailers such as Sainsbury?s and Tesco began talking of saving the orangutan and rainforests. Realising that their most valuable customers may soon refuse to do business, Indonesia and Malaysia rapidly began damage control.
Plantation owners, along with players such as Unilever, Nestle, Tesco, Sainsbury's, agreed to establishing a Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in 2004 that would certify production of oil from non-destructive plantations.
The certification criteria were agreed at the end of 2007 and are now being applied on a two-year trial basis. So within the next few months, the first tankers of sustainable palm oil will become available.
Unilever chairman Patrick Cescau said on May Day it will start using certified palm oil as it becomes available in the second half of 2008 and have all the palm oil it uses in Europe fully traceable by 2012. That's not all.
Last week, food made from sustainable palm oil hit UK supermarket shelves for the first time. The first food containing certified sustainable palm oil will be Sainsbury's fish fingers.
By August 2008, it will be the first supermarket to use certified sustainable palm oil in the 3 million bars of own-label soap it sells annually. It will also convert all its own brand products to using only sustainable palm oil by 2014.
The big question now is whether RSPO would make a genuine difference or is simply an eyewash to help companies appear politically correct. It's too early to tell. But everyone seems to agree that RSPO certification will make maximum difference if all players in the supply chain insist on only buying sustainable palm oil.
Meanwhile, a new generation of orangutan babies can hope for a longer life.
The Threats Facing The Elephants
A tractor loads logs onto a truck in the Malaysian state of Sabah in northeast Borneo.
Sabah's quickly diminishing forests are home to the Borneo pygmy elephant. Human activity—including logging and the creation of wood and palm oil plantations—has caused elephants to enter unsuitable swamp areas and to restrict their ranges to narrow corridors, according to a WWF report released August 9, 2007.
“The conversion of forests to plantations remains the biggest threat to Sabah's elephants, because no plantation can provide the types and amounts of food necessary to sustain breeding populations of elephants,"WWF researchers wrote.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Tycoons buying endangered animals as 'status symbols'
From The Star Online Malaysia
By STEPHEN THEN
MIRI: Powerful towkays in Sarawak cities are paying good money to native trappers to capture endangered animals to put on display in their homes as “status symbols.”
Their demand has resulted in an increasingly active black market in exotic wildlife in certain parts of Sarawak, according to information received by environmental-conservation and native rights group Borneo Resources Institute.
Its Sarawak coordinator Raymond Abin told The Star that middlemen pay trappers well to hunt and capture the wild endangered animals alive and unhurt to be sold at high prices to rich men in towns who wish to display the animals in cages and chains.
This new trend only worsens the plight of wild animals already on the protected and endangered list after being hunted for their meat, especially those believed to have medicinal properties, he said.
Among the most sought after exotic animals for display are endangered mammals such as bears, rare monkeys, rare birds and even rare reptiles.
Abin was commenting on The Star’s reports about a sun bear that died after it was kept in a tiny cage for more than six months for display to tourists at a private farm along the Miri-Bintulu Second Coastal Highway recently.
A private farm was said to have a variety of animals including sun bears, macaques and gibbons.
He said the Sarawak Wildlife Department and Sarawak Forestry must find out how the farm owner got the sun bear.
“Unless the link is uncovered and severed by the authorities, this wildlife trade will not stop.
Miri Wildlife Department enforcement chief Abang Arabi Abang Imran said investigations failed to uncover the sun bear’s remains as farm workers refused to disclose what happened.
Sources said yesterday the farm belonged to an influential property developer and the wildlife department officers were afraid to interrogate him.
By STEPHEN THEN
MIRI: Powerful towkays in Sarawak cities are paying good money to native trappers to capture endangered animals to put on display in their homes as “status symbols.”
Their demand has resulted in an increasingly active black market in exotic wildlife in certain parts of Sarawak, according to information received by environmental-conservation and native rights group Borneo Resources Institute.
Its Sarawak coordinator Raymond Abin told The Star that middlemen pay trappers well to hunt and capture the wild endangered animals alive and unhurt to be sold at high prices to rich men in towns who wish to display the animals in cages and chains.
This new trend only worsens the plight of wild animals already on the protected and endangered list after being hunted for their meat, especially those believed to have medicinal properties, he said.
Among the most sought after exotic animals for display are endangered mammals such as bears, rare monkeys, rare birds and even rare reptiles.
Abin was commenting on The Star’s reports about a sun bear that died after it was kept in a tiny cage for more than six months for display to tourists at a private farm along the Miri-Bintulu Second Coastal Highway recently.
A private farm was said to have a variety of animals including sun bears, macaques and gibbons.
He said the Sarawak Wildlife Department and Sarawak Forestry must find out how the farm owner got the sun bear.
“Unless the link is uncovered and severed by the authorities, this wildlife trade will not stop.
Miri Wildlife Department enforcement chief Abang Arabi Abang Imran said investigations failed to uncover the sun bear’s remains as farm workers refused to disclose what happened.
Sources said yesterday the farm belonged to an influential property developer and the wildlife department officers were afraid to interrogate him.
Scientists Discover New Animal and Plant Species Hidden Deep in Borneo Jungles
From The Nature Conservancy
http://www.nature.org/pressroom/press/press1707.html
Expedition of Indonesian Caves and Cliffs Reveal Record Levels of Biodiversity, but Logging and Fires Threaten to Destroy Unique Plant and Animal Life
East Kalimantan, Indonesia — December 20, 2004 — A team of international scientists led by The Nature Conservancy today announced the discovery of at least two new fish species and a variety of previously unknown insect, snail and plant species living in the karst systems of Borneo.
During a five-week expedition through the karst systems – limestone caves, cliffs and sinkholes – the scientists also documented high levels of rare plant and animal species found only in Borneo. The expedition was the first biological study ever to document the plant and animal species that live in the karst systems of the East Kalimantan region of Borneo.
“The team’s discovery of such a wide variety of plants and animals, and particularly the high number of rare species found nowhere else on Earth, shows the critical need to protect this area from the growing threats of logging, mining and fire,” said Scott Stanley, the Conservancy’s Program Manager for East Kalimantan. “This area appears to have the largest number of endemic species of any ecosystem on Borneo.”
The expedition team surveyed four karst systems in the Sangkulirang Peninsula of East Kalimantan. Several of these karst areas have already been hit by devastating fires in recent years. Illegal logging and mining operations are quickly spreading through the area, destroying critical habitat and contributing to the spread of wildfires.
The areas surveyed by the expedition team currently have no protective status and are highly vulnerable to damaging human activities.
“In just five weeks, the expedition team discovered numerous new species previously unknown to science. Who knows what else is out there?” Stanley said. “If something is not done soon to protect these areas, dozens of species could disappear before anyone knew they ever existed.”
Along with the new discoveries, scientists documented 34 different bat species living in the surveyed area – more than in any other area of Kalimantan, including protected preserves. Several of the bat species had never before been found in Kalimantan.
Scientists also documented 124 species of birds in the karst areas, nearly one-third of all the non-migratory, non-wetland birds found in Borneo.
And at least five new insect species, including a “monster” cockroach, a “micro-crab,” and a giant troglobitic (cave specialist) millipede were also discovered.
“Nearly all of the insects we collected are new to science,” said Louis DeHarveng, an entomologist and director of research of the French Academy of Science who participated in the survey. “Sangkulirang appears to have some of the most diverse cave species on Earth.”
Other notable discoveries made during the expedition were:
* At least two new species of begonias
* One new species of Monophyllaea (a one-leafed plant)
* Two new species of snails
* Several new fish species
The expedition of the Sangkulirang karst systems was conducted from July 31 to September 3, 2004. The Nature Conservancy sponsored and organized the trip with the financial support of the Sall Family Foundation. Among those participating in the expedition were scientists from Indonesia’s Institute of Sciences, the U.S. Park Service, the University of London, the French Academy of Science, and the Singapore Botanical Garden.
http://www.nature.org/pressroom/press/press1707.html
Expedition of Indonesian Caves and Cliffs Reveal Record Levels of Biodiversity, but Logging and Fires Threaten to Destroy Unique Plant and Animal Life
East Kalimantan, Indonesia — December 20, 2004 — A team of international scientists led by The Nature Conservancy today announced the discovery of at least two new fish species and a variety of previously unknown insect, snail and plant species living in the karst systems of Borneo.
During a five-week expedition through the karst systems – limestone caves, cliffs and sinkholes – the scientists also documented high levels of rare plant and animal species found only in Borneo. The expedition was the first biological study ever to document the plant and animal species that live in the karst systems of the East Kalimantan region of Borneo.
“The team’s discovery of such a wide variety of plants and animals, and particularly the high number of rare species found nowhere else on Earth, shows the critical need to protect this area from the growing threats of logging, mining and fire,” said Scott Stanley, the Conservancy’s Program Manager for East Kalimantan. “This area appears to have the largest number of endemic species of any ecosystem on Borneo.”
The expedition team surveyed four karst systems in the Sangkulirang Peninsula of East Kalimantan. Several of these karst areas have already been hit by devastating fires in recent years. Illegal logging and mining operations are quickly spreading through the area, destroying critical habitat and contributing to the spread of wildfires.
The areas surveyed by the expedition team currently have no protective status and are highly vulnerable to damaging human activities.
“In just five weeks, the expedition team discovered numerous new species previously unknown to science. Who knows what else is out there?” Stanley said. “If something is not done soon to protect these areas, dozens of species could disappear before anyone knew they ever existed.”
Along with the new discoveries, scientists documented 34 different bat species living in the surveyed area – more than in any other area of Kalimantan, including protected preserves. Several of the bat species had never before been found in Kalimantan.
Scientists also documented 124 species of birds in the karst areas, nearly one-third of all the non-migratory, non-wetland birds found in Borneo.
And at least five new insect species, including a “monster” cockroach, a “micro-crab,” and a giant troglobitic (cave specialist) millipede were also discovered.
“Nearly all of the insects we collected are new to science,” said Louis DeHarveng, an entomologist and director of research of the French Academy of Science who participated in the survey. “Sangkulirang appears to have some of the most diverse cave species on Earth.”
Other notable discoveries made during the expedition were:
* At least two new species of begonias
* One new species of Monophyllaea (a one-leafed plant)
* Two new species of snails
* Several new fish species
The expedition of the Sangkulirang karst systems was conducted from July 31 to September 3, 2004. The Nature Conservancy sponsored and organized the trip with the financial support of the Sall Family Foundation. Among those participating in the expedition were scientists from Indonesia’s Institute of Sciences, the U.S. Park Service, the University of London, the French Academy of Science, and the Singapore Botanical Garden.
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