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Fires in Indonesia kill 1,000 endangered orangutans mongabay.com November 6, 2006 Willie Smits, an ecologist at the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation in Indonesia, told Reuters that the fires forced hungry orangutans into agricultural areas where they were killed as pests. Orangutans are known for feeding on fruit of oil palm and other crops in fields adjacent to forest areas. "Orangutans are starving. They are sick and many of those we are treating were injured after being attacked by machetes," Smits told Reuters. He added that many orangutans that came to conservation centers are suffering from respiratory problems caused by the haze.
Environmental groups have warned that red ape could be extinct in the wild without urgent conservation measures. Recently WWF has launched the "Heart of Borneo" campaign to pressure Indonesia's government to protect orangutan habitat by establishing reserves and cracking down on illegal logging and oil palm plantations. Nevertheless, the outlook for Orangutans is not promising. Indonesia has an appallingly high deforestation rate and seems impotent in reigning im illegal forest clearing. In recent years neighboring countries have become increasingly vocal in criticizing Indonesia's lack of progress in addressing forest fires. RELATED ARTICLES Saving Orangutans in Borneo. I'm in Tanjung Puting National Park in southern Kalimantan on the island of Borneo. At 400,000 hectares (988,000 acres) Tanjung Puting is the largest protected expanse of coastal tropical heath and peat swamp forest in southeast Asia. It's also one of the biggest remaining habitats for the critically endangered orangutan, the population of which has been great diminished in recent years due to habitat destruction and poaching. Orangutans have become the focus of a much wider effort to save Borneo's natural environment. Orangutan population plunges 43% in Indonesia. The Wildlife Conservation Society-Indonesia Program (WCS-IP) said that Indonesia's population of orangutans fell nearly 43 percent in the past decade, from 35,000 in 1996 to 20,000 today. The decline has been caused by ongoing forest destruction and poaching in Kalimantan (Borneo) and Sumatra, the only two islands that still support wild orangutans. This article used information from Reuters and past mongabay.com articles. Recommend this article? Comments? >Digg this article | >Hugg this article | Contact News options
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