Ismira Lutfia, Jakarta Globe 13 May 09;
The construction of a road connecting the towns of Sangatta and Bontang in East Kalimantan has caused massive deforestation of a nearby national park and left hundreds of orangutans homeless, a conservation group said on Wednesday.
The deforestation of Kutai National Park — a natural habitat for the orangutans — has reduced the primates’ population from 600 in 2004 to just 30 counted this year.
The 60-kilometer arterial road was even built straight through the protected forest, said Yon Thayrun, a campaign manager for the Jakarta-based conservation group, Center for Orangutan Protection.
Yon said that local authorities had compromised the park for short-term political gain in the wake of regional autonomy and the splitting up of Kutai district into three districts.
“The national park is quickly changing into a town with its own airport, gas station, market, base transceiver stations and even a red-light district,” Yon said, adding that the group’s investigation had found that the mass mobilization of people from the neighboring islands of Sulawesi, Java and Madura had caused the human settlement to spring up when vast tracts of land went on sale.
The settlement and neighboring palm oil plantations replaced the indigenous ironwood trees in which the pongo pygmaeus morio , a Kalimantan orangutan subspecies, built their nests.
The number of people living in the converted forest was estimated to be about 70,000, according to local NGOs Bebsic and Bikal, although the official population figures only showed 22,876, Yon said.
The national park was declared as a protected forest in 1982, covering a 198,600 hectare area. It is home to about 80 species of mammals and 958 different kinds of flora.
Yon said that both sides of the arterial road were now barren, with not a single tree in sight as they had all been cut
down to make way for further land development.
Hardi Baktiantoro, or Bakti, a campaigner for the group said that the deforestation violated the 1990 biodiversity and ecosystem conservation law.
“We need the central government’s commitment to enforce the law on conservation areas,” Bakti said, adding that the deforestation was a great loss for the country in terms of commercial and ecological value.
“Orangutans are a primate typical to Indonesia only,” Yon said, “surely we do not want it to become extinct in the next few years.”
Forestry Ministry Called On To Help Rescue Orangutans
Putri Prameshwari, Jakarta Globe 15 May 09;
At least eight orangutans are being held illegally in poor conditions in West Kalimantan, and are in urgent need of rescue, an animal activist said Thursday.
Hardi Baktiantoro, executive director of the Center for Orangutan Protection (COP), said that his organization had already sent a letter to the Ministry of Forestry requesting assistance to rescue the orangutans. “However, we’ve still had no response.”
The orangutans, he said, were being held by local residents who had bought them illegally from a number of black market traders in the province. Aged between 3 and 9 years old, the primates were living in squalid cages and could only eat what their owners gave them.
According to COP, the eight captive orangutans were 3-year-old Djinggo, 5-year-olds Neng, Jojo and Jimo, 6-year-old Binyo as well as Pinky, Lupis and Lupus, all 9 years old.
They were all being held in the West Kalimantan provincial capital of Pontianak, in Kapuas Hulu and Sintang districts.
“For example, Jojo has to live outside the owner’s house with his feet tied to a wooden bar. And he has to drink waste water from the house,” Baktiantoro said.
The forestry ministry, he said, had to take urgent action to rescue the orangutans and to return them to their natural habitat. “The government’s inaction gives the impression they are not fully committed to releasing these orangutans.”
Tony Suhartono, the forestry ministry’s director of biodiversity conservation, said that the government had acknowledged the existence of the orangutans, but it would take more time and more resources before they could be prepared for release.
“Those orangutans have been raised by humans,” he explained. “They will have problems if they’re suddenly released into the wild.”
Suhartono admitted that both human resources and technical assistance were still in short supply at the ministry.
“We don’t have an orangutan expert,” he said. “The best we can do is establish partnerships with NGOs and universities, which we have already done.”
Returning the primates to their habitat, he said, required a long rehabilitation process to ensure they adapt properly to living in the jungle.
