Malaysia: Tree corridors have vital role to save the orang utan

The Star 15 Nov 10;

SANDAKAN: Modest conservation efforts can ensure the long-term survival of the endangered, isolated orang utan populations in the lower Kinabatangan region in Sabah's east coast.

Local and foreign wildlife researchers and conservationists found that translocating one primate every 20 years and establishing tree corridors among remaining patches of forests surrounded by oil palm plantations would be enough to sustain the primates.

The study, carried out by the Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) in collaboration with Cardiff University, Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC) and the non-governmental organisation HUTAN was recently published in the journal Endangered Species Research (http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/esr/v12/n3/p249-261/).

"We found that non-intervention resulted in a high extinction risk for a number of sub-populations over short demographic time scales and that the exclusive use of either translocation or corridor establishment as a management tool was insufficient to prevent in-breeding and extinction in the most isolated sub-populations," said DGFC director and co-author of the study Dr Benoit Goossens.

Participants to the 2009 Orang Utan Conservation Colloquium recognised the importance of corridors and the need to reestablish connections between orang utan populations, said co-director of HUTAN and an author of the paper Marc Ancrenaz.

"Our study once more emphasises the importance of reestablishing habitat connectivity and to do it quickly, or else we will inevitably lose small orang utan populations through in-breeding and demographic instability," stressed Ancrenaz.

The last patches of forests found in Kinabatangan are disconnected by oil palm estates that cut off the forest up to the river bank.

In these conditions, orang utan cannot move from one forest to the next.