Sunday, March 05, 2006
Update from the field - BOS
An edited latest update from Michelle Desilets, Director of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Project - UK appears here, dated March 1st 2006 - please do contact them and subscribe at www.savetheorangutan.org.uk for the full, very moving report.
I have now returned from Borneo, and would like to take this opportunity to update you further. In the just over 3 weeks that I was at the project, 23 rescues took place, and one of the rescue teams was out again on the day I left. In the early hours of the morning on which I departed, the first rescue team returned with a baby girl orangutan, just a few weeks old. Our team reported seeing dozens of orangutans on the edge of the forest where it met the 30 kilometer stretch of palm oil plantation in which they were rescuing. In the days and weeks to come, these, too, will need to be rescued-otherwise they face almost certain death if they venture into the plantation in search of food.
Our facility, as previously mentioned, is beyond capacity. The wild orangutans that we are rescuing must now remain in our care until a new and safe release site can be secured. Ex-captive orangutans, ready for release into the wild, also must wait for the decisions of the Indonesian authorities as to whether we can release in the remote northern regions of Central Kalimantan. Meanwhile, throughout the region, orangutans' forests are being decimated for the conversion to oil palm. The result: more and more victims, and less and less space to put the survivors. Unless we can secure this release site very soon, and unless we can afford to put up some more temporary cages to hold the wild orangutans until that time, we will soon be faced with the devastating situation of having to turn away orangutans in need.
The international community must insist that the Indonesian government approve secure release sites for displaced and rehabilitated orangutans, and we also must demand that no further conversion of orangutan habitat take place. (There are 25 million hectares of already degraded land suitable for oil palm cultivation).
I have now returned from Borneo, and would like to take this opportunity to update you further. In the just over 3 weeks that I was at the project, 23 rescues took place, and one of the rescue teams was out again on the day I left. In the early hours of the morning on which I departed, the first rescue team returned with a baby girl orangutan, just a few weeks old. Our team reported seeing dozens of orangutans on the edge of the forest where it met the 30 kilometer stretch of palm oil plantation in which they were rescuing. In the days and weeks to come, these, too, will need to be rescued-otherwise they face almost certain death if they venture into the plantation in search of food.
Our facility, as previously mentioned, is beyond capacity. The wild orangutans that we are rescuing must now remain in our care until a new and safe release site can be secured. Ex-captive orangutans, ready for release into the wild, also must wait for the decisions of the Indonesian authorities as to whether we can release in the remote northern regions of Central Kalimantan. Meanwhile, throughout the region, orangutans' forests are being decimated for the conversion to oil palm. The result: more and more victims, and less and less space to put the survivors. Unless we can secure this release site very soon, and unless we can afford to put up some more temporary cages to hold the wild orangutans until that time, we will soon be faced with the devastating situation of having to turn away orangutans in need.
The international community must insist that the Indonesian government approve secure release sites for displaced and rehabilitated orangutans, and we also must demand that no further conversion of orangutan habitat take place. (There are 25 million hectares of already degraded land suitable for oil palm cultivation).
# posted by Neil @ 9:02 pm 
