State of Emergency for the Orangutan

A new report entitled "The Last Stand of the Orangutan: State of Emergency" was presented at the 24^th Session of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Governing Council in Kenya this week. The "rapid response" report estimates that 98% of the orangutan's last remaining habitat could be lost by 2022.

The report shows that the Indonesian rainforest is being destroyed faster that previously thought, which estimated the loss of the rainforest by 2032. New satellite imagery shows that the on-going problem with illegal logging in Indonesia is moving into the national parks in the island country. Estimates have illegal logging accounts for nearly 73% of all logging in the country, according to the report written by the Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP) and found on the UNEP's website.

In the report, it states that "at current rates of intrusion, it is likely that some parks may become severely degraded in as little to 3 to 5 years." This is a 30% increase in the rate of loss than previously estimated by the UNEP and GRASP in 2002 in a report presented at the World Summit for Sustainable Development. The illegal logging is taking place in 37 of 41 national parks in Indonesia.

Indonesia has been active in the fight against illegal logging, and according to the BBC has even gone so far as to deploy both army and navy personnel to arrest loggers. Indonesia has also recently announced the formation of special ranger units to go after loggers. However, the global demand for cheap timber seems to be the primary motivation for the illegal cutting, and without doing more on an international level to curb demand, the deforestation will most likely continue.

The Indonesian Environmental Minister, Rachmat Witoelar, said in the GRASP report that "policing and enforcing Indonesia's vast parks is immense." He also says that there are 2000 rangers to patrol over 100,000 square kilometers. He also said to the BBC, "do not buy uncertified wood." Currently, the US has a pact with Indonesia to verify legal timber, and the EU is in talks to draft a similar pact. The other major importer of Indonesian timber is China.

The orangutan once inhabited all of Southeast Asia, but now only lives on the islands of Borneo, where it is classified as endangered, and Sumatra, where the orangutan is critically endangered. In 2002, the estimated number of Bornean orangutans was between 45,000 and 69,000, but that number is feared to have been decreased by half since that estimate. The Sumatran orangutan numbers less than 8,000.

Also threatened by the loss of the Indonesian rainforest is the endangered Sumatran tiger, the Sumatran rhinoceros, and the Asian elephant. The ever-quickening loss of the forests in Indonesia is being called "a conservation emergency" by the UNEP.