Joint border orangutan protection urged
Published on: Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Kota Kinabalu: World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Malaysia and Indonesia have repeated their call to timber firms and stakeholders to better protect orangutans located along the borders of the Borneo states of both nations. The two WWF bodies plan to advocate orangutan conservation by demanding those involved to adopt an Orangutan Transboundary Action Plan, which was formulated by the Sarawak Forestry Department under the Heart of Borneo Initiative (HoB). WWF said the primates can be found in fragmented forests of Sabah and Sarawak, bordering Kalimantan, Indonesia.
ADVERTISEMENT
The effort is in conjunction with the International Orangutan Day (formerly known as World Orangutan Day), where it also called for "land users" to contribute their part to ensure the survival of these great apes, found only in Borneo and Sumatera. WWF-Malaysia Chief Executive Officer Datuk Dr Dionysius Sharma said: "To achieve an orangutan management plan, there is need to develop an ecological connectivity for wildlife movement and secure good standing forest in the HoB." For instance, he said, having an ecological connectivity in Batang Ai National Park and Lanjak Entimau Wildlife Sanctuary, Sarawak and Betung Kerihun National Park, in Kalimantan and adjacent logging concession areas is pivotal in conservation. "We call on companies to adopt the Orangutan Transboundary Action Plan where orangutans occur in these protected areas which are next to their logging concession areas," he said.
ADVERTISEMENT
He pointed out that better protection of orangutans can benefit other flora and fauna species in those areas. "Our study shows that 70 per cent of orangutan population in Betung Kerihun National Park in West Kalimantan is located in transboundary areas, bordering with Malaysia's Lanjak Entimau Wildlife Sanctuary," said WWF-Indonesia CEO, Dr. Efransjah."This highlights the importance of collaboration between the two countries in protecting the species". In Kalimantan, more than 70 per cent of orangutans live outside protected areas, including in forest concessions, giving a challenge for them to survive, he said.
ADVERTISEMENT
Therefore, participation of businesses for management of wildlife habitat in their concession areas, is vital to ensure orangutans' protection."WWF-Indonesia has been working with concessions owners in Kalimantan to help them protect the orangutan on their lands by developing and implementing orangutan management plans. "The concessions cover 300,000 hectares, which is over a third of orangutan priority area in the Arut Belantikan orangutan landscape in Kalimantan," he said. Through WWF facilitation, one of the concessions, PT Suka Jaya Makmur, located in Ketapang, West Kalimantan managed to integrate management plan between production forest and Orangutan conservation, and therefore received globally accepted FSC certification. This is the first time in Indonesia that a forestry company has developed such plan for orangutan and reaching gold standard sustainable practices.Generally, the Bornean orangutan is listed on Appendix I of CITES which means the species is threatened with extinction. The great apes face threats in the form of conversion of forests for agriculture, mining and settlement, which reduced their habitat by at least 55 per cent over the past 20 years. They also face threats from forest fires and demand for young orangutans in the pet trade. In 2004, it is estimated that there are about 54,000 orangutans in Borneo, distributed across lowland tropical rainforests in Indonesia and Malaysia. Head of Indonesia's Heart of Borneo National Working Group, Dr. Prabianto Mukti Wibowo, said the government of Indonesia is committed in conservation and sustainable development of the HoB. To ensure delivery of HoB vision, including tackling deforestation and biodiversity conservation, he said it is pivotal to restore deforested critical areas and ensure connectivity of wildlife corridors for biodiversity, while at the same time promote sustainable management of timber production forests and also sustainable palm oil. Thus, participation of private sectors and local communities in the area are key factors. "This vision will showcase real implementation of green economy thinking, in which business operates without harming endangered species."Borneo is unique as it has three distinct populations or subspecies of Orangutans: Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus (northwest populations), Pongo pygmaeus morio (northeast and east populations) and Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii (southwest populations).Forest Department Sarawak Director, Sapuan Ahmad, said currently research is still done by various organisations on orangutan and other species in the HoB and surrounding areas. "The department's main concerns are sustainable forest management, ecotourism-based on culture, adventure and nature, conservation of biological diversity, sustainable agriculture and land use and community-based rural poverty eradication programme." In view of the importance of the area, the department will monitor all programmes carried out to ensure that these are in line with the stated policy of sustainable management and conservation of habitat, he said. WWF-Malaysia commended concerted conservation efforts made by Sabah State Government which resulted in orangutan coming back to the area. The Sabah Forestry Department Director, Datuk Sam Mannan, said together with WWF-Malaysia, they carried out reforestation of degraded orangutan habitat in an area of about 2,400 hectares in Bukit Piton Forest Reserve since 2005. Bukit Piton Forest Reserve was critically degraded due to logging and forest fire in the past, with a small orangutan population of 170 to 300 between 2007 and 2008. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
Daily Express Malaysia
