06/09/2005 – Hundreds of
orang-utans are either killed or captured
every year in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part
of Borneo.
A new TRAFFIC report, launched today to coincide
with the Inter-governmental conference of
UNESCO’s Great Apes Survival Project in Kinshasa
(DRC), warns that such a trend will further
the species’ decline towards extinction.
Based on data collected over a two-year period
from wildlife markets and private owners,
zoological gardens, wildlife rescue centres,
reintroduction programmes, and the Indonesian
Department of Forestry, the report shows that
between 200 and 500 Bornean orang-utans originating
from Kalimantan, are traded each year on Kalimantan,
Java, and Bali alone.
The vast majority are very young individuals,
captured as pets.
For the majority of orang-utans observed
in trade, the report highlights that at least
one other has died (usually its mother) —
which means that the total numbers killed
or captured each year are likely to be far
higher.
With a total population of orang-utans on
Kalimantan estimated to be as low as 40,000,
the annual removal of such a high number of
orang-utans from the wild could be a death
sentence for the population.
According to the report, the trade in orang-utans
on Kalimantan has not decreased in the past
15 years. It also finds that although many
orang-utans and gibbons have been confiscated
by authorities during the last decade in Kalimantan,
not a single offender has been prosecuted
to date.
The average price for an orang-utan on sale
in Java is US$400, 2-3 times the original
price paid to hunters in Kalimantan.
"This is an alarming finding,"
said James Compton, Director of TRAFFIC Southeast
Asia. "It clearly shows that there is
a large discrepancy between what national
conservation laws aim to achieve and what
happens on the ground."
TRAFFIC and WWF are calling on the Indonesian
government for stricter implementation of
the legislation on protection of threatened
species.
Under this law, orang-utans and gibbons are
classified as “protected”, which forbids capturing,
killing, possessing, and trading these species.
"People who have been found in possession
of protected wildlife, such as orang-utans
should be prosecuted to give a clear signal
to other offenders," said Dr Susan Lieberman,
Director of WWF's Global Species Programme.
"We call on Indonesian authorities to
take urgent action, and to do more to make
enforcement officers and the public aware
that keeping or buying protected animals is
a crime, and will not be left unpunished."
Besides hunting and trade to satisfy the
persistent demand for pets, orang-utans and
gibbons in Kalimantan also suffer from the
loss of their forest habitat to logging, agriculture,
and forest fires.
NOTES:
• There are two species of orang-utan: Bornean
and Sumatran. Bornean orang-utans are distributed
patchily throughout the Indonesian state of
Kalimantan and the Malaysian states of Sarawak
and Sabah, on the island of Borneo. Today,
they number around 55,000. Sumatran orang-utans
were once found throughout the island of Sumatra,
Indonesia. Today, this Critically Endangered
species numbers about 7,500 individuals.
• TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring
network, works to ensure that trade in wild
plants and animals is not a threat to the
conservation of nature. TRAFFIC is a joint
programme of WWF, the conservation organization,
and IUCN – The World Conservation Union.
