O

rangutans in Indonesia are following the same path toward extinction as the equally magnificent tigers, rhino and elephants. How can I be so sure?

One needs only to do the simple math.

Even before the impact of the bushmeat trade (see “Orangutans killed for meat in Kalimantan”, Nov. 2) was known, the Indonesian government acknowledged that at least 3,000 orangutans had been killed each year since the 1970s.

It has to be said that no one really knows for sure how many orangutans are deliberately killed each year, but few would dispute a figure closer to 5,000. With less than 50,000 orangutans remaining in Kalimantan and Sumatra combined, the mathematics are very simple. In 10 years, orangutans could be all but extinct, particularly in Kalimantan.

Ten years from now there may still be a few orangutans remaining in isolated forests in Sumatra, but the more likely outcome will be. If you want to see Indonesia’s only great ape, you will need to visit a zoo, and anyone familiar with conditions in Indonesian zoos would not wish that upon even their worst enemies.

At a conference in December 2007, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono — while accepting millions of dollars of US aid to protect both forests and orangutans — proclaimed to much fanfare, “The fate of the orangutan is a subject that goes to the heart of sustainable forests ... to save the orangutan we have to save the forest.” But since then he has done neither.

Things have gone from bad to disastrous, and predictably, there is nothing to show for the US$10 million-plus of American taxpayers’ money either.

Since that conference, the decline in the orangutan population has, if anything, accelerated and shows no sign of slowing.

There is no conservation plan or government policy worth giving the time of day to, and no law enforcement. Just imagine, since the 1970s, some 200,000 legally protected orangutans have been killed, but there has never been a single prosecution. This says all there is to say about the attitude of the government toward protecting both orangutans and their habitat.  

Indonesia without tigers, elephants, rhinos, orangutans and a great many other species, may be unthinkable, but that does not make it any less likely.

Based on population statistics and not emotions, the demise of these species is all but guaranteed. What will the President and his ministers then say to any child enquiring, “Why did you not save them when there was still time to?”

Only the President knows why. Instead of protecting these unique species and their habitat for future generations to experience, he sits and presides over this never-ending environmental disaster we see exposed in the newspapers every day, while doing nothing to stop it.

Sean Whyte
England