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70% orangutan habitats outside protected forests
The Environment and Forestry Ministryâs biodiversity conservation director, Bambang Dahono Adji, says it is not easy to save the orangutan from the threat of extinction as 70 percent of their habitats are outside protected forests
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he Environment and Forestry Ministry's biodiversity conservation director, Bambang Dahono Adji, says it is not easy to save the orangutan from the threat of extinction as 70 percent of their habitats are outside protected forests.
'I think it's much easier to change protected areas into other utilization areas (APL) than change production forests into protected forests,' he said as quoted by Antara in Jakarta on Thursday.
Under such circumstances, Dahono said, it would be very helpful those with industrial forest permits (HTIs) and production forest concessions (HPHs) could provide areas for conservation.
Nature Conservancy program manager Niel Makinuddin said among the threats faced by the orangutan was the conversion of forests to plantation and mining areas.
He said the degradation of forested areas that hosted orangutan habitats had reached 1.5 percent annually in Sumatra and 2 percent in Kalimantan. Forest fires and the excessive hunting of wildlife also posed threats to orangutan populations, he went on.
Among measures TNC has recommended to save orangutan populations and habitats, especially in Kalimantan, is spatial planning improvement.
Based on TNC data, orangutan habitats that overlap with oil palm plantations and HTI and HPH areas in Central, East, North and West Kalimantan have reached 103,917 square kilometers. Meanwhile, orangutan habitats that overlap with mining-related areas have reached 42,572 square kilometers. (ebf) (++++)
