Extinction or Extermination?

I have been asked by Fen Montaigne, Senior Editor of Yale Environment 360, an online publication of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, to disseminate a moving story and photographs by Rhett Butler of Mongabay.com that they have just posted on the plight of orphaned orangutans in Borneo and Sumatra.

As Borneo's rain forests are razed for oil palm plantations, wildlife centers are taking in more and more orphaned orangutans and preparing them for reintroduction into the wild. But the endangered primates now face a new threat - there is not enough habitat where they can be returned.

I have permission to repost the entire article which highlights a fundamental problem in the mindset of Indonesia's government and bureaucracies: there is little forward planning or consideration of consequences.

Most critically, reintroduction to areas where people are present doesn't bode well for orangutans if the needs of locals are not met.

For reintroduction it is equally important to create a safe political environment as it is a physical environment. If a program is implemented from above with no care or attention given to the local community surrounding it, the project is likely doomed to fail.

As the article is lengthy at 2000+ words, I urge you read it at source and do your bit to remake Indonesia into a country fit for all living creatures.

Applying bandaid solutions is not enough.

"Rehabilitation is an example of treating the symptom, rather than the cause."

Not only orangutans are in danger of extinction here - or should that word be 'extermination'?

There are about 50 Javan rhinos remaining in Ujong Kulon National Park, at the north-west tip of Java, out of a total estimated number of 100 living in the wild, making it one of the critically endangered and one of the rarest species of the five different rhinoceros species.

The Paneglang regency administration and legislative council are trying to upgrade the Ujung Kulon National Park (TNUK) from National Park status to World Wildlife Park status.

The Sumatran rhino is also endangered with only 200 remaining in Indonesia and Malaysia. If you want to "adopt" a rhino, you can visit the website of the International Rhino Foundation here.
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There are a number of links to Primate Protection sites in the right sidebar.