orangutans barely hanging on by amy clanin

Winter 2008

Is There Value in TWS Certification?

Medical Mystery at Red Rim

Managing Gray Wolves

The Endangered Species Act Turns 35

Vol. 2 No. 4

The Price of Protection

5www.wildlife.org© The Wildlife Society

6 Editor’s Note

8 Letters to the Editor

10 Leadership Letter

12 Science in Short

14 State of Wildlife

19 Today’s Wildlife Professional: Katherine Kendall

feaTure STory

22 The Price of Protection

By Divya Abhat

roTaTing feaTureS

30 Human-Wildlife Connection Managing a Charismatic Carnivore By Katherine Unger

34 Commentary The Danger of Wolves By Valerius Geist

36 Human-Wildlife Connection Orangutans Barely Hanging On By Amy Clanin

42 Professional Development Is There Value in TWS Certification? Articles by Thomas Decker, Alan Crossley,

and Michael Hutchins

47 Health and Disease Medical Mystery at Red Rim By Lisa Moore LaRoe

53 Plans and Practices Sweat Equity at East Bay By David Riensche

57 Tools and Technology A Tool for Envisioning Conservation By Rob Riordan

63 Reviews Western Eyes on China’s Wildlife By Jiang Zhigang

65 The Society Page TWS news and events

68 Gotcha! Photos submitted by readers

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Vol. 2 No. 4

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More Online!This publication is available online to TWS members at wildlife.org. Throughout the magazine, mouse icons and text printed in blue indicate that links to more information are available online.

Credit: Hardi Baktiantoro/Centre for Orangutan Protection

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© The Wildlife Society

Orangutans Barely Hanging On

By Amy Clanin

CAn they survive the spreAd of oil-pAlm plAntAtions?

Deep in the heart of Borneo and Sumatra lie the last remaining forest habitats of the elu-sive orangutan, Earth’s largest tree-dwelling

animal and the only great ape living outside of Africa. On the islands of Sumatra (in Indonesia) and Borneo (which straddles Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei), the orangutan—a Malay word meaning “person of the forest”—is a symbol of pride. The pri-mate’s forest home, however, is disappearing fast.

Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii) are now criti-cally endangered and Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) are endangered (2008 IUCN Red List). In 2003 conservation organizations and researchers combined ground surveys and satellite imagery to compile comprehensive estimates of orangutan pop-ulations. That data and some recent updates suggest there are only about 6,500 orangutans remaining in Sumatra and roughly 54,000 in Borneo (Wich et al.

2008). Erik Meijaard, senior ecologist with The Na-ture Conservancy (TNC) in Indonesia, says the total number could possibly be as low as 50,000. “We know that they are dying on a daily basis,” he says. The leading cause of the decline for both spe-cies is the destruction of their tropical rain forest habitat for logging and conversion to crops, particularly oil-palm plantations. According to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), “98 percent of the forest [in Indonesia] may be destroyed by 2022” (UNEP 2007). Protected areas are not immune. “At cur-rent rates of intrusion into national parks,” the report states, “it is likely that many protected areas will already be severely degraded in three to five years.” This dire situation spotlights the conflicting demands of wildlife conservation and human economic growth.

Palm oil is much like other agricultural com-modities such as coffee, cocoa, soybeans, and sugarcane: As demand for a product rises, land is cleared to make way for crops, destroying wildlife habitat in the process (Clay 2004). Today the global market is hungry for palm oil, used as an alternative for trans-fats in many foods such as chocolate and ice cream, and in cleaning agents and cosmetics. Palm oil is also in high demand as a biodiesel fuel, a cleaner alternative to carbon-based petroleum. Ian Singleton, conservation director for the Sumatran Orangutan Conserva-tion Program (SOCP), says this new demand puts Indonesia’s ecology at risk. “There’s a big drive to promote palm oil as a biodiesel source,” he says, “and that makes the country very, very vulner-able to outside manipulation.”

Together, Indonesia and Malaysia are the top producers of palm oil, providing 86 percent of the global supply (Patzek and Patzek 2007). To meet demand, growers have clear-cut or burned millions of hectares of orangutan forest habitat to make way for lucrative oil-palm plantations, a process that releases enormous amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (Fargione et

orangutans, such as this male in sumatra, are among the world’s most endangered primates. living only in southeast Asia on the islands of Borneo and sumatra, these great apes are rapidly losing their forest habitat.

36 The Wildlife Professional, Winter 2008

Amy Clanin is Pro-gram Manager for the Bonobo Conser-vation Initiative.

Courtesy of Amy Clanin

Credit: helen Buckland/sumatran orangutan society


al. 2008) and severely diminishes regional bio-diversity (Fitzherbert 2008). These agricultural “factories” prove inhospitable for orangutans, forcing them to compete for fragmented patches of forest where their numbers are falling fast. To halt the slide toward extinction, conservation-ists, governments, oil-palm growers, buyers, consumers, and other stakeholders are uniting to develop strategies in an attempt to preserve the apes’ habitat.

When Space Gets TightOrangutans, which primarily eat fruits, require large home ranges, resulting in low population densities. Although they will eat “famine foods” such as leaves, bark, and insects, the majority of their diet consists of widely dispersed sugary, ripe fruits (Caldecott and Miles 2005). Anne Russon, professor and scientific advisor for the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOS), cites esti-mates that one square kilometer of forest habitat in Sumatra can support up to six or seven female orangutans; in Borneo the same area can sustain only one to three individuals (Russon 2004). How-ever, a female may require a personal home range as large as five to six square kilometers to support her needs, and males require even larger ranges. As large tracts of monoculture plantings, oil-palm plantations fragment and often completely destroy the lowland dipterocarp, freshwater, and peat-swamp forests that are prime orangutan habitats. Without large, continuous stretches of forest for foraging, orangutans are hard-pressed to find ample sources of food.

Isolation caused by forest fragmentation can also lead to inbreeding, as young orangutans are unable to transfer out of their natal range in search of mates. Reproductive biology further complicates orangutan survival. These apes have the slowest breeding rate of any primate in the world, includ-ing humans, and although females have long life spans, living up to 45 to 50 years in the wild, they generally produce only about four offspring in their lifetime (Russon 2004). The young, in turn, de-pend on their mothers for nearly a decade, longer than any other primate except humans.

As they struggle with food scarcity in fragmented forests, hungry orangutans will sometimes wander into oil-palm plantations to raid the crops. Plan-tation workers view orangutans as agricultural

pests, making the species vulnerable to hunting, trapping, and poaching, all of which are illegal. Workers encountering orangutans often shoot the animals, fearing attack (WWF-Indonesia, 2007), although orangutans are not known to attack unless provoked or threatened. When orangutan mothers are killed, their orphans are often cap-tured and illegally sold as pets.

in the relative safety of Borneo’s tanjung puting national park, a mother and infant travel through the type of forested habitat necessary for orangutan survival. though this park is one of the last and most important protected areas for orangutans, it is threatened by illegal logging and oil-palm development.

Credit: Amy Clanin

oil-palm trees grow from denuded ground in the lestari ungur oil palm plantation in Borneo. palm oil is in high demand as a source of biofuel and a substitute for trans-fats. Clear-cutting and burning of forests for plantations, however, releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide and drastically diminishes biodiversity.

Credit: stephen Brend/orangutan foundation

38 © The Wildlife SocietyThe Wildlife Professional, Winter 2008

Steps to Save Orangutans As awareness of the crisis grows, conservationists and governments are working together to develop solutions to save both orangutans and local econo-mies. Their efforts take many forms.

Protecting Habitat Seventy-five percent of orangutans live outside protected areas, primarily in timber concessions, according to TNC’s Erik Meijaard. It is therefore essential to improve forest management through carefully controlled selective cutting or through land acquisition for conservation. In late Octo-ber 2008, for example, the LEAP Conservancy of Malaysia entered talks with government of-ficials and private landowners to buy 222 acres of tropical forest owned but not yet developed by palm-oil producers in Malaysian Borneo. The land would link two sections of a wildlife reserve that is home to roughly 600 orangutans. This effort marks the first time that nongovernment activists in Malaysian Borneo have worked with the govern-ment in attempting to buy land for environmental protection, according to Cynthia Ong, LEAP Con-servancy’s executive director.

The 25 percent of orangutans that do live in so-called protected areas such as parks and reserves are also at risk because many of these areas are poorly managed, says Meijaard. Improving man-

agement of existing protected areas and expanding corridors for orangutans are critical measures to ensure the long-term sustainability of the species. In Sumatra, for example, the Leuser forests are the last stronghold for the Sumatran orangutan. “This area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and encompasses the Gunung Leuser National Park, but even these forests are not safe from develop-ment,” says Helen Buckland, palm oil working group secretary for the Ape Alliance and UK coordinator with the Sumatran Orangutan Society (SOS). Orangutans are at risk of losing this crucial habitat as thousands of hectares have already been illegally converted to oil-palm plantations. To combat further loss of habitat in the park, SOS has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the local government in North Sumatra and the Gunung Leuser National Park office to allow SOS to replant indigenous tree species in the area. To date, SOS and local communities have planted over a quarter of a million seedlings in the park. Such community forestry projects can serve as viable economic alternatives to jobs in illegal logging and forest conversion for agricul-ture. Communities living adjacent to the park are benefiting by establishing their own tree nurser-ies and agro-forestry projects.

Similarly, Borneo’s Tanjung Puting National Park in the past suffered from widespread illegal logging

Borneo’s forests are suffering a stark and rapid decline, as shown in maps based on landsat imagery and annual forest loss data. in the late 1990s indonesia lost an estimated 20,000 square kilometers of forest a year, primarily in Borneo and sumatra (unep 2007). that rate has accelerated largely due to the spread of oil-palm plantations and illegal timber harvest. By some estimates, Borneo’s forests could be gone by 2012 to 2018.

Credit: World Wildlife fund


and is still under pressure from oil-palm develop-ment. “Not all of it has been converted yet, but we stand to lose about 15,000 hectares,” says Stephen Brend, senior conservationist with the Orangutan Foundation (OF). The group is now working with local police, park management, and communities to operate guard posts and patrols that monitor and control illegal logging within park boundaries.

Sustainable Plantation PracticesIn May 2007 World Wildlife Fund (WWF)-Indonesia published a detailed report, produced in collaboration with conservation and academic institutions, on how palm-oil producers can minimize human-orangutan conflict around plantations. The report suggests that human-orangutan conflict can be curtailed if oil-palm plantations hire patrol units, install barriers to keep orangutans out, and help fund programs to relocate and rehabilitate nuisance or orphaned orangutans. The report also advocates cautious land-use planning, urging oil-palm companies to establish plantations on fallow, non-forested agricultural land in Borneo and Sumatra. Unfortu-nately economics works against this: It takes five years after planting to produce an oil-palm crop, so, to offset the wait, companies often opt for immediate profit by stripping forests and selling the timber before planting on the newly cleared ground. Growers that do adhere to envi-ronmentally and socially responsible practices can now seek certification based on sustainability standards developed by an international multi-stakeholder organization called the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). “Palm-oil producers are suddenly realizing that they have a role to play in conserving key species such as the orangutan,” says RSPO Vice President Darrel Webber, “and that role is significant.”

Cautious land-use planning can have the added benefit of reducing carbon emissions. Tropical forests and peatlands, which are prime habitat for orangutans, store enormous amounts of carbon. When peatlands in particular are stripped, drained, and dried for oil-palm plantations, the peat oxidizes, releasing “something like 90 tons of carbon dioxide per hectare per year,” says SOCP’s Ian Singleton. A 2008 report in Science (Fargione et al. 2008) notes that converting rainforests and peatlands for crop-based biofuels actually creates a “carbon debt,” producing more greenhouse gases than the fossil fuels that are replaced. Recognizing the multiple

drugged by a tranquilizer dart, a starving orangutan stumbles through a forest converted to an oil-palm plantation. After sedating the ape, rescue workers with Borneo orangutan survival released it into another forest. six months later this orangutan had to be re-evacuated after its new forest home was also destroyed by palm-oil development.

orphaned orangutans stare from a cage at a Bornean rehabilitation center. scores arrive at such centers each year, their mothers often killed by poachers. only a lucky few are rescued; most orphans are sold in the illegal pet trade.

Credit: hardi Baktiantoro/Centre for orangutan protection

Credit: helen Buckland/sumatran orangutan society

40 The Wildlife Professional, Winter 2008 © The Wildlife Society

problems associated with deforestation, Suma-tra’s provincial governments and the Indonesian government recently endorsed a declaration to promote sustainable development and protect critical ecosystems such as peat forests, thereby preserving orangutan habitat and biodiversity.

Education to Reduce ConflictConservation organizations are reaching out to palm-oil companies to mitigate human-orang-utan conflict. SOS, for example, visits oil-palm plantations in North Sumatra to conduct local-language training sessions that include a documentary produced in conjunction with the Great Apes Film Initiative and Films4Conserva-tion. The training encourages producers never to kill orangutans, teaches about orangutan behaviors, and offers advice on how to scare the animals away and whom to call if an orangutan needs to be relocated. “This mitigation train-ing is new for us,” says an oil-palm plantation worker named Daman from Karya Jadi village in Sumatra. “Now we can try to help orangutans leave our farmland by making noise using bam-boo drums or carbide cannons.”

TranslocationOrangutans that are potentially in harm’s way can often survive through translocation, which involves finding an animal in a threatened area, sedating it with a dart gun, and, if it is sufficiently healthy, transporting it for release in a safe wild reserve. OF’s Stephen Brend says his group’s translocations have jumped from 24 between 1999 and 2006 to 13 in 2007 alone. The sharp rise was due in part to fires in 2006 that left orangutans isolated in forest patches too small to sustain them. “Many had taken to crop raiding,” says Brend, putting them at risk of being shot. Rehabilitation Centers A handful of centers across Borneo and Suma-tra provide food, shelter, and medical care for injured or orphaned orangutans, and all are running far beyond capacity. More are needed, and each is extremely costly to run. The BOS Foundation’s Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Reintroduction Project in Borneo, Indonesia, for example, is reportedly the largest primate rescue operation in the world, having cared for almost 1,000 orangutans since it was estab-lished in 1999. “We’re always at capacity,” says


Michelle Desilets, BOS’s UK director. Infant orangutans, which need intensive long-term attention, are particularly underserved. Stephen Brend estimates that 50 to 60 orphans arrive annually at the Orangutan Care Center and Quarantine in Borneo. Though most rehabili-tated animals are eventually reintroduced into the wild, rehabilitation is far more resource intensive than direct translocations, and it risks habituating the rehabilitated orangutans to humans. Rehabilitated animals sometimes remain around the release camps, says Brend, while translocated orangutans tend to take off into the forest and are not seen again.

Tapping Orangutans’ ‘Star Power’Ecotourists eager to see the great orange apes in the wild contribute thousands of dollars each year toward orangutan conservation. OF, for example, has released 200 rescued orangutans into Borneo’s Tanjung Puting National Park, a move that has attracted tourists and in turn raised global awareness of the orangutan’s plight. Nature tourism in the park has helped create revenue for area communities and generated em-ployment for local people to study, protect, and maintain the park. On a more mass-culture scale, the Animal Planet television show “Orangutan Island” is also bringing attention to the threat to orangutans by featuring BOS-Indonesia’s Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Reintroduction Project. Desilets says her organization is “working with filmmakers to get the message across” that orangutans desperately need protection.

Orangutans serve as ambassadors for forest con-servation around the world. Yet the president of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has said that at the current rate of habitat destruction, orangutans could go extinct by 2050. “It’s ab-solutely unthinkable that we will lose them all,” says Stephen Brend. “On the small scale, I think we can be proud that we’re winning battles,” he says, “but across the range of orangutan habitat, we’re probably losing the war.”

learn more about orangutan conserva-tion groups by viewing this article online at www.wildlife.org.