AR-News: (SA) Orangutans are in trouble

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

_http://www.dailynews.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=501&fArticleId=2131205_ 
(http://www.dailynews.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=501&fArticleId=2131205)  
 

June  29, 2004

Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian wildlife rangers are trying to rescue  scores of 
displaced orangutans, gibbons and macaques believed to be roaming  through oil 
palm plantations on Borneo island after the illegal destruction of  their jungle 
habitats.

The endangered primates face starvation or capture  by poachers after being 
squeezed out of a 200ha rainforest area cleared in May  to create space for new 
plantations, said Stephen Gibin Sira, a wildlife officer  in Malaysia's 
eastern Sabah state. "We are working hard to save each of them,"  Sira said.

Nine orangutans have been found by rangers in the past two  weeks and sent to 
a wildlife sanctuary in Sabah state, where they appear to be  adapting well 
to their new environment, Sira said.

Officials believe more  than 20 orangutans, besides unknown numbers of 
gibbons, pigtail macaques and  wild boars, are wandering through plantations 
bordering the decimated  jungles.

Sira said the operators of a state-owned plantation firm that  cleared the 
forest have claimed they were unaware of laws requiring them to  submit a 30-day 
notice of their plan to the state wildlife department so that  animals could 
be relocated. 

The Sabah government is considering whether  the district managers of Borneo 
Samudera Plantation should be prosecuted under  wildlife protection laws that 
provide for prison sentences of up to five years  and fines up to 100 000 
ringgit (R164 320), Sira said.

The company is  also expected to bear the expen-ses of the rescue operation.

Rapid  development, rampant logging and the spread of plantations have 
encroached on  this Southeast Asian country's once vast jungles in recent decades, 
devastating  habitats of animals such as elephants, tigers, leopards and  
panthers.

Orangutans living in the wild are found exclusively on Borneo,  which is 
shared by Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia, as well as Indonesia's  Sumatra island. 
Activists estimate there are fewer than 30 000 orangutans  remaining 
worldwide, including those kept in zoos. - Sapa-AP

(subscription)




~~~*+*~~~*+*~~~*+*~~~*+*~~~*+*~~~*+*~~~*+*~~~*+*~~~*+*~~~
“And in such a world of conflict, a world of  victims and executioners, it is 
the job of thinking people not to be on the side  of the executioners.”
--Howard Zinn
/\   /\ 
>' .'  <










-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.envirolink.org/pipermail/ar-news/attachments/20040629/61b7e6ca/attachment.html