Orangutan Outreach Website - Saving the Orangutan

Tuesday August 28, 2007

KUALA LUMPUR: Sarawak Plantation Bhd (SPB) expects to secure 30,000 ha to 50,000 ha of land in Kalimantan in three years as part of its expansion plans, says group managing director Mohamad Bolhair Reduan.

“The land has the same soil condition as our current landbank. We’ve already started talks with the Indonesians,” he said after the listing of SPB on Bursa Malaysia Tuesday.

Besides expanding into Indonesia, SPB is also anticipated to secure at least 10% of the 1.5 million ha agriculture land identified by the state government over the long term.

The plantation company presently has about 27,000 ha of planted area in 11 estates and aimed to increase that to 40,000 ha by 2010, Bolhair said.

He said production of fresh fruit bunches should register double-digit growth in the next few years due to the age profile of the plantations.

“We’re already producing 24 to 25 tons per hectare. There is no reason why we shouldn’t do better,” he said.

Coupled with the firm crude oil prices, which were expected to average about RM2,500 to RM2,700 per ton, SPB was anticipated to register good profits in the next few years, Bolhair added.

Chairman Datuk Hasmi Hasnan said SPB was committed to rewarding shareholders by paying 30% of net profit as dividend for the current financial year.

“The following years, it will be based on needs and expansion requirements,” he said.

SPB is currently the state’s largest listed plantation group with market capitalisation of RM840mil. SPB’s major shareholders are the Sarawak government, which holds about 38% and Cermat Ceria Sdn Bhd with 37%.

Source: http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/8/28/business/20070828144254&sec=business

KOTA KINABALU — The government of Malaysia’s Sabah State is ready to stop the clearing of forests for new plantations for palm oil in the near future even though global demand for the oil is growing, a minister of the state told Kyodo News on Tuesday.

Masidi Manjun, tourism, culture and environment minister of Sabah State, said, ”We are ready to say ‘no’ to further expansion of the plantation,” as the state is committed to conservation of the forests as well as wildlife there.

Although the state is committed to sustainable forest management, in which it tries to balance economic growth and environmental protection, indiscriminate logging is no longer a choice in a land so rich in biodiversity, he said after a press conference with journalists attending a workshop on sustainable forest management.

The threeday workshop is being hosted by the Organization of AsiaPacific News Agencies.

Malaysia is the world’s largest palm oil producer. Together with its neighbor Indonesia, the country is rushing to increase production of palm oil amid rising demand for biofuels, the use of which is believed to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

But wildlife conservation groups have claimed that native species such as the orang utan and Sumatra rhinos are threatened by the clearing of forests for the development of the plantations.

Malaysia and Indonesia produce nearly 90 percent of the world’s palm oil output.

Palm oil has traditionally been used in food such as cooking oil or in soap.

In order to meet both demands for more oil output and for protecting wildlife, the state’s strategy is to boost productivity at existing plantations, rather than developing new plantations, Masidi said.

The strategy has yet to be implemented, however, as the government is still in the process of researching how to boost production, he said.

Sabah has designated the Ulu Segama and Malua forest reserves on the east coast of the state on Borneo Island which covers an area of about 240,000 hectors for an orang utan conservation program, he said, dismissing claims from the conservationists.

”We don’t kill orang utans as the creatures are a very important component of our tourism industry. Killing the orang utan is tantamount to killing our tourism industry,” Masidi said.

There might be some incidents of orang utans being killed by poachers, but there are a number of animals remaining there, he said.

But some of the local conservationists said the government is lax in its controls and illegal logging is still going on.

On Monday, a local newspaper reported that in an antilogging operation that began Friday in Sabah, authorities seized 20 trucks with 1,000 round logs believed to have been illegally cut down.

Without confirming the report, Masidi admitted such incidents could happen from time to time.

”Yes, there is a weakness in our system, but we think it is a manageable problem and we are making efforts,” he said. //Kyodo news

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007/08/15/regional/regional_30045090.php

14-year-old Sulango, one the of the male orangutans at Zoo Atlanta, escaped from his enclosure this weekend. he got over a wall and across a moat before zoo officials were alerted to his escape. No one was hurt, fortunately and zoo patrons were more astonished than afraid. Sulango was eventually sedated and taken back to his enclosure. Zoo officials are unsure how he managed this amazing feat…   Check out the full video report on cnn.com.

By PERRY BEEMAN
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
August 27, 2007

Great Ape Trust of Iowa and Iowa State University plan this afternoon to release details of an agreement to cooperate in primate studies.

The Des Moines-based ape research and conservation center said in a statement that the 2:30 p.m. announcement will involve “an agreement to establish the world’s pre-eminent collaboration for primate studies.”

The press conference will be streamed live at www.GreatApeTrust.org.

ISU President Gregory Geoffroy and ape trust founder Ted Townsend will join scientists from the Des Moines research center and ISU at the event, which also will feature appearances by bonobos and orangutans.

The ape trust, located in southeastern Des Moines in the Easter Lake area, conducts social, cognitive and communication research on seven bonobos and three orangutans.

Plans call for the addition of more orangutans, and, eventually, gorillas and chimpanzees, which would make the facility the only one of its type with all four species of great apes.

Some of the apes communicate with researchers through the use of computer screens and symbol boards that link abstract symbols to certain words. They also are involved in tool use, including a vending machine. Kanzi, a bonobo, jammed with musicians Peter Gabriel and Paul McCartney before moving to the Des Moines center.

Iowa State University’s primate research has included the work of Jill Pruetz, associate professor of anthropology, whose work in the western Africa nation of Senegal brought one of most important scientific studies of the year.

The work was detailed in the March 6 edition of Current Biology and immediately drew international media reports. Pruetz discovered that chimpanzees habitually use tools to hunt, and that females are more involved in the hunting than previously believed.

Pruetz and colleague Paco Bertolani were the first scientists to document chimpanzees habitually hunting in this way. The scientists recorded 10 different chimpanzees in 20 instances of hunting without human assistance, in the savannah area where Pruetz has researched the apes since 2000. They saw the chimps make spears out of tree limbs between March 2005 and July 2006.

Great Ape Trust earlier announced joint efforts with Drake University, where orangutan researcher Robert Shumaker has taught and a number of trust scientists have given lectures, and the Des Moines public schools, which is offering a pilot program, Great Ape Academy, middle-schoolers this fall. The program, financed by the trust, will include visits to the research center.

The ape trust has bankrolled conservation projects around the world. The United Nations and others predict great apes will disappear with in 50 years without massive work to end poaching and habitat destruction.

In addition to Geoffroy and Townsend, today’s announcement will feature Pruetz, the ISU researcher, along with Elizabeth Hoffman, ISU executive vice president and provost; ape trust bonobo research director William Fields, and Robert Shumaker, director of the trust’s orangutan research.

The trust, located at 4200 S.E. 44th Ave., is open for limited public tours. Long-term plans call for visitor center that would allow more regular visits. For more information, go to www.GreatApeTrust.org or call (515) 243-3580.

Source: http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070827/NEWS/70827012/1001/NEWS

Stood close to the orang-utans in Chester Zoo’s new Realm of the Red Ape facility, a feeling of kinship is hard to disown, even when the “stars” may be slouched in a corner looking like a pile of old carpet.

But confront them face to face through the glass windows of their enclosure and the solemn returning gaze suggests they know a thing or two that you don’t.

Add to this their effortless grace in climbing, their casual feats of strength, and you realise this is an animal to admire and respect. It is also one that could be extinct in the wild during the next 10 or 20 years.

Illegal logging in Borneo and Sumatra is rapidly clearing the ancient forests which are the orang’s natural habitat. Added to burning to clear ground for palm oil plantations, the combined effect is to force the apes into smaller and smaller areas.

Sometimes they die horribly in circles of fire. Other times the parents are shot and their distraught babies sold to the pet market. A harsh fate for a creature known poignantly as “the old man of the trees” and known for their intelligence.

The Realm of the Red Ape is a protected gene bank for the orang-utans, and a project synonymous with the zoo’s vision of itself as an Ark for endangered species, as well as a wonderful facility for the visiting public.

The new enclosure cost £3.5 million to develop and includes a two-storey building that links with the old orang-utan house and includes three large indoor enclosures. These adjoin two more outdoor enclosures covered with a mesh roof.

The massive steel supports are shaped and clad to resemble trees and there are hanging straps that function as jungle vines. A highway in the sky for apes.

The Realm of the Red Ape represents the zoo’s biggest capital project to date. It will aid the breeding programme and its efforts to help wild orang-utans in Borneo by protecting their habitat.

Mike Jordan, curator of birds and mammals, tells me orang-utans are great problem solvers and need to have their intelligence stimulated.

This involves making them work for their food as they would in the wild. It is hidden in different places that change day to day. High level access to the new buildings gives staff the chance to sprinkle food from above, simulating the retrieval of fruit from the jungle canopy.

Temperature and humidity are controlled for the six Sumatran and four Bornean orang-utans in what is presented as a micro-rainforest, with 2,000 plants, birds, small mammals, amphibians, reptiles and insects. Visitors can see it all from the canopy walk.

The Red Ape’s realm doesn’t depend on moats to keep them in. There is a water feature, but kept small so as not to deprive the apes of space they can use.

“They don’t like water,” says Mike, “but the four lar gibbons in with them love it. They will climb to the top of the poles outside and stretch upwards towards the falling rain.”

Asked about the breeding programme, he says: “Orang-utans give birth every six to seven years. The same in captivity as in the wild. Chester has one of the best breeding records of any zoo in Europe.

“We move the babies on to other approved zoos when they are adolescents. At that age it’s part of a natural cycle once they have learned how to survive.

We have a key role to play in telling the public about threats to orang-utans in the wild. We ask them not to have their pictures taken with one on holiday. Stop buying goods containing palm oil and hardwood timber from the vanishing forests.”

The Realm of the Red Ape was crowded with visitors when I visited. Humans and animals enjoying the return of the sun after a long absence. People crowded five deep at the windows while the shy orang-utans snuck off to find what privacy they could.

Something in me objected to the human horde cramming the
marvellous new building with their rucksacks, push-chairs, their wailing kids and dripping ice cream, the paying customers and visiting journalists.

But how could I explain to my lugubrious friend behind the glass that my species, which has connived at his destruction, is also his best chance of survival.

Chester Zoo is home to more than 500 species of animals and has housed orang-utans since the late 1950s. In those days it was a small family business. Now it is big business and one of the best zoos in the world.

It is no long enough to be soft about animals and vaguely interested in their welfare. The zoo has to be a successful business to carry on its invaluable work. And those who truly care need the zoological education to be useful.

Source: http://www.eveningleader.co.uk/latest-features/Chester-Zoo39s-hitech-bid-to.3149049.jp

JAKARTA: Former South Kalimantan governor Syahril Darham has been sentenced to four years in prison with a fine of Rp 200 million after being found guilty of graft charges Friday.

He has been ordered to repay Rp 5.8 billion and his fine within a month.

The sentence was read by presiding judge Moefri at the Anti-Corruption Court.

Syahril was governor for 2000 to 2005 when he misappropriated provincial funds worth Rp 8.3 billion. The fund was allocated for official trips but Syahril instead made donations to his family and political parties with the money.

“The verdict was not fair as the official trip allowance should be used,” he told detik.com.

His lawyer, Juan Felix Tampubolon, said he would have a discussion with Syahril before filing an appeal.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/

By Karima Anjani
Aug. 25 (Bloomberg)

PT Astra Agro Lestari, Indonesia’s biggest publicly traded agricultural company, may miss its full- year target for 920,000 tons of palm oil because of poor weather.

“Output may fall below 917,000 metric tons this year,” Finance Director Santosa said late yesterday. Still, “higher prices should offset lower output, therefore revenue in the second half will be higher than the first half.” Sales in the first six months were 2.4 trillion rupiah ($257 million).

Drought in the second half of last year affected crops throughout the country, with the impact also crimping harvests into this year. Lower palm oil production in the Southeast Asian nation, which with Malaysia produces 90 percent of the crop worldwide, may extend a rally in prices.

Strong demand for the tropical oil, used mainly in cooking and to make detergents, should keep the price above $700 a metric ton in the second half, said Santoso, speaking to reporters in Subang, West Java.

The executive didn’t say how by much full-year output may miss the Jakarta-based company’s target, which Astra Agro issued in February. Output was a record 917,885 tons in 2006.

Palm oil on the Malaysia Derivatives Exchange, which trades the benchmark contract, touched a record 2,764 ringgit a ton on June 6, and has averaged 2,245 ringgit ($646) a ton so far this year. The most-active contract ended yesterday at 2,430 ringgit.

The company’s palm oil output in the first seven months of the year declined 11 percent to 485,348 metric tons because of a smaller crop in Kalimantan, Astra Agro said Aug. 14. Kalimantan is the Indonesian portion of Borneo Island.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=aGONoYJiIYrw&refer=asia

FRIDAY, Aug. 24 (HealthDay News) — When interacting with their infants, female rhesus monkeys use special vocalizations similar to the “baby talk” used by human mothers to get an infant’s attention, University of Chicago researchers report.

“Motherese is a high pitched and musical form of speech, which may be biological in origin,” Dario Maestripieri, associate professor in comparative human development, explained in a prepared statement.

“The acoustic structure of particular monkey vocalizations, called girneys, may be adaptively designed to attract young infants and engage their attention, similar to how the acoustic structure of motherese, or baby talk, allows adults to visually or socially engage with infants,” he said.

The researchers studied vocalizations among adult female rhesus macaques on an island off the coast of Puerto Rico. When a baby was present, there was a significant increase in the amount of grunts and girneys among the adult females.

“The calls appear to be used to elicit infants’ attention and encourage their behavior. They also have the effect of increasing social tolerance in the mother and facilitating the interactions between females with babies in general. Thus, the attraction to other females’ infants results in a relatively relaxed context of interaction where the main focus of attention is the baby,” the researchers wrote.

The study was published in the current issue of the journal Ethology.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20070824/hl_hsn/monkeymomsusebabytalktoo

By Ker Than, LiveScience Staff Writer
22 August 2007

Recently unearthed fossils belonging to a new ape species suggest the lineages leading to humans and gorillas split several million years earlier than previously thought.

Found in Ethiopia, the 10 million-year-old fossilized teeth resemble those of modern gorillas and appear specialized for eating fibrous foods such as stems and leaves.

“If it’s not a gorilla relative, then it’s something very similar to what an early gorilla must have looked like,” said study leader Gen Suwa, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Tokyo.

Dubbed Chororapithecus abyssinicus, the new species is the oldest primate known to be directly related to living African gorillas.

The finding, detailed in the Aug. 23 issue of the journal Nature, suggests humans and gorillas last shared a common ancestor at least 10 million years ago. It could also push back the time when the lineages of humans and chimpanzees split.

Recalibrating the molecular clock

Most molecular studies have concluded that humans and gorillas diverged by about 8 million years ago, and that humans and chimpanzees split some 5 to 6 million years ago. However, these conclusions were based on the assumption that the lineages leading to humans and orangutans split about 15 million years ago.

Since each “tree branch” is placed on the evolutionary tree in relation to the other branches, the time scale is relative, making the human-orangutan split critical to the timing of other changes.

“The molecular data themselves do not provide ages on the branches of the lineages. You have to calibrate the molecular distances, so it’s kind of like a relative scale,” said Tim White, an anthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the study.

The new fossils could potentially serve as even better calibrators for the molecular scale than the current orangutan ancestor specimen.

“If it is accepted by paleontologists that this is indeed a fossil which is very close to the split of humans and gorillas, then it would become a very useful calibration point to [look] backwards in time, towards orangutans, and also forward in time” toward the human and chimpanzee split, said Sudhir Kumar, a researcher at Arizona State University whose genetic analyses have helped determine the time of the human-chimp split.

However, scientists will first have to determine if Chororapithecus lived after the gorilla lineage split from that of humans and chimps, or if it lived right before that point.

“Unless that question is answered, it is very hard to place whether these fossils are telling us about the gorilla-human divergence, or about the divergence of the ancestors of humans and gorillas from orangutans,” said Kumar, who was involved in the study. “That question is not answered yet.”

The original motherland

The new discovery also supports the idea that, like humans, gorillas and chimpanzees have primary roots in Africa, and not in Europe or Asia, as others have suggested.

“Chororapithecus suggests, once again, that Africa was the place of origin of both humans and modern African apes,” the authors said in a prepared statement.

The new fossils also help anthropologists with a data problem, White said.

“So many people have been saying there’s a gap in the African fossil record [from that time], and these fossils begin to fill that gap,” White told LiveScience.

Even though the fossil record of human evolution is still patchy, it is much better than that of the great apes. Very few fossils have surfaced for gorilla evolution for the past 6 million years, and the first ever chimpanzee fossil was found only in 2005.

“The human fossil line is really quite well-known between 6 million years ago and today,” White said. “It’s basically a black hole when it comes to fossils of the African apes themselves.”

Source: http://www.livescience.com/animals/070822_new_ape.html

August 22 2007

LANGKAT: Palm oil prices might be going through the roof and making investors and businessmen rich, but the soaring prices have not improved the lot of pickers and locals working on the fringes of the palm oil industry.

On the island of Sumatra, one of the main oil palm growing islands in Indonesia, the world’s second-largest producer after Malaysia, 52-year-old Minah salvages unspoilt fruit from partly rotten palm branch that have fallen to the ground.

The Indonesian mother of eight ekes out a living on a state-run palm oil plantation near her house by picking through fallen branches to extract fruit which she sells for 600 rupiah per kg (100 rupiah = RM0.04) to a middleman.

“The plantation doesn’t mind as long as I don’t touch bunches still on trees,” said Minah, as flies and other insects perch on her hands, stained by the sticky brown juice that oozes from the fruit.

The sales net her around US$1 to US$2 per day.

“And people say palm oil is expensive,” she remarks.

Almost half of Indonesia’s 220 million people still live on less than US$2 (US$1 = RM3.50) a day, according to the World Bank.

Poverty levels remain high despite a pledge by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to tackle widespread poverty made worse by chronic unemployment and underemployment.

In Langkat, about 50 km west of North Sumatra’s provincial capital of Medan, hundreds of people rely on palm oil - the world’s second most popular edible oil after soy oil.

They work as illegal fruit collectors like Minah, small holders, drivers, middlemen and labourers for palm oil refiners.

In nearby Malaysia, palm oil futures trading on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange in Kuala Lumpur - the benchmark for global prices - hit a historic high of RM2,764 a tonne in early June.

The price has since dropped but is still within sight of the highs, helped by soaring demand for palm oil in manufactured foods as well as for new greener biodiesel made from palm oil.

Obtained by crushing oil palm fruit, the reddish-brown oil is also used in cookies, toothpaste and ice cream.

Indonesia is set to overtake Malaysia as the world’s top producer this year with output seen at 17.4 million tonnes, up from 15.9 million tonnes in 2006.

But back in Sumatra, many farmers struggle to make ends meet while revenue at big plantation companies such as PT Astra Agro Lestari tbk has doubled on sky-high palm oil prices.

The plantation companies are enjoying a boom in commodity prices driven by strong demand from countries such as India and China and demand from the biofuel sector.

The biodiesel frenzy has also sparked mergers and takeovers across the plantation sectors in Asia. Big firms with their financial muscle are able to expand their plantations and hire people to work for them while small holders are left behind.

With little support from the government, some palm oil farmers have to cope with high prices of fertilisers and a lack of funds to maintain their plantations and boost output by replacing old, unproductive trees.

Jakarta’s recent decision to raise the export tax on crude palm oil to 6.5 per cent from 1.5 per cent is another blow to farmers as it has caused prices to drop to around 1,000 rupiah a kilogram from 1,200 rupiah.

“I can’t rely on palm oil alone to survive, especially because the price of fertiliser is very high,” said Juanda Peranginanginthe, a 25-year-old farmer who cultivates 70 palm oil trees inherited from his father.

Farmers bear the brunt of the increased excise tax because refiners now refuse to buy fresh fruit bunches without a discount, said Asmar Arsjad, head of the Indonesian Palm Oil Farmers Association, which represents five million smallholders.

Indonesia has 6.07 million hectares of land planted with oil palm, of which 45 per cent is owned by private firms.

Smallholders own 43 per cent of the country’s oil palm plantations while state plantation firms own the rest.

Indonesia raised the export tax for crude palm oil and its by-products to stabilise domestic cooking oil prices which surged due to global palm oil price hikes and dealt a blow to millions of poor Indonesians who rely on the oil as a staple food.

Rusman Sihombing, a driver who has been working for a palm oil collector for five years, said he has to transport 5,000 kilograms of the fruit to break even due to the paltry fees he receives for hauling the crops to refiners.

“I am not sure if the increase in (palm oil) prices actually has an impact on people here,” he said. - Reuters

Source: http://www.btimes.com.my/Current_News/BT/Wednesday/Corporate/plume.xml/Article/