By Ishani Mukherjee
Aug 22 2007

Encroaching plantations and rampant logging are threatening populations of the pygmy elephant, a species unique to the dense tropical forests of Malaysian Borneo. Fewer than 1,500 of the elephants remain in the region, where clearcutting of forests for oil palm plantations and expanding human settlements is shrinking the animal’s traditional feeding and breeding grounds.

Genetically distinct from other Asian elephants, pygmy elephants are less aggressive and smaller in size, with shorter trunks and a rounder appearance. They are restricted in their range to the state of Sabah in northeastern Borneo, a 700,000-hectare area that is one of the largest remaining contiguous habitats for elephants in Asia. But Sabah has lost nearly half of its original forest cover over the last four decades, and it continues to face pressure from clearing for industrial agriculture, mostly in the form of expanding oil palm plantations as the government places growing emphasis on producing palm oil as a biodiesel feedstock.

The conservation group WWF-Malaysia confirmed the shrinking of the pygmy elephant’s habitat after conducting Asia’s largest project for the satellite tracking of elephants to determine the animal’s range requirements. Starting in 2005, wildlife researchers fitted five pygmy elephants with radio-transmitting collars to record their wanderings. By observing the animals, scientists concluded that high forest diversity is critical for providing the types and amounts of foods necessary to sustain breeding populations of the species.

“In one day, the elephant needs to have more than 200 [kilograms] of food, and if lowland forests are converted to oil palm or other uses, that will reduce the food sources for them, Raymond Alfred, project manager of the Sabah tracking project, told Reuters. “And we still don’t know whether they will be able to adapt to the highland forest food sources.”

Habitat loss has also been a catalyst for heightened human-elephant conflicts in the region. Nearly 20 percent of the pygmy elephants living in the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary have suffered near-fatal injuries from illegal snares laid down by plantation workers to trap small game animals. Despite their characteristic gentle nature, the elephants have exhibited a more aggressive streak in their interactions with people over the last few years.

WWF says the elephants still have a chance at maintaining viable populations if immediate action taken. Steps include delineating and protecting corridors between habitat patches to facilitate elephant movements, as well as greater monitoring of critical habitats to curb disturbances from timber felling and intrusions by plantation workers. But these activities would mean a halt in the conversion of area forests to plantations, possibly disrupting key economic goals in the region. In July, the state of Sabah pledged to demarcate close to 180,000 hectares of forests for “sustainable” forestry to maintain habitats critical for the survival of pygmy elephants and other threatened species, including orangutans and the Borneo rhinoceros.

Annotated source: http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5312

22 August, 2007

Kimpton will help to keep a range of rare and endangered animals happy after being awarded the heating and cooling system maintenance contracts by Chester Zoo.

Kimpton takes responsibility for maintaining ideal conditions in the Zoo’s ‘Realm of the Red Ape’ enclosure, housing critically endangered orang-utans, the ‘Asian Plains’ enclosure which accommodates the Indian Rhino, and the animal health centre where sick animals go to be nurtured back to health.

“Maintenance of HVAC systems is critical in a zoo environment and plays a significant role in sustaining a good quality of life for the animals,” explains Richard Kimpton, Managing Director of Kimpton Building Services. “At 110 acres, Chester Zoo is one of the largest in the UK, and receives over a million visitors a year. It is known internationally for its enclosure designs and breeding programmes and Kimpton’s expertise will support that reputation, helping to ensure that the HVAC systems operate efficiently at all times, so that the animals can remain safe, happy and healthy.”

The recently completed £3.5 million ‘Realm of the Red Ape’ enclosure, opened by Nick Knowles of DIY SOS fame in May, houses critically endangered Sumatran and Bornean orang-utans. The exhibit is fully heated and ventilated to provide an excellent all year round living environment for the Orang-utans and members of the public in the viewing galleries.

Source: http://www.bsee.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/4448

Bruno and the rest of the orangutans at the Munich Zoo finally have a new home. This page from sueddeutsche.de contains some really nice photos. Below is just a sample. View the rest of the photos here and read the article here.

Niall McKay 02.13.04 | 2:00 AM

Over the past two decades, the volume of timber harvested on Borneo exceeded that of all tropical wood exports from Latin America and Africa combined.

Go to wired.com to view a slideshow.

Illegal logging is destroying the equatorial rain forests of Indonesian Borneo, bringing the island, once known as the lungs of Asia, to the brink of an ecological disaster.

Not only has 95 percent of the forest legally set aside for logging been cleared but nearly 60 percent of protected national parkland has been illegally logged, according to a new report in this week’s Science by professor Lisa M. Curran of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.

The illegal timber is turned into plywood and is exported to other parts of Asia. It is also used to build furniture for Japanese, European and U.S. markets. The island of Kalimantan’s valuable old growth, called meranti (Philippine mahogany), is used for hardwood flooring and provides wood trim for luxury automobiles.

If the current rate of destruction continues, the report says, Kalimantan, which is about the size of Texas, will be completely stripped of its rain forests in the next three years. This will have a drastic effect on the wildlife, the native population and the local weather patterns. Animals such as Malaysian sun bears, hornbills, bearded pigs and orangutans are rapidly becoming endangered species, according to the report.

The report combined aerial and satellite photographs with data from geographical mapping systems and remote sensing devices. It was carried out between 1999 and September 2003.

“Already, what is left (of the forest) is too small and too fragmented to support many of the species that depend on the forest,” said Curran, director of the Tropical Resources Institute at Yale University. “For the first time we have seen large mammals, such as orangutans and Malaysian sun bears, wild boar, starving.”

There are more than 420 different birds and 222 mammal species in Kalimantan, half of which depend on the rain forests for survival. Furthermore, the indigenous people of Borneo, the Dyaks, depend on boar as a primary source of protein.

“Clearly the animals are in crisis,” said Curran. “In Gunung Palung National Park in West Kalimantan, for example, the orangutan population will drop by a third in the next couple of years.”

Curran said she believes that at the current rate of decline, many of the rain-forest animals will become extinct in less than 10 years. “We won’t see extinctions until we reach some sort of threshold,” she said. “We are very close to that threshold now and once we reach it will be too late to stop.”

The rapid growth of oil palm plantations, which have undergone a 40-fold increase since 1992, is further exacerbating the problem because large areas of the rain forest have been clear-cut to make way for the crop, and the plantations serve as barriers to migrating animal populations.

Kalimantan’s rain forests’ growth cycles interact with the El Niño weather system. Forest fragmentation has transformed El Niño from a regenerative force into a destructive one. As the forest is cleared, droughts become more frequent and severe, giving rise to more frequent wild fires.

Borneo is the first land mass the El Niño-Southern Oscillation weather system hits. And the El Niño wildfires in Borneo and Brazil in 1997 and 1998 created more carbon dioxide emissions than the whole of Western Europe’s industrial output, according to Curran.

There are many explanations offered for the destruction of the rain forest, including a lack of oversight from a decentralized government and opportunism by locals.

But Curran said she believes that the real causes of the destruction of the forest are international demand for the timber, a massive industry suffering from a lack of legal timber, and corruption that started during, but is not limited to, the former Suharto dictatorship.

Over the past two decades, the volume of timber harvested on Borneo exceeded that of all tropical wood exports from Latin America and Africa combined. At its height in the mid-1990s it was a $9 billion-a-year industry. Now it’s nearly gone — more than 90 percent of the Indonesia’s timber production is illegal.

Source: http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2004/02/62252

Green Media Release August 20, 2007

Greens start campaign against ANZ

The Green Party is urging New Zealanders to cut links to ANZ unless the banking group stops supporting a huge tropical rainforests logging company. Greens Co-Leader Russel Norman says the party is starting a campaign outside selected ANZ branches with colourful protests highlighting the banking corporation’s links to Rimbunan Hijau and other firms destroying the last “paradise forests” of South East Asia and the Pacific.

The party has also set-up an “e-pledge” link on its website so anyone can join a list of names of people saying they will close their ANZ and National Bank accounts unless ANZ Banking Group cuts links to Rimbunan Hijau.

“Deforestation is one of the biggest issues of our time as it is thought to cause some 20 percent of human-made carbon emissions,” Dr Norman says. “In the case of tropical rainforests, the logging is doubly tragic as more than half of the world’s plant and animal species are believed to live in these places.”

The first protest runs from 8am to 9.30am today (Monday) outside the ANZ branch in lower Lambton Quay, Wellington, and features tropical trees, a “grim reaper”, an “orangutan”, bankers with giant chainsaws and “cheques” handed out to the public. The site was chosen as it has adjacent ANZ and National Bank branches; both New Zealand banks are owned by the ANZ Banking Group based in Australia.

“ANZ is full of talk about being a responsible corporation but its actions speak louder than words,” Dr Norman says. “It promised a Forests and Biodiversity Policy after pressure from the Australian Conservation Foundation and others last year, which was watered down to a Forests Policy that has yet to surface. Meanwhile it admits using New Zealand as a financial springboard to Asia where it is creating more connections to the loggers, not less.”

Source: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0708/S00320.htm

Orangutan Outreach is shocked and saddened by the senseless murder of the mountain gorillas recently in Congo. Sadly, it seems that none of our primate cousins are safe from the cruel hands of humans.

Please watch this moving video of the group of gorillas, filmed the day before they were killed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TFbiXJd0vM

News article:
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL1627110820070816

Please consider helping the mountain gorillas:
http://www.gorillafund.org or
http://www.wildlifedirect.org/blogAdmin/gorilla?gclid=CNfnsOzn_40CFSgQFQod9D-YLw

WAUCHULA - You might not think that Hollywood types would be hanging around Wauchula. But they are. Dozens of them. Two of the newest to arrive are Jona and Jacob, who starred in the Trunk Monkey commercials. They live with more than forty other retired chimps and orangutans at the Great Ape Sanctuary.

“When I see an ape in a commercial or movie, it kinda breaks my heart because I know what the future for that animal is,” said Patti Ragan, who founded the 100-acre sanctuary ten years ago.

Apes can only be used in entertainment for six or seven years, then they have to retire because they get so strong. They can’t go back to the wild, so they have to live the rest of their lives in captivity. Many are sold to roadside zoos, or small circuses. Others end up at sanctuaries.

The Great Ape Sanctuary is quite an operation, and an expensive one. The cost of keeping just one ape runs about $17,000 a year.

“Hardly ever does a trainer or former owner provide support once they are here at the sanctuary,” Ragan said.

The money to keep it going comes from donations and grants. It goes quickly.

A caged environment for several apes can cost a quarter of a million dollars.

Ragan has spent half a million on enclosed paths that allow the apes to get from one area to the next.

Although the living quarters are top notch, it’s still a hard life for the former stars.

“It’s sad. It’s very sad,” said Natalie Jolicoeur, a former psychologist who now works at the sanctuary as a keeper. Many of the apes exhibit abnormal behavior, possibly because they were taken away from their mothers as infants. Some sway. Others pluck themselves.

Most of their neurotic behaviors begin to fade with time. They will have plenty of it behind bars. They usually live well into their sixties, possibly longer.

Ragan says these days fewer trainers are using apes in show business. But she still has a waiting list to get in.

Source: http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/

The Saving Planet Earth program aired on BBC1 on 6th July, followed by a star-studded fundraising event at Kew Gardens hosted by Sir David Attenborough, Alan Titchmarsh and Graham Norton. The BBC Wildlife Fund has now raised over a million pounds from viewers of Saving Planet Earth, which will be distributed between the charities featured in the programs.

If you missed the program, or would simply like to watch it again, now you can at the BBC Saving Planet Earth website.

If you feel compelled to make a donation to help save orangutans, please do so here.

The EU target of ensuring 10% of petrol and diesel comes from renewable sources by 2020 is not an effective way to curb carbon emissions, researchers say.
A team of UK-based scientists suggested that reforestation and habitat protection was a better option.

Writing in Science, they said forests could absorb up to nine times more CO2 than the production of biofuels could achieve on the same area of land.

The growth of biofuels was also leading to more deforestation, they added.

“The prime reason for the renewables obligation was to mitigate carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions,” said Renton Righelato, one of the study’s co-authors.

“In our view this is a mistaken policy because it is less effective than reforesting,” he told BBC News.

Dr Righelato, chairman of the World Land Trust, added that the policy could actually lead to more deforestation as nations turned to countries outside of the EU to meet the growing demand for biofuels.

Carbon counting

The study compared the amount of carbon absorbed by a forested area with the total of “avoid emissions” by using biofuels instead of fossil fuels.

The researchers examined arable land that could either be used for growing crops to produce biofuels, or replanted with trees.

“We looked at the amount of biofuels produced per hectare,” Dr Righelato explained. “From that figure, we were able to calculate the amount of fossil fuels that could be replaced by biofuels.

“That gave a figure for avoided emissions, but then we had to subtract from that the carbon emissions generated during the production of the biofuels.

He said this calculation provided them with the “net avoided carbon emissions”.

“This is the key factor, that is the amount of CO2 that is saved from being released into the atmosphere by using the biofuel.”

The researchers then compared the net avoided carbon emissions with the amount of CO2 that would have been absorbed if forests were re-established on the land.

“In all cases, the amount of CO2 sequestered (by forests) over a 30-year period is considerably greater than the amount of emissions avoided by using biofuels,” Dr Righelato revealed.

The researchers also examined the impact of clearing forests in order to convert land to grow crops used to make biofuels.

Dr Righelato said forest clearances had a large and immediate impact on the carbon cycle.

“Forest carbon stocks are in the region of 100-300 tonnes per hectare. Three-quarters of that is lost over the first year during clearing and burning,” he said.

“It would take - in all the cases we examined - between 50 to 100 years to recover this carbon through the production of biofuels.”

Second chance

However, he said that so-called second generation biofuels, which used feedstocks such as straw, grasses and wood (lignocellulosic material) rather than grains or palm oil, offered a much better opportunity.

“It was the one route than seemed to offer some possibilities in terms of CO2 mitigation.

“If you can extract lignocellulosic materials sustainably from forests without destroying the soil and maintain a way that forests can rapidly regrow, it is quite possible you can have your cake and eat it, as it were.”

A number of nations, including Germany, the UK and US, are developing second generation biofuels, but the capital costs needed to build commercial “biorefineries” have been seen as a major barrier.

But two US researchers, writing in the Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining journal, say that rising grain prices could make the technology commercially competitive sooner rather than later.

Mark Wright and Robert Brown, from Iowa State University, US, said that a second generation biorefinery cost four to five times as much as a bio-ethanol plant that used grains, such as corn.

However, the overall cost of producing second generation biofuels would be similar to biofuels produced from food crops when corn prices exceed $3 (£1.50) per bushel, they explained.

The adoption of second generation biofuels would be welcomed by environmental groups and food agencies, who view first generation fuels as unsustainable.

Experts at the World Water Week conference in Stockholm have voiced concern that growing food crops to be used to make biofuels could jeopardise water supplies.

“When governments and companies are discussing biofuel solutions, I think water issues are not addressed enough,” Johan Kuylenstierna, director of the annual conference, told AFP.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/6949861.stm

JP MORGAN Research has maintained its June 2008 target price of RM6.30 for IOI Corp Bhd based on a enterprise value-to-capital employed ratio of 3.9 times for FY08. JP Morgan’s valuation implies a FY08 price-earnings ratio of 21 times.

IOI has proposed a joint venture (JV) for oil palm cultivation in Kalimantan with Harita Group. The deal, made up of two parts, involves IOI acquiring a 33% stake in PT Bumitama Gunajaya Agro (first JV) with a total planted and unplanted area of 35,340 hectares and 64,000ha respectively and three palm oil mills. The first JV also oversees a “plasma” scheme which covers an area of 22,000ha.

In the second JV, IOI will acquire a 67% stake in several companies with a total plantation land of 128,000ha.

The acquisitions would add to IOI’s planted oil palm land of 144,055ha located in Malaysia.

JP Morgan said the total cost for the acquisitions is estimated at US$130 million (RM455 million) based on a total enterprise value of US$385 million.

It said excluding the plasma landbank and the palm oil mills, pricing for the acquisition stood at US$1,693 per ha versus recent transactions in Sumatra for newly-planted land at US$4,500-US$5,500 per ha. (Transactions and asking prices of planted land in Sabah stands at US$6,000-US$7,000 per ha)

“The discount paid by IOI hence, we believe, is because 84% of the land acquired is non-planted, and also given the terrain, oil palm cultivation in Kalimantan is much more capital intensive with higher labour cost compared to Sumatra,” it said.

It said the acquisitions coupled with the group’s capital repayment would raise FY08 net gearing from 14% to a comfortable 46% given the group’s strong cash flows, while full conversion of exchangeable bonds could lower gearing to 23%.

Source: http://www.theedgedaily.com/

By MUGUNTAN VANAR

KOTA KINABALU: The restoration of 240,000ha of forest reserves in Ulu Segama and Malua in Sabah is set to address global warming and climate changes.

Chief Minister Datuk Musa Aman said that the move to restore the Ulu Segama and Malua forest reserves was not merely to conserve the orang utan population but also to address issues of global warming.

He said that Sabah is working with international organisations like the New England Power (NEP) and FACE Foundation in forest activities involving offsetting of carbon emissions.

Speaking at a Bernama workshop on Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) organised by the Organisation of Asia Pacific News Agencies (OANA) here, Musa said that Yayasan Sabah and FACE Foundation had entered a collaborative programme to offset carbon emissions through enrichment planting and rehabilitation.

Musa, whose speech was read by Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun, said that under the first phase (1992-2012) of the collaboration, some 350,000 tons of carbon has been targeted to be sequestrated from less than 10,000ha rehabilitated within the Ulu Segama Forest Reserve.

“More of such concepts would be replicated throughout the state through various other projects,” Musa told the workshop attended by 30 participants from 33 news agencies from the Asia Pacific region.

He said the Ulu Segama and Malua Sustainable Forest Management project was a showcase of Sabah’s efforts to preserve the 5,000 orang utans found in the area. He added that a forest management plan was now being worked on for the area.

The Chief Minister added that due to the unique richness in biodiversity and wildlife, the area was also included in the broader Heart of Borneo Conservation initiative undertaken by Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia.

Musa said that Sabah was continuing to reduce logging permits and had been replacing them with Sustainable Forest Management Units through private initiatives on a 100-year lease.

“Our efforts since 1996 have been well received by the international communities as evident with the Deramakot forest reserve (the bith place of the SFM concept) being certified by the Forest Stewardship Council,” he said.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) have both stated that it was a good model to be adopted worldwide.

Bernama general manager Datuk Azman Ujang, who is the OANA secretary-general, said the workshop provided an opportunity for participants to find out about initiatives, policies and practices to balance between development needs and the need to preserve the environment in the management of forests in Malaysia.

Source: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/8/14/nation/20070814125310&sec=nation

JAKARTA (Antara): The prosecutor in a Corruption Eradiction Commission (KPK) court session on Wednesday demanded four years in jail for former director general of production forest management, Waskito Suryodibroto, for alleged graft in the development of oil-palm plantations in East Kalimantan.

The KPK prosecutor said the defendant who held the post from 1998 to 2002, had issued an “in-principle” approval for the issuance of timber utilization permits to eight companies which had not fulfilled the needed requirements.

The eight companies are PT Kaltim Bhakti Sejahtera, PT Bhumi Simanggaris Indah, PY Tirta Madu Sawit Jaya, PY Bulungan Argo Jaya, PY Repenas Bhakti Utama, PT Bulungan Hijau Perkasa, PT Borneo Bhakti Sejahtera and PT Bhumi Sawit Perkasa.

“The defendant issued the in-principle approval based on direct request from the companies without going through the office of the Forestry Ministry in East Kalimantan,” public prosecutor KMS Roni said when reading his indictment at the KPK`s Corruption Crime Court on Wednesday.

Waskito also issued the approval based on a recommendation on reserve area by East Kalimantan Governor Suwarna Abdul Fatah through an oil palm plantation recommendation letter.

The eight companies did not fulfill the requirement as stipulated in the Forestry and Plantation Minister’s decree No. 538/Kpts-II/1999, the prosecutor said, as they left the forest and did not develop palm oil plantations after they cut the trees.

Besides demanding four years in jail, the prosecutor also asked the judge to fine the defendant Rp200 million in substitution of six months in jail.(**)

Source: The Jakarta Post