Orangutan Outreach Website - Saving the Orangutan

4/3/08

La producción de aceite de palma para alimentación y para agrocombustibles (también llamados biocombustibles) está causando graves abusos a los derechos humanos en Indonesia, según un informe publicado por una coalición de grupos ecologistas internacionales [1]. En el informe “Perdiendo Terreno: El coste Humano de la Expansión del Aceite de Palma”, Amigos de la Tierra, Sawit Watch y LifeMosaic exponen los enormes problemas sociales impulsados por los objetivos de la Unión Europea (UE) de aumentar el uso de agrocombustibles en el transporte.

David Sánchez, responsable de agricultura de Amigos de la Tierra en España afirmó: “ Este informe muestra que, además de suponer un desastre ambiental, los combustibles fabricados a partir de aceite de palma suponen también una catástrofe social. La clase política europea y española debería cuestionarse sobre la conveniencia de los objetivos obligatorios para sustituir combustibles fósiles por agrocombustibles. Están marcando objetivos obligatorios de uso de agrocombustibles sin garantizar el origen de las materias primas ni las condiciones en las que se obtienen.”

El informe realizado por Amigos de la Tierra, Sawit Watch y LifeMosaic revela que las compañías de aceite de palma a menudo usan prácticas violentas para tomar posesión de las tierras de las comunidades indígenas, con la complicidad de policía y autoridades. Familias antes autosuficientes a partir de los recursos del bosque que los rodeaba denuncian ser víctimas de engaños para dejar sus tierras bajo promesas de trabajo y desarrollo. En su lugar, terminaron atrapados en deudas y trabajo mal remunerado, mientras que los bosques son reemplazados por monocultivos de palma de aceite. La contaminación por abuso de pesticidas, fertilizantes y el proceso de represas está dejando a varios pueblos sin acceso a agua potable.

La Comisión Europea marcó un objetivo de sustitución obligatorio del 10% de combustibles fósiles por agrocombustibles en el transporte para 2020. Se trata de un intento de reducir las emisiones de CO2 a pesar de la multitud de evidencias que muestran que los agrocombustibles no conseguirán alcanzar estas reducciones. Pero estos objetivos están impulsando una enorme expansión de la superficie dedicada al cultivo de, entre otras materias primas, aceite de palma. Todos los estudios y previsiones apuntan a un origen importado de las materias primas utilizadas para alcanzar este objetivo, por falta de superficie cultivable en Europa y por el menor precio de materias primas de origen tropical, como el aceite de palma [2].

Desde 2005 Amigos de la Tierra, Sawit Watch y LifeMosaic han estado trabajando conjuntamente en un proyecto que tiene como objetivo brindar información imparcial a las comunidades afectadas por las plantaciones de aceite de palma en Indonesia, para facilitar la toma de decisiones informadas acerca de su tierra y su futuro. “Perdiendo Territorio” está basado en testimonios de las comunidades contactadas durante este proyecto, nuevos datos aportados por Sawit Watch e investigaciones anteriores para proporcionar una visión desde el terreno en los impactos sociales, económicos y culturales de las plantaciones de palma de aceite.

Serge Marti, de LifeMosaic y autor del informe aseguró: “Indonesia es un país con una biodiversidad única, pero sus comunidades y su patrimonio natural están siendo sacrificados para mayor beneficio de un puñado de empresas y millonarios. En Europa debemos darnos cuenta que incentivar a grandes multinacionales para hacerse con el control de las tierras de las comunidades en países en desarrollo no es una solución al cambio climático. La UE debe asumir sus responsabilidades y abandonar los objetivos obligatorios de introducción de agrocombustibles.”

Abetnego Tarigan, Director Ejecutivo de Sawit Watch añadió :”Las empresas de aceite de palma ya han acaparado 7,3 millones de hectáreas de tierra para plantaciones, con el resultado de 513 conflictos en marcha entre empresas y comunidades. Considerando los negativos impactos sociales y ambientales del aceite de palma, Sawit Watch exige la reforma del sistema de plantaciones de palma de aceite en Indonesia y reconsiderar los planes para extender las plantaciones.”

Notas

1. El informe completo está disponible en: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/losingground.pdf

El resumen ejecutivo en español está disponible en: http://www.tierra.org/spip/IMG/pdf/Perdiendo_Terreno_esp.pdf

Un dossier sobre aceite de palma está disponible en: http://www.tierra.org/spip/IMG/pdf/Aceite_de_Palma.pdf

2. La Comisión Europea propone unos criterios de sostenibilidad para los agrocombustibles, que no incluyen medidas para enfrentarse a los impactos sociales de su producción. Esto implica que el incremento en el uso de agrocombustibles por parte de la UE tendrá como consecuencia más problemas como los expuestos en este informe, según más superficie de tierra se transforme para cubrir la demanda de aceite de palma.

El 85% del aceite de palma a nivel mundial se produce en plantaciones de Indonesia y Malasia. Según los planes de los gobiernos locales, solo Indonesia planea incrementar en 20 millones de hectáreas más las plantaciones para 2020, una superficie equivalente a Inglaterra, Holanda y Suiza juntas. La industria del aceite de palma asegura que el desarrollo de más plantaciones es vital para el desarrollo económico y que los métodos utilizados son sostenibles y beneficias a la población local. Sin embargo, en los vastos monocultivos que resultan tras las plantaciones, hay espacio para poca vida. La mitad de la pérdida del hábitat del orangután durante la última década ha estado asociada al aceite de palma.

Además, la deforestación y destrucción de los bosques pantanosos de turbera para producir aceite de palma han convertido a Indonesia en el tercer país emisor de gases de efecto invernadero por detrás solo de EE.UU. y China.

Fuente: http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=64072

This story is truly profound. Tamara the orangutan, formerly of Perth Zoo in Australia, was released into the wild over a year ago– and now her ex-keepers are going out to see how she’s doing!

The segment also features some brief interviews with the man responsible for enforcing Indonesia’s anti-deforestation laws.
Watch him smile and laugh hysterically as he admits to doing absolutely nothing to stop the palm oil companies from destroying the forest…. This is so disturbing. If anyone out here can get us in touch with Michael Moore, please contact us immediately.

View the entire segment here:
http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=418129

Watch the Audio Picture Gallery for this story

Reporter: Liam Bartlett
Producer: Howard Sacre

The mud, the leeches, the heat and humidity, in the end it was all worth it. And how! Just a glimpse of them was magic enough. But to actually hold an orang-utan - one of the rarest creatures on earth - well, that defies description. It was all part of a remarkable rescue mission into the Sumatran jungle, where the orang-utans and their cousins, the gibbons, are on the brink of disaster. Entire forests there are being slashed and burnt, to provide us with a product we can’t get enough of - palm oil. But thanks to a team from the Perth Zoo, at last there’s hope. They could yet be saved from extinction.

Related info:

Australian Orangutan Project website:
www.orangutan.org.au
Contact: Leif Cocks
President, Australian Orangutan Project
Curator Exotics, Perth Zoo
Phone 1300 RED APE

Silvery Gibbon Project website:
www.silvery.org.au
Contact: Clare Campbell
President, Silvery Gibbon Project
Supervisor of Primates, Perth Zoo
Phone 0438 992325 or 08 94740444

Perth Zoo website:
www.perthzoo.wa.gov.au
Phone: 08 94740444

Full transcript:

LIAM BARTLETT: It’s my first encounter with magnificent Sumatran orang-utans and what a welcome! What’s going on? What’s going on?

LEIF COCKS: Liam, maybe you remind him of his mother.

LIAM BARTLETT: Clare Campbell and Leif Cocks from Perth Zoo are in Indonesia on a special mission - to save the world’s most endangered species. It is pretty special, though, we’re in the last of the lowland forests in Indonesia with one of the last orang-utans on the planet. It’s incredible when you think about it.

LEIF COCKS: It’s frightening, really, that’s what it is.

CLARE CAMPBELL: The orang-utan is such a charismatic species, if we can’t get people to protect the orang-utan and as a result protect the habitat, then we may as well just wipe everything out. We have to focus on little areas like this, excuse me, What’s in there!

LEIF COCKS: That’s too good television. This is a family show.

LIAM BARTLETT: Definitely a male, Clare. We found this last refuge of the orang-utan, a remote national park, at the end of a long-disused logging road. It’s a terrifying ride. With breakdowns and broken bridges it took us 10 hours to travel just 30 kilometres.

LEIF COCKS: It’s going to be a bit of a hard walk.

LIAM BARTLETT: Clare and Leif are key players in a daring experiment - establishing a new population of orang-utans to halt their rapid slide into extinction.

LIAM BARTLETT: Hey, look at that. That’s amazing isn’t it.

CLARE CAMPBELL: Hey, beautiful girl. This forest has been set aside as a sanctuary. Some were pets, confiscated from backyard cages, others were bred in zoos and set free. The plan now is that they breed in the wild.

CLARE CAMPBELL: By putting the best selection of orangs that we can out in this habitat that’s protected, our ultimate goal is that they’ll reproduce soon.

LIAM BARTLETT: Many babies very quickly?

CLARE CAMPBELL: We hope so.

LIAM BARTLETT: The word orang-utan literally means “person of the forest” but their forests are vanishing. It is estimated a thousand of them die each year in a mad scramble to clear land, and there are only 7,000 left. Do you ever stop and think we are going to run out of time?

CLARE CAMPBELL: That’s always in the back of our mind but, I guess, we have to be a little more positive about it. Otherwise you just give up. To us there has to be a sense of hope. That that’s not going to be the case. I guess that’s why we just keep trying. He just undid my pants! You are cheeky!

LIAM BARTLETT: Orang-utans spend almost every minute of their lives up in the forest canopy, these trees provide a whopping 99% of the food they need to survive. Trouble is, the forest is getting harder and harder to find, and it’s not surprising when you take a look at this! This slash-and-burn is happening at a record rate right across the country. Even in national parks.

LIAM BARTLETT: They’ve got the chainsaw out in full force today, this sort of destruction must make your stomach turn, does it?

CLARE CAMPBELL: Yeah, we should be standing in the middle of the jungle full of wildlife and instead we are listening to chainsaws.

LIAM BARTLETT: 20 years ago Indonesia gave a green light to the palm oil industry to plunder its forests. The nation had 10% of the world’s remaining tropical forests, but these sprawling palm plantations are now chewing them up at a phenomenal rate. One estimate says an area the size of a football field is cleared every two seconds.

EMMY HAFILD: These are big, big people, big money, yeah. The richest of the richest in this country.

LIAM BARTLETT: Emmy Hafild investigates the palm oil industry for Greenpeace. Why is your government letting it happen?

EMMY HAFILD: I don’t, I don’t know how to answer that question. I think this driven by the profit and the powerful palm oil industry lobby, yeah.

LIAM BARTLETT: The man heading that palm oil lobby, Mr.. Derom Bangun, says the burning of forests happens all over the world.

DEROM BANGUN: Just like when you have fires last year, where, in Spain, in United States, sometimes near Sydney, when I was in Sydney.

LIAM BARTLETT: Palm seeds are pressed for their oil. It’s used in a massive variety of foods, toiletries and cosmetics even bio-fuels. The world’s biggest food companies can’t get enough of it. This liquid gold rush has made Indonesia the world’s leading exporter. But with money literally growing on trees, the industry is out of control. So there are still a lot of palm oil industry people out there doing the wrong thing?

DEROM BANGUN: Yes.

LIAM BARTLETT: So, what are you going to do to stop them?

DEROM BANGUN: Well, the government should enforce the law, that’s law that they will not cut the trees, will not cut the forests.

LIAM BARTLETT: If you knew a company was doing the wrong thing, would you report them?

DEROM BANGUN: Yes.

LIAM BARTLETT: Have you ever reported a palm oil company?

DEROM BANGUN: No.

LIAM BARTLETT: Not one?

DEROM BANGUN: Not one. LIAM BARTLETT: In all the forests that’s been chopped down?

DEROM BANGUN: We are not supposed to go there and find… look. It is not our job.

LIAM BARTLETT: Back in the jungle, Clare and Leif are on the hunt for one ape in particular - an orang-utan named Temara. Will she recognise you when she sees you, Leif?

LEIF COCKS: Oh yes, orang-utans remember you forever.

LIAM BARTLETT: There’s a very special connection. Temara was born at Perth Zoo and they reared her for 15 years. More than a year ago they opened the gate of a quarantine cage and released her into the Sumatran forest.

CLARE CAMPBELL: Good girl!

LEIF COCKS: The first time in her life she was unsure, that her keepers were actually letting her out rather than spending their time trying to keep her in. You be careful, girl.

LIAM BARTLETT: Since then, Temara’s been roaming free. But thanks to the park rangers we know we’re closing in.

CLARE CAMPBELL: Hello gorgeous girl!

LIAM BARTLETT: Finally we spot her - 50 metres up, wondering what all the fuss is about.

CLARE CAMPBELL: Temara, hello!

LIAM BARTLETT: She looks like the queen of Sheba, up there, doesn’t she.

CLARE CAMPBELL: She thinks she is.

LIAM BARTLETT: Orang-utans spend almost all their lives alone, but with those familiar faces and the voices from her captive past, Temara seemed to want a reunion as much as Clare and Leif did.

LEIF COCKS: I think she’s looking really good. That she’s getting enough food and variety of food to keep that sort of condition on her.

CLARE CAMPBELL: You’re a good girl.

LIAM BARTLETT: Does she look exactly the same as when you saw her 15 months ago in the zoo?

CLARE CAMPBELL: I think she looks better. Well, she looks better just because of where she is. It’s where she belongs. But she certainly looks healthy, it’s great.

LIAM BARTLETT: The signs are good that Temara’s adapting well. Having even one more orang-utan in the wild means a lot when numbers are so critical. But they’re not the only apes being wiped out by the destruction of Indonesia’s forests. This is the silvery gibbon. No-one knows for sure but there may be just 400 left.

CLARE CAMPBELL: How can you not love gibbons? I just love them, I want to help them. And they need lots of help. I sometimes think of these guys as the forgotten apes, they don’t get anywhere near as much attention as their larger cousins but their situation is just as bad so if anything, they need more help.

LIAM BARTLETT: Is it just size?

CLARE CAMPBELL: Probably, I guess the larger mammals always appeal to most people.

LIAM BARTLETT: Is he mooning us there? Or am I…?

CLARE CAMPBELL: (Laughs) He’s mooning you.

LIAM BARTLETT: Terrific. Slowly but surely, gibbons are being rescued from the illegal pet trade and brought to this refuge near Jakarta.

CLARE CAMPBELL: Oh my God, he’s so beautiful.

LIAM BARTLETT: It’s vital to keep every last one alive, so Perth Zoo has sent their vet Karen Payne to check the new arrivals.

KAREN PAYNE: He had a heart rate of about 140, but he’s settled down a bit.

LIAM BARTLETT: But the really important stuff is going on outside in cages built in the national park, encouraging gibbons to breed. Do they make the connection easily? Are they boyfriend/girlfriend quickly?

CLARE CAMPBELL: No, they’re fussy little critters. They’re very much like humans they either like each other or they don’t.

LIAM BARTLETT: Well, they wouldn’t be happy with you if you chose them an ugly one.

CLARE CAMPBELL: No, exactly, and look at Geoffry, he’s so gorgeous, we had to try and pick a nice one for him.

LIAM BARTLETT: What would you give to see a baby?

CLARE CAMPBELL: I’d give anything to see a baby here - that’s going to be the ultimate. Oh, the ultimate would be to see a pair with a baby back out in the wild, that would be the best.

LIAM BARTLETT: Gibbons are now so rare it’s near impossible to spot them in the wild. In five years of coming here Clare has never seen one. But she agreed to take me on her latest search. After six hours in the jungle we heard a distinctive call. And there they were.

CLARE CAMPBELL: I just can’t believe how far they drop from one tree to another. There it goes!

LIAM BARTLETT: You’re really stoked at that aren’t you?

CLARE CAMPBELL: Yeah. Been waiting a long time for this.

LIAM BARTLETT: But time’s running seriously short. Indonesia is desperate to develop today, never mind what happens to the wildlife tomorrow. But no one loves these animals more than Clare and Leif and they’re in there for the fight.

CLARE CAMPBELL: All the hard work is for these guys, and to actually see some in the wild and know that they’re still there, it gives me a reason to keep going and some hope for the future for them.

Source: Mongabay
3-27-08

Companies linked to timber giant Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) are illegally building a road that runs through highly endangered peatland forest on the island of Sumatra, according to an investigative report published by Eyes on the Forest, a coalition of NGOs in Indonesia.

The road would allow APP and its affiliates to log forests for timber and drain peat soil for the establishment of oil palm plantations. The action would release large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from one of the world’s largest contiguous tropical peat swamp forests.

“It is morally reprehensible for one of the world’s largest paper companies to so brazenly ignore Indonesian laws and destroy the natural resources that belong to the people of Riau,” said Teguh Surya of Walhi Riau, one of the Eyes on the Forest partners. “We strongly urge APP to join the ranks of responsible businesses and conduct its operations within the law. Until that time, the world’s paper buyers and investors should stop doing business with APP.”

The Kampar peninsula area is home the critically endangered Sumatran tigers, whose wild population is estimated to be down to just 400-500, as well as other threatened wildlife.

“Even as our investigators were out surveying the site last month, they came across tiger tracks walking along the APP logging road,” said Nursamsu of WWF-Indonesia and Eyes on the Forest coordinator. “But the tigers of Kampar don’t stand a chance once APP begins logging full-scale and the poachers discover there’s easy access to this critical tiger habitat.”

While APP’s highway will provide access to loggers and oil palm developers, it will not — as promised by administrators — connect two remote villages. Thus the benefits of the project for local people will be limited.

“APP claimed that it was building this state-of-the-art, paved highway for the benefit of the local communities,” said Susanto Kurniawan of Jikalahari. “It’s shameful to see a multibillion-dollar enterprise hiding behind the needs of desperately poor, isolated villagers, who will receive absolutely no benefit from this road but will likely suffer the consequences of APP’s activities.”

The report says that APP has at least three other forest concessions in central Sumatra: Bukit Tigapuluh dry lowland forest block and the Senepis and Kerumutan peatland forests.

The report notes that at least 300,000 hectares of the Kampar peninsula’s 700,000 hectares of forest has been logged since 2002.

“Most of the lost forest was cleared to supply natural forest wood to mills run by APP and its competitor, Asia Pacific Resources International Holding (APRIL), and then planted in acacia plantations to supply the pulp mills. A small part has been converted into oil palm plantations or wastelands,” said a statement from Eyes on the Forest.

Degradation of Indonesia’s peatlands and forest ecosystems is estimated by Wetlands International to release more than 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, making the country the third largest producer of greenhouse gases. A WWF study published last month found that deforestation of nearly 10.5 million acres of tropical forests and peat swamp in central Sumatra’s Riau Province over the past 25 years has generated 3.7 gigatons of carbon dioxide.

Source: Mongabay - March 26, 2008
By Jeremy Hance

Timber certification body under attack from environmentalists for slipping standards

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has come under increasingly harsh criticisms from a variety of environmental organizations. The FSC is an international not-for-profit organization that certifies wood products: its stamp of approval is meant to create confidence that the wood was harvested in an environmentally-sustainable and socially-responsible manner. For years the FSC stamp has been imperative for concerned consumers in purchasing wood products. Yet amid growing troubles for the FSC, recent attacks from environmental organizations like World Rainforest Movement and Ecological Internet are putting the organization’s credibility into question.

Last week the World Rainforest Movement released a scathing press release calling a decision by the FSC to certify eucalyptus plantations in Brazil its “death certificate.” The eucalyptus plantations are owned by Veracel, a partnership between Aracruz Celulose of Brazil and Stora Enso of Sweden-Finland, which has a shaky environmental record. The press release alleges that Veracel “has a very well known record of harmful actions, including violating local communities’ rights over land, to environmental pollution, water depletion and ecosystem destruction.” World Rainforest Movement’s greatest concern, however, is that by certifying Veracel’s eucalyptus plantations, the FSC is stating that large-scale monoculture plantations are environmentally sound, socially responsible, and beneficial to local people. Whereas research has shown that monoculture plantations support little biodiversity, result in CO2 emissions relative to natural forests, and undermine the efforts of local people to manage forests in a sustainable manner. In calling this decision the FSC’s “death certificate” the World Rainforest Movement asserts that “the certification of Veracel is not an isolated fact, but the last piece in a chain of failures.”

As this press release emerged, the FSC was already under criticism by another environmental organization, Ecological Internet. In early March Ecological Internet began a campaign stating that the FSC’s support for logging old-growth forests was completely at odds with its purpose. The campaign targets some of the world’s most influential environmental and well-respected NGOs, asking them to withdraw their support from the FSC. These include Greenpeace, WWF, Rainforest Action Network, NRDC, Forest Ethics, Friends of the Earth and the Rainforest Alliance. Ecological Internet claims that, much like supporting monoculture plantations, the support of ancient forest logging diminishes biodiversity, causes net carbon losses, and harms the forest’s ecology.

“It has become evident to environmentalists in the know that FSC has become an obstacle to ending ancient forest destruction, addressing climate change and biodiversity loss, and promoting desirable ecologically based practices in regenerating and planted forests,” Ecological Internet founder Dr. Glen Barry told mongabay.com. “The organization is plagued with conflicts of interest, poor quality assurance mechanisms, and generally has failed the world’s forests. As such, we are in the uncomfortable position of protesting greenwashing NGO FSC supporters, who are finding it quite difficult to acknowledge they have been critical in creating and maintaining the FSC myth.”

Dr. Barry’s criticism of NGOs that support the FSC has touched off sharp debates within and without these organizations. The situation has become so tense that the Rainforest Alliance—usually a group that does the pro-forest campaigns—recently faced environmental protesters at a ‘Green Leaders’ cocktail party for their support of the FSC and old-growth logging. The Rainforest Alliance has said they will join in a debate regarding their support of old-growth logging.

Both of the reports emerged after face-saving efforts by the FSC in Indonesia where an inquiry by The Wall Street Journal last year prompted the organization to effectively revoke certification for a Singapore-based Asia Pulp & Paper Co. (APP) project on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The admission, which environmentalists said showed the FSC had relaxed its certification standards to the point at which APP could qualify for the eco-label despite a poor environmental record, threatened to undermine the credibility of its labeling scheme.

A report released this week by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Telepak on illegal logging in Southeast Asia has provided further trouble for the FSC. The report uncovered that corporations are getting away with lying about certification. Furniture companies YourPriceFurniture.com and Kybotech Ltd. both claimed that all their products were FSC certified when the claim was patently untrue. Both companies sell wood furniture that has never received FSC certification. According to the report, Kybotech Ltd. when pressed admitted that “certain furniture sets were not actually certified.”

Such reports of FSC’s difficulties—both globally and locally—are not being ignored. In what may be the beginning of a large-scale abandonment of the FSC, last Tuesday the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC) withdrew its long-time support of the FSC. In a statement the SSNC said that the “FSC functions badly in Sweden. The standard is weak, the lack of observance is substantial and the forest companies will to improve FSC is weak.” Sweden is not alone. Certification practices in the FSC in Ireland and the US have come under increased scrutiny, causing outcry amid many local environmental groups. Last year Norway went as far as banning use of all certified wood products in public buildings.

While its future seems increasingly precarious, the FSC still possesses widespread support from large environmental global players. Further no one has yet proposed a viable replacement for the should the organization does not survive rising criticism

In the meantime consumers are left increasingly in the dark when trying to purchase environmentally-sustainable and socially-responsible wood products. Caught in an environmental Catch-22, eco-conscious consumers who want to avoid supporting large-scale monoculture plantations and old-growth logging, seem forced to avoide both FSC certified and non-certified furniture.

The FSC did not reply to Mongabay’s request for comment.

John McCarthy, Canberra | Fri, 03/28/2008
The Jakarta Post

As boom towns flicker to life across rural Indonesia, the relentless pursuit of oil palm wealth poses social and environmental problems for Indonesian policy makers.

In India the rural poor ration every last drop of cooking oil. In Malaysia and Northern Australia factories built to convert vegetable oil to biofuel sit idle. Food riots have erupted in Guinea, Mexico and Uzbekistan, all linked to the price of vegetable oil and other basic foodstuffs. But it is perhaps in Indonesia where the commodity boom in vegetable oils is affecting rural communities most of all.

In the islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan, farmers, entrepreneurs, teachers, doctors, government officials and plantation companies are racing to convert every available corner of the lowlands into oil palm. Here oil palm companies are carving out large spaces between neat rectangular blocks of existing oil palm plantations.

With a new policy allocating 6.5 million hectares of land to investors interested in planting new crops to boast bio-fuel production, Indonesia is expecting to triple the area under oil palm to 20 million hectares. The reason is obvious: The price of crude palm oil has increased 88 percent from US$570 per metric ton at the beginning of 2007 to over $1,440 in early March 2008.

Oil palm fever is endemic to Sumatra and Kalimantan. The logic is clear. A two hectare smallholding of oil palm can produce fresh fruit bunches now worth Rp 5 million per harvest. As the oil palm tree is harvested every two weeks, this is around Rp 10 million a month. Some small time farmers earn this income — considerably more than the salary of a university professor.

During the 1990s, Soeharto’s government brought in poor migrants from Java, granting them small plots of oil palm in the forested frontiers of Kalimantan and Sumatra. Many of these migrants are now surfing the boom, earning enough to purchase a car, a motorbike, buy up new areas to grow oil palm, or make the pilgrimage to Mecca.

In the West Sumatran village of Koto Salak, Afrizal stands in front of his house, showing off oil palm seedlings he just bought. He acquired his first plot of oil palm 10 years ago when a large plantation company was cutting deals with local leaders as it expanded across West Sumatra.

At this time policy makers had recognized that oil palm is really a rich farmer’s crop, requiring large investments in quality seedlings, large quantities of fertilizer, and careful husbandry. Under state supported development schemes plantations obtained forest land within village boundaries in exchange for developing small plots for villagers who joined a farmer’s cooperative.

Afrizal used his first plot to trade upwards, selling it for a large profit, and then buying a second and a third plot, which he then sold on. Building up his capital along the way, eventually he opened his own acreage. Now he has 300 hectares under various stages of cultivation.

But not all farmers shifted upwards. When the plantations moved into the villages of eastern Jambi, Aris had never planted this crop. While some refused to take up plots of land in the new developments, Aris found that the area of oil palm he was granted was unproductive and that he had a large debt. When land speculators moved in, Aris sold on his plot for a low price.

Now, with the surge in oil palm prices, villagers are enthusiastic about oil palm. With spiraling land prices and large sums of money on offer, poor villagers can be induced to sell off their ancestral land. A family crisis can push a village family into a downward spiral: After they sell their land, they are forced into poorly-paid piece work on other people’s oil palm land.

Meanwhile Siregar, a doctor working in a town on the East Coast of Sumatra, described how he had bought a hundred hectares to grow oil palm. “The village head helped me buy the land from villagers four years ago”, he said. As the oil palm trees come into production, he plans to send his children overseas for their education. In this way the oil palm is generating a new rich — and a new poor.

In the face of this oil palm boom, plantation expansion continues apace. With many villagers hoping to gain a foothold in the booming palm oil economy, oil palm companies readily find village partners willing to grant areas of customary land in exchange for productive oil palm smallholdings. But in the absence of a clear regulatory framework, disputes erupt as villagers are often unhappy about levels of compensation, unmet promises and unequal arrangements with the “step parent” plantation.

In West Sumatra, Afrizal expects poor farmers to fall behind. He now employs scores of people in his 300 hectare plantation, including members of his extensive clan.

From the largesse generated from his large holding he has accumulated enough funds and a following to support a campaign for public office. He now sits in the Regional Council. As a member of the assembly’s economic commission, he travels to Jakarta to discuss agricultural policy with the ministry.

Meanwhile the boom towns across Sumatra and Kalimantan flicker to life. The city of Jambi has a new five star-hotel, flashy shopping malls and travel agencies. Sungai Rumbai, just a few years ago a sleepy village on the border of West Sumatra, boasts several mobile phone and car dealers and a new supermarket. The houses of the new oil palm kings dominate the village, two story monoliths with giant satellite dishes.

Oil palm is indeed a tree wrapped up in contradictions. On the one hand, who can begrudge the industrious farmers of Sumatra the chance to earn real money — to school their children, buy a new car, renovate their house or even take the haj to Mecca. Yet the environmental and social consequences of the boom give space for pause. The lure of oil palm profits has many implications.

An official in a provincial forestry office in East Sumatra confides that many district forestry officials now have 100 hectares of oil palm. He unfolds a map and points out the expanding belt of plantations in logged over and degraded forest concessions now rezoned for agriculture.

Safrial, an environmental activist, notes that oil palm can be good for local farmers.

But the problems are many: Oil palm requires huge volumes of fertilizer which end up as chemicals in the water people drink. Few oil palm mills have effective pollution management, and the putrid effluent also finds its way into local rivers where the poor wash and fish.

Converting forest hillsides into oil palm also has consequences: Unlike the deep roots and tangled undergrowth of the forest, the water runs off the oil palm rapidly, flooding the lowlands. At the same time, carbon emissions from forest fires are associated with peat drainage and land clearance by plantation owners.

By Desy Nurhayati and Adianto P. Simamora

The government has reaped US$100 million cash in grants from the international community to implement forest protection projects in Indonesia in an effort to sink below producing a million tons of carbon emissions per year.

Forestry minister MS Ka’ban said his ministry would issue a regulation to secure the implementation of Reduction Emission from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) projects.

“Just wait a few weeks and we will announce a regulation on REDD projects,” he said after the opening of a national working meeting on forestry at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta on Thursday.

Ka’ban said the money would be distributed to regions eligible to perform pilot activities for REDD projects.

He did not specify names of areas that would host the projects, although he included as possibilities Papua, Aceh, Kalimantan and Maluku provinces.

REDD projects represent one of many measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions adopted during the UN climate change conference in Bali last December.

“We expect to have eight or nine REDD pilot projects this year,” Ka’ban said.

He said his ministry would examine existing damages to forests to determine their eligibility for project funding.

A study by the government showed that with the price of carbon at about $10 per ton, the REDD would generate up to $2 million annually through carbon trading.

Indonesia is home to 120 million hectares of rainforest, the third largest area in a country after Brazil and Congo.

Green activists have criticized forest carbon trading, lamenting a newly-issued government regulation allowing open-pit mining in protected forests, saying it went against the government’s promise to protect the forests.

Ka’ban, however, said the government would continue to implement the regulation, which demands payment for forest use.

“Nothing is wrong with the regulation. We will not issue new licenses for miners to operate in protected forests. It is only for 13 mining companies,” he said.

The regulation, in effect since Feb. 8, stipulates non-forestry firms operating in protected forests must pay between Rp 1.2 and Rp 3 million per hectare per year, with open-pit miners having to pay the maximum fee.

Ka’ban also said forest crimes had sharply decreased in the past two years due to intensive monitoring.

“There were only 325 forest crimes in 2007, down from 769 cases in the previous year,” he said.

He said the ministry had recorded illegal logging and illegal trading in Ketapang, West Kalimantan, this year.

“Currently, there is no more illegal logging in Riau,” he said.

Source: The Jakarta Post

Researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, have identified a language feature unique to the human brain that is shedding light on how human language evolved. The study marks the first use of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), a non-invasive imaging technique, to compare human brain structures to those of chimpanzees, our closest living relative. The study will be published in the online version of Nature Neuroscience.

To explore the evolution of human language, Yerkes researcher James Rilling, PhD, and his colleagues studied the arcuate fasciculus, a pathway that connects brain regions known to be involved in human language, such as Broca’s area in the frontal lobe and Wernicke’s area in the temporal lobe. Using DTI, researchers compared the size and trajectory of the arcuate fasciculus in humans, rhesus macaques and chimpanzees.

According to Rilling, “The human arcuate fasiculus differed from that of the rhesus macaques and chimpanzees in having a much larger and more widespread projection to areas in the middle temporal lobe, outside of the classical Wernicke’s area. We know from previous functional imaging studies that the middle temporal lobe is involved with analyzing the meanings of words. In humans, it seems the brain not only evolved larger language regions but also a network of fibers to connect those regions, which supports humans’ superior language capabilities.”

“This is a landmark,” said Yerkes researcher Todd Preuss, PhD, one of the study’s coauthors. “Until DTI was developed, scientists lacked non-invasive methods to study brain connectivity directly. We couldn’t study the connections of the human brain, nor determine how humans resemble or differ from other animals. DTI now makes it possible to understand how evolution changed the wiring of the human brain to enable us to think, act and speak like humans.”

Information Source: Emory University
Page Source: http://www.physorg.com/news125500956.html

PETA Press Release:
Spot Featuring Young Chimpanzee Will Be Company’s Last

For Immediate Release: March 26, 2008

Los Angeles - For pledging that it will never again produce ads that use great apes after learning from PETA about the suffering of young chimpanzees and orangutans used as “actors,” Los Angeles-based multimedia ad agency Big Picture Group (BPG) will receive PETA’s Compassionate Marketing Award.

PETA contacted BPG after the agency produced an ad for movietickets.com that featured a young chimpanzee named Jake. After reading the materials and watching the video sent by PETA, BPG President Steph Sebbag told PETA that the company would not work with “those people” again and will stop using great apes in ads. Sebbag also said that he would consult with PETA before using any other animals in future commercials. Big Picture Group will receive a framed certificate as a token of PETA’s appreciation.

PETA points out that using infant and juvenile chimpanzees and orangutans in commercials is inherently cruel. Early separation is traumatic for both mothers and infants, as great apes in the wild stay with their mothers for years. Many trainers repeatedly fail to comply with even the minimum standards for animal care that are required by federal law. Trainers sometimes use electric-shock prods to force intelligent and strong-willed youngsters to perform confusing acts and sit still under studio lights for hours.

A primatologist who spent 14 months working at a California facility that trains great apes for the TV and movie industries observed that trainers kick, punch, and beat chimpanzees to make them obedient. Chimpanzees and orangutans used in ads are usually only a few years old. By the time that they reach young adulthood at about age 8, they are too powerful to control and are often discarded at roadside zoos or sold to cheap traveling shows.

“Our hats go off to Big Picture Group for taking a tough stand against the abuse of chimpanzees and other animals who were never meant to be ‘actors,’” says PETA Director Debbie Leahy. “There’s nothing funny about watching an animal who was torn from his loving mother–and likely beaten repeatedly–’perform’ for the sake of a few sales.”

PETA’s correspondence with Big Picture Group is available upon request. For more information, please visit PETA’s Web site NoMoreMonkeyBusiness.com.

Source: http://www.peta.org/mc/NewsItem.asp?id=11174

More orangutans will surely suffer– now at the hands of Indian investors. So now it looks like the Indonesian government can shrug it’s shoulders and say ’sorry– it’s not us destroying the forest and killing every living creature!’

Isn’t it interesting how foreigner corporations from India, China and neighboring Malaysia are able to manipulate the laws and  get their hands on choice swathes of Borneo rainforest??? Whose interest is the Indonesian government serving? The Indonesian people or foreign businessmen? Think about it… now take action!

We’ll be having an info booth at the National Zoo on Thursday, April 10. If you’re near the Zoo, come and visit us!

Toast wildlife conservation with (Friends of National Zoo) FONZ Young Professionals at the Zoo’s winetasting event, Grapes With the Apes.

Sample wines and hors d’oeuvres from a variety of wineries and area restaurants, enjoy live jazz and blues music by Ready, Set, Go!, animal demonstrations, and exclusive access to the Zoo’s Great Ape House.

The ticket price includes all wine samplings, food, entertainment, and a commemorative glass. Proceeds from this event will benefit the Zoo’s conservation efforts.

Date: Thursday, April 10

Time: 6–9 p.m.

Location: National Zoo

Price: $40 FONZ members | $55 nonmembers

Take Metro!

FONZ encourages you to take public transportation and drink responsibly. Take the Red Line to the Woodley Park/Zoo/Adams Morgan stop or the Cleveland Park stop. The Zoo entrance lies halfway between these stops, and both are a short walk from the Zoo.

Learn more: http://nationalzoo.si.edu/ActivitiesAndEvents/YoungProfessionals/AfterHours/default.cfm