The following interview comes from Mongabay and the original version can be found here.
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Despite worldwide attention and concern, prime orangutan habitat across Sumatra and Borneo continues to be destroyed by loggers and palm oil developers, resulting in the death of up to 3,000 orangutans (of a population less than 50,000) per year. Conservation groups like Borneo Orangutan Survival report rescuing record numbers of infant orangutans from oil palm plantations, which are now a far bigger source of orphaned orangutans than the illicit pet trade. The volume of orangutans entering care centers is such that these facilities are running out of room for rescued apes, with translocated individuals sometimes waiting several months until suitable forest is found for reintroduction. Even then they aren’t safe: in recent months loggers have started clearing two important reintroduction sites (forests near Bukit Tigapuluh National Park in Sumatra and Mawas in Central Kalimantan). Meanwhile across half a dozen rehabilitation centers in Malaysia and Indonesia, more than 1,0000 baby orangutans—their mothers killed by oil palm plantation workers or in the process of forest clearing—are being trained by humans for hopeful reintroduction into the wild, assuming secure habitat can be found.

Hardi Baktiantoro

Dismayed by the rising orangutan toll, a grassroots organization in Central Kalimantan is fighting back. Led by Hardi Baktiantoro, the Center for Orangutan Protection (COP) has mounted a guerilla-style campaign against companies that are destroying orangutan habitat in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo. The group rigorously investigates new clearing, documenting environmental transgressions using video, photography, and GPS. It then stages colorful demonstrates and issues media statements presenting evidence against plantation firms, government officials, and even NGOs. COP is also active in schools through its campus program which highlights threats to orangutans and tells students what they can do to help.

COP’s activities have not been welcomed by the palm oil industry. Facing threats, Hardi has had to hide his family and the group’s base of operations. The COP web site has been hacked and its communications tapped, while palm oil companies have offered Hardi tens of thousands in bribes in an effort to avoid COP’s scrutiny. But Hardi is defiant.

Orangutan with a machete wound from a palm oil worker at a plantation run by Carson Cumberbatch PLC. Zooming out reveals it to be a mother with infant. The baby orangutan is traumatized from seeing its mother severely beaten. Photos by ???

“Anyone who destroys orangutan habitat and kills orangutans is my enemy,” he told mongabay.com during a meeting at a COP field site.

Hardi is particularly suspicious of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), an industry-led initiative to improve the environmental performance of palm oil production through a certification scheme.

Hardi says that the RSPO is presently little more than a cover for greenwashing. Pressed for more details, Hardi opens his laptop showing a collection of photos of new plantings by an RSPO member. The pictures reveal what is clearing well-developed rainforest—complete with a tiered canopy structure—being torn down with bulldozers and chains. In nearby areas thousands of palm seedlings dot the overturned Earth. Other pictures—including ones taken last week at a site where a plantation company purchased land at $50 per hectare—show canals draining ink-black waters from peat swamps, ecosystems that serve as a massive carbon store and a buffer against flooding. Peat swamp drainage in Indonesia accounts for up to 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions in some years, making the country the third’s largest greenhouse gas emitter after China and the United States.

Draining and clearing of peat forest in Central Kalimantan. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.

But much of the clearing documented by Hardi is technically legal. While the central government in Jakarta has at times issued statements banning conversion of rainforests and peatlands for oil palm plantations, the decentralized administrative structure of Indonesia means that these maneuvers are purely political and carry no legal weight. Land-use decisions are made in provinces, regencies, and cities—not by the national government. Further, corruption and political patronage can weaken the environmental rules that might be in place, providing opportunities for developers to gain access to forest lands at low cost. In some cases land granted by local officials may already be claimed by communities for customary use, sparking social conflict. Hardi says that ensuring the rights of local communities is also part of COP’s goal since these communities, as users of resources from living forests, tend to be better stewards of the land than industrial plantation companies.

“The fact that forest still exists in these areas shows communities are using resources in a responsible way,” he said. “When a plantation company comes in, all that forest is cleared for a monoculture crop. The plantation isn’t going to provide food for families and it isn’t going to provide enough jobs to make up for what is lost by cutting down the forest. These people don’t want to work on plantations anyway.”

Hardi discussed these issues and more during a interview with Rhett Butler in mid-May at a site in Central Kalimantan.

AN INTERVIEW WITH HARDI OF THE CENTER FOR ORANGUTAN PROTECTION

Mongabay: Why did you start COP?

Hardi Baktiantoro: I was working at BOS rescue center in Central Kalimantan. In 2006 we rescued 265 orangutans, which could represent 1500 orangutans killed in the field.

Hardi Baktiantoro

It’s like an endless rescue. It’s useless. If we want to help the orangutan we have to deal with the root of the problem — destruction of their habitat.

I decided to quit BOS and start against the companies directly. In March 2007 me and several of my friends founded the Center for Orangutan Protection.

Mongabay: And what is your objective?

Hardi Baktiantoro: The objective is to save the last remaining forests for orangutans. We have to stop all of the destruction. The best way to protect the orangutan is to protect their habitat.

Mongabay: What is your approach?

Hardi Baktiantoro: We tell people the truth from the field using video and photos. I am a former photographer and I think pictures are the best way to tell people. We gather evidence from the field and send it to the media.

Orangutan rescue. Photos courtesy of COP/ Ferry Latief.

Mongabay: So the palm oil companies don’t like you much.

Hardi Baktiantoro: Of course. We don’t make the palm oil companies happy. They track me. I’ve had to hide my family, my phones have been tapped, and last year the COP web site was hacked.

Some of the big international conservation organizations are also not happy with my group because they just want to make things look good — like the government.

Mongabay: So greenwashing by NGOs — working with corporations without really changing things for the better — is a problem?

Hardi Baktiantoro: Yes there is a lot of greenwashing. It makes the company look clean.

Mongabay: After you’ve done a campaign have any companies been fined or changed their behavior?

Hardi Baktiantoro: We have several victories. Several companies stopped their illegal activities and stepped back from the forest, saving thousands of orangutans.

But I don’t think there are any permanent victories. Companies don’t want to lose their money and when the focus is off them they will resume their activities.

It’s a battle all the time with them.

Mongabay: How do you stop deforestation before it happens?

Hardi Baktiantoro: Usually we get information from our field staff, local people, the media, and informants that a company is starting to clear an area. We send our team out to document the evidence — whether it is orangutan habitat or primary forest. We make the documentation and then publish it.

Mongabay: And you use technology like GPS and Google Earth to document it?

Hardi Baktiantoro: Of course. It’s a very technical investigation.

We use Google Earth — the ordinary version — to show before and after. It is very helpful.

Mongabay: What are your thoughts on RSPO? Do you think it will ever work?

Photos courtesy of COP/ Ferry Latief.

Hardi Baktiantoro: I think RSPO is just a shield for organized crime. RSPO has criteria but members still cut down the forest and kill the orangutan. For example in November 2007 during the RSPO meeting the IOI Group was still clearing the forest. So it’s like a big joke for me. It is a PR game. RSPO makes Wilmar and Sinar Mas look good but I rescued several orangutan from the Wilmar plantation in 2006 and 2007.

Earlier this year I visited sites where they are still clearing conservation value forest — forest that is home to orangutans.

Mongabay: Is Wilmar clearing peatlands?

Hardi Baktiantoro: Wilmar was not clearing peatlands at the sites we visited in Central Kalimantan but I can’t speak for other areas. It is a big company.

Mongabay: What about sub-contracting? Do you encounter instances where a big company with a good reputation is outsourcing clearing to smaller corporations which are depicted as “small-holders”?

Hardi Baktiantoro: Yes, this is a big problem. As I told you before, it is like organized crime. If we find something wrong in the field the company can easy say, “No that’s not us — they are a contractor. We have a very strict standard but it is not easy to enforce on the because people on the ground are not educated people.”

Mongabay: Some of this forest clearing may be environmentally damaging but is legal from a provincial government standpoint. The companies can say they are not doing anything illegal and perhaps even that the government is encouraging the activity, right?

Hardi Baktiantoro: I don’t care if it is legal or illegal. My opinion is that as long as long as orangutan habitat is being destroyed we have to stop it. It’s very common in Indonesia to legally clear the forest but the definition of who controls the forest can be questionable — it is often disputed.

For example we recently visited a site in Champaka, Central Kalimantan. According to the government, this is degraded land — grassland only. But in fact it is very good forest. Forest with very high conservation value and lots of orangutans and sun bear — so many animals there. But according to the government it is degraded land so it’s legal to clear.

Mongabay: Are there cases of companies protecting “high conservation value” forest that isn’t good forest?

Hardi Baktiantoro: Yes. Once more, this is an example of the PR game. For example several companies designate high conservation value forest on the map but when we checked on the ground they are just setting aside areas that are not suitable for planting. For example, land where there is still conflict with local people or the soil is too rocky for a plantation. So the companies just put up a sign that says conservation forest even if it has few animals or little conservation value. It’s totally “bullshit”.

Mongabay: Companies designate HCV in areas where they don’t have legal rights to the land?

Photos courtesy of COP/ Ferry Latief.

Hardi Baktiantoro: Yes, this is common.

Mongabay: Was there social conflict at site you investigated near Mawas last week (a conservation area home to a large population of orangutans)?

Hardi Baktiantoro: Yes. It is a very sad fact actually. The land price was US$50 per hectare. So it’s very cheap for the company but for the local people this is very valuable land and when the forest is gone they are starving because this is where they get food and rattan, their main source of cash income. The plantation isn’t giving them any jobs.

Mongabay: $50 is a very low price. Did local officials sign off on this deal?

Hardi Baktiantoro: Yes. Local officials were part of it.

Mongabay: It sounds like you still see a lot of greenwashing in the palm oil industry.

Hardi Baktiantoro: There is a lot of greenwashing — not only by companies but by environmental groups.

Some environmental groups are not trying to save the forest — they are just covering the government’s failure to protect the forest. Big international groups submit publications that don’t talk about anything wrong in the field but the forest is still coming down and orangutans are being killed.

Mongabay: You’ve said you are not against palm oil per se, only deforestation of orangutan habitat. So if oil palm was established on legitimate degraded lands that didn’t have any social conflict, you wouldn’t have a problem with that?

Hardi Baktiantoro: Yes, I’m not against palm oil, the plantation company, the government or NGOs. I’m against the destruction. Anyone who destroys orangutan habitat and kills orangutans is my enemy.

Mongabay: Do you have any thoughts on REDD?

Hardi Baktiantoro: REDD is very technical to me but as long as it brings benefits to local people for protecting the forest I will support it. But so far I am just waiting to see what will happen. I am waiting to see if the money goes to the local people. I am afraid that the money will be stolen by the government in Jakarta.

Fri, 29 May 2009 04:39:37 GMT
Source: Reuters
http://www.forexyard.com/

INDONESIA-FORESTS/KALIMANTAN (INTERVIEW)

By Sunanda Creagh

NUSA DUA, Indonesia, May 29 (Reuters) – Nearly 60 percent of remaining forests in Indonesia’s Central Kalimantan province could be saved by a U.N.-backed scheme that aims to save forests in return for valuable carbon credits, the provincial governor said on Friday.

Central Kalimantan, which covers an area of nearly 154,000 square kilometres or about the size of the U.S. state of Georgia, has suffered from severe land clearing driven by logging and the palm oil industry.

It has about 10 million hectares (25 million acres) of carbon-dioxide absorbing of forest left and Governor Teras Narang said more than half could be earmarked for projects under the scheme called reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD).

REDD’s aim is to reward developing countries with potentially billions of dollars in carbon credits in exchange for conserving their forests. For a related factbox on REDD, see [ID:nSP409319].

“In accordance with our plan, we will protect about 57 percent. Later it could be more. I hope so,” Narang said in an interview with Reuters at a forest conference in Nusa Dua on the Indonesian island of Bali.

Indonesia earlier this month became the world’s first country to release a set of rules governing REDD but the scheme is in its infancy globally. It is expected to formally become part of a broader U.N. climate pact likely to be agreed in December.

Deforestation is responsible for nearly 20 percent of mankind’s greenhouse gas emissions and tropical forests, such as those in Kalimantan on Borneo island, in particular soak up vast amounts of CO2, acting like lungs for the atmosphere.

RIGHTS

REDD aims to curb the rate of forest destruction and promote replanting of damaged or degraded areas to help them soak up more CO2.

But key issues such as how to distribute the money from REDD credit sales to local communities still need to be worked out.

“We want to know about our rights and our duties, especially for the local people. We do not want, after we agree, [to discover] then our people do not know about their rights,” the governor said, adding he considered REDD more important than palm oil plantations that cover large areas of Borneo.

He said the province was already in negotiations for REDD schemes covering 5 to 10 percent of remaining forest area.

Logging and palm oil plantations combined destroyed 2.4 million hectares of Central Kalimantan’s forests between 1990 and 2005, said Fitrian Ardiansyah, WWF’s program director for climate and energy in Indonesia.

He said there was between eight and 10 million hectares of forest left in the province, adding the provincial government should be more specific about where they want forests protected.

“If it’s on mineral soil then it’s not that significant. Most of the carbon is stored in the peat land, which is different to mineral soil,” he said.

Peat land locks away large amounts of carbon and clearing and burning peat forests is a major contributor to greenhouse gas pollution.

Large areas of peat land have been cleared in Kalimantan and Sumatra and rehabilitation schemes initially focus on reflooding the areas to stabilise the peat.

Rhett Butler, who runs the U.S.-based conservation website Mongabay.com, believed REDD could help save forests but said it could also lead to land disputes and corruption.

“Indonesia has a lot of problems with corruption and the forestry sector is one of the worst areas. If money is going into the same system that was broken before, why would it work now?” he said. (Editing by David Fogarty)

An orangutan born five weeks ago today at the Kansas City Zoo was rejected by her mother and is being tended around the clock by zoo staff and volunteers.

The baby clings to a furry vest worn by the helpers and requires feeding every hour and a half. Officials hope to place her with a surrogate mother orangutan at the zoo in about five months. Until then, the zoo is not allowing access to the baby or photographs.

The zoo has had success in the past with humans tending to a rejected baby chimpanzee, which has since become completely assimilated in chimp society.

Source: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/story/1221882.html

THE ORANGUTANS NEED THIS DESPERATELY IN BORNEO AND SUMATRA!

The land-protection policy has been fought by the timber industry and was undercut by the Bush administration, but Obama championed it while campaigning.

By Jim Tankersley
May 28, 2009
Source: The Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Washington — The U.S. Forest Service will announce a “timeout” on new road-building and other development in designated roadless areas of national forests today, sources say, prolonging a seesaw battle over a policy first announced in the waning days of the Clinton administration.

The Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which former President Clinton issued shortly before leaving office in 2001, protects nearly 60 million acres of national forest land from logging and other development, largely in Western states. It has faced a protracted court battle that pitted conservation groups against the timber industry and several of those states.

The Bush administration let the rule stand but effectively undercut it by exempting large swaths of land from its protections, including parts of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, and by allowing states to petition to set their own rules for development in those areas.

President Obama voiced support for the Clinton rule on the campaign trail.

Since Inauguration Day, environmentalists have pressed the Obama administration to call the road-building “time out” and to instruct the Justice Department, which continues to defend some of the Bush policies in court, to change course and defend the original rule.

Obama’s proposed “timeout” is “needed and welcome,” said Trip Van Noppen, president of the environmental group Earthjustice. “Roadless areas are important as the last remaining pristine areas in America, and they are a great bulwark in how we will protect our environment in an era of climate change.”

Trisha Sertori , Contributor , Ubud
Source: The Jakarta Post

An ongoing battle with cancer following a partial mastectomy was the catalyst that sent UK-born Lucy Wisdom winging her way into orangutan protection and conservation back in 1994.

“I started volunteering with orangutans in 1994. It was due to the cancer. With cancer I decided to change my life; I changed my boyfriend, my job, my country, even my underpants,” laughs Lucy, a petite 52-year-old with a voracious appetite for life and the energy to go with it, so that even her hair bounces with vitality as she walks.

She explains the changes she made in her life were based on an all-encompassing response to cancer.

“Changing what you are doing is the holistic approach. Cancer suggests you are doing something that is not in line with your life.”

It was not, she adds, that there was really anything wrong with her life. She was then working with the Mutoid Waste Company, a theatrical organization.

“This Mad Max type group [was] doing recycled theatrical works – we were a big group – 35 of us. I drove a fish car for years and later a crocodile car that had teeth. And it was a hard physical life – we were using chainsaws and grinders and I was not just working, but living that job. It was very metallic – not a healing place,” explains Lucy of her earlier life; a far cry from Sumatra so rich in “all those [Rudyard Kipling’s] Jungle Book animals” – including the orangutans that in 1994 became Lucy’s reason for living.

She ended up in Sumatra by accident during a trip Down Under to the beaches of Byron Bay in Australia, to “test out my new breast – the two thirds that were left [post-mastectomy]. Everyone goes topless at Byron, so I went to Australia,” says Lucy of her humorous and deeply courageous face-off with adversity.

During stopovers in Bali on the way to Australia and to Sumatra on her return, the torch of forest conservation and orangutan protection slipped into her hands; she has held onto it ever since.

“I had found that I could work as a volunteer at the Bohorok Orangutan Rehabilitation station in Gunung Leuser National Park in Sumatra, if I applied through Jakarta. I was feeling fit and well recovered from the operation and believed the cancer was a thing of the past.”

Bohorok is today no longer a rehabilitation center, but rather an orangutan eco-viewing area.
Over the next few years Lucy’s circus flying trapeze skills came in useful; she spent five years swinging through the trees teaching young orangutans the forest skills they had never had the chance to learn from their parents – most had been victims of kidnap and sale.

“By the third time I went back to Sumatra, in 1996, I was on a mission. That’s the year I started the Sumatran Orangutan Society, SOS. I don’t know how I did it. Slowly I learned. I read and studied – I am self-taught,” says Lucy, an archaeologist by profession. She worked through the early days of SOS, a foundation that is today recognized internationally for the valuable conservation work being undertaken in the Gunung Leuser National Park.

Raising the profile of Sumatran orangutans became even more critical in 2000, says Lucy, when it was confirmed that Sumatran and Borneo orangutans are two separate species. Once the Sumatran orangutans are lost they are lost forever.

“When I first went to Gunung Leuser there were believed to be around 25,000 orangutans. Today there are [about] 6,700. Especially now, I feel time is running out for me and for the Sumatran orangutans.”

The cancer came back throughout her body in 1999. Regular chemotherapy and her intense faith in her conservation work has, she says, been the difference between succumbing to the disease and battling for orangutan protection and habitat.

“I believe the passion I have for protecting them has kept me alive. Since 1999 I’ve had secondaries [cancers] everywhere; bones, liver, lungs. So the message is even if you are faced with a severe diagnosis, don’t give up – find a passion. I didn’t go looking for the orangutans. They found me,” says Lucy adding, “and wheatgrass. I really believe that works. It’s about what you believe.”

Her passion landed her the UK’s Women in Ethical Business Award in 2008 and saw her appear in the hero of the month pages of magazine Marie Claire.

These awards reflect the valuable work undertaken by SOS, which employs 15 full-time staff in Medan, North Sumatra, to oversee SOS’s many on-the-ground projects. These include orangutan guide training, community tree planting, community education, tree nurseries, rehabilitation of degraded forest zones, conservation scholarships, palm oil plantation tours into lands that were once prime forests and information dissemination on the plight of orangutans to the global community.

Fund raising is a nonstop activity and recognized organizations, such as Unesco and The National Geographic Society, have come on board, along with private donations. SOS achieved registered charity status in the UK some years ago

“On just one fundraising night in the UK we raised 24,000 pounds – that is serious money for projects in Sumatra,” she says.

This week SOS added to its fundraising efforts by opening The Jungle Shop in Ubud. The Jungle Shop is a thrift or charity shop that sells donated clothing, SOS merchandise and other items. Thrift shops are common in many Western countries, raising substantial funds for charity.

Lucy points out that she is not “an orangutan cuddler. I am working for the forests, not orangutans. Orangutans are the ambassadors for the forests. These are the only jungles where many of the animals from The Jungle Book still live together in harmony. There are tigers and elephants, rhinoceros, pythons, sun bears. It’s an ecosystem – without, say one ant species, then the whole lot collapses.

“White people have chopped down all our forests. We didn’t know any better. Now it is our responsibility to help others protect their forests and support sustainable communities.

“We are losing things we don’t even know existed. You never know, the cure for my cancer might be in those forests.”

Desy Nurhayati , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta

The Center for Orangutan Protection (COP) is urging the Forestry Ministry to enhance its monitoring of how orangutans are treated in zoos across the country, after finding out most of the primates were not well looked after in their compounds.

After conducting a month-long observation in five big zoos last month, the group found the zoo managements had neglected the protected species’ welfare.

The research, which was conducted in Surabaya Zoo in East Java, Taru Jurug Zoo in Surakarta, Gembira Loka Zoo in Yogyakarta, Tamansari Zoo in Bandung and Ragunan Zoo in Jakarta, gave each of the 28 orangutans observed an eight-hour examination.

The group revealed some of the primates were distressed because they lacked proper facilities while captive, including inadequate water access and a lack of areas to play.

According to a consensus by the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, the standards of animal welfare include the right to sufficient and proper meals, physical comfort, freedom to behave normally and to be free from any physical and mental disorders.

Some activists campaigning for orangutan welfare have also argued orangutans were the human being’s closest kin; therefore their needs were almost the same as that of humans, which included a variety of sceneries and privacy.

“Some of the orangutans were placed in cages alone and were not given playing facilities, thus making them stressed,” COP researcher Luki Wardhani told a press conference Wednesday.

She said their distress was highlighted by anomalous behaviors, such as self-inflicting pain and eating regurgitated food.

Out of the 28 orangutans, 22 were placed in enclosures resembling a small island and six others were put in concrete cages.

“Those placed in cages suffered more, because they only had limited mobility,” Luki said.

The orangutans also became distressed as they were exploited.

“They were forced to perform in front of the zoo visitors, but they were not well fed,” she said, adding animal shows and public feeding were also a major cause of stress.

Their state of distress made them more prone to diseases because they became less immune, she said.

According to the group, the zoo with the worst conditions for orangutans was Taru Jurug Zoo, while the conditions in Ragunan and Gembira Loka looked better.

COP captivity campaign manager Seto Hari Wibowo said zoos were meant to be a conservation place for endangered species because they were also threatened in their natural habitat due to rampant forest destructions.

“Zoos should be places we can rely on to protect orangutans, but … they have failed to support conservation efforts because they do not take good care of the species,” he said.

Therefore, the group urged the government to enhance its monitoring of orangutan conservation in zoos.

Source: The Jakarta Post

If you have not yet bought your tickets for the Sumatran Orangutan Society’s totally awesome comedy event, don’t delay, they’re selling fast, with less than a week to go! OrangAid will take place next Monday, 1st June, and will be headlined by Bill Bailey with some exciting new material ahead of his new nation-wide tour, plus the musical supremo Tim Minchin, Jason Manford, Nina Conti, Alistair Barrie, and a special guest appearance from Bollo from BBC3’s The Mighty Boosh! The show will be hosted by Simon Munnery, at the Lyceum Theatre near Covent Garden in London. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7.30pm.

Tickets available from www.Ticketmaster.co.uk (search for “Orangaid”) or call the box office direct on 0844 412 1742. They are a bargain at £20/£22/£25 depending where you sit.