Private zoo might collect animal as collateral

By Colin Gustafson
STAFF WRITER
Posted: 07/31/2009
Source: Stamford Advocate

A private zoo in Greenwich that is seeking to import four cheetahs from South Africa could become home to another endangered animal, a baby orangutan, if the cash-strapped Florida zoo housing it goes under.

The Zoo of Northwest Florida in Gulf Breeze, Fla., has posted a 3-year-old orangutan, Indah, as collateral on a loan made in December by Marcella Leone, co-owner of Lionshare Farm, a private zoo and horse center on Taconic Road.

Despite this support, the Florida zoo remains in financial dire straits.

Last week, its executive director, Danyelle Lantz, said she expects to run out of adequate funds to stay open through August unless the local government kicks in additional funding, according to published reports.

Lantz declined to comment Thursday.

If her zoo closes, Lionshare could be first in line to house the baby orangutan — a prospect that has riled animal advocates who assert that transferring the animal to a private zoo as collateral is unethical, and borderline illegal.

“Using this animal as collateral is absolutely outrageous and dangerous to its future,” said Lisa Wathne, a captive exotic animal specialist for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. “This (orangutan) should be transferred to a reputable zoo and not to a private owner who is looking at it as a commodity.”

Lionshare, which straddles the Greenwich-Stamford border, drew scrutiny last month after the Connecticut attorney general raised public safety concerns about its efforts to import three endangered cheetahs.

The private center houses a number of other exotic animals, including a camel, a giraffe and two striped hyenas. It is accredited as a zoo by the Punta Gorda, Fla.-based Zoological Association of America.

By using the Florida orangutan as collateral, however, Wathne believes Lionshare and Zoo of Northwest Florida could be infringing on federal rules that prohibit the trade of endangered species across state lines. The federal Endangered Species Act says it is illegal to trade endangered species across state lines without a special permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

However, a representative for that agency said the two zoos are within their legal rights to transfer custody of the orangutan, under a special provision in the law that makes exceptions for educational and conservation groups.

“I’ve never heard of anybody putting an orangutan up as collateral,” said Tim van Norman, a director in the permit office of the Fish and Wildlife Service. “While it may be weird, it is not outside the law in this case.”

Cathy Callegari, spokeswoman for Lionshare, declined to address charges about whether the transaction was unethical, but did discuss the loan that Leone made to the Florida zoo last year.

“Instead of addressing the terms of (this) loan ” shouldn’t we be concerned with what happens to the care and well-being of animals when an accredited and licensed institution charged with their care becomes financially stressed?” she said, referring to the Florida zoo.

The Zoo of Northwest Florida has had financial troubles since hurricanes Ivan and Dennis in 2004 and 2005, respectively, left the facility with uninsured damage, according to reports. The zoo is more than $4 million in debt.

In an interview with Santa Rosa’s Press-Gazette in Florida, however, the zoo’s director, Lantz, also said there was nothing unusual or illicit about using animals as collateral.

“As far as the animals are concerned, it is not unusual for them to be collateral on loans. They are cute and fuzzy, but animals are assets in a business perspective, just like the buildings and grounds.

“PETA by policy is against zoos, period.”

OK.. having a little fun here! {;(|}

By Madison Park
Source: CNN

(CNN) — Despite two injections of anesthetic, Amy Anderson felt like her dentist was jamming rods into her tooth during a root canal. She writhed in pain as her infected tooth was hollowed with a drill, its nerve amputated, and then sealed.

“I knew this time something was wrong. I could feel my lips,” said the Syracuse, New York, resident, who told her dentist the drugs weren’t working.

Her doctor kept assuring her she had given her a proper dose and said: “I’m almost done.”

“I was hurting so bad, I was hitting myself in the stomach,” said Anderson, a redhead. “I almost wanted to hit her.”

Studies have indicated that redheads may be more sensitive to pain and may need more anesthetics to numb them.

New research published in this month’s Journal of American Dental Association found that painful experiences at the dentist might cause more anxiety for men and women with red hair, who were twice as likely to avoid dental care than people with dark hair.

“Redheads are sensitive to pain,” said Dr. Daniel Sessler, an Outcomes Research Department chair at The Cleveland Clinic, in Cleveland, Ohio, who is one of the authors.

“They require more generalized anesthesia, localized anesthesia. The conventional doses fail. They have bad experiences at the dentist and because of the bad experiences, they could avoid dental care.”

Sessler, an anesthesiologist, began studying redheads’ sensitivity to pain after hearing chatter from colleagues.

“The persistent rumor in the anesthesia community was that redheads were difficult to anesthetize,” Sessler said. “They didn’t go under, had a lot of pain, didn’t respond well to anesthesia. Urban legends usually don’t start studies, but it was such an intriguing observation.”

This led to two studies. In 2004, research showed that people with red hair need 20 percent more general anesthesia than blonds and brunettes.

A 2005 study indicated that redheads are more sensitive to thermal pain and are more resistant to the effects of local anesthesia.

Researchers believe variants of the melanocortin-1 receptor gene play a role. This MC1R gene produces melanin, which gives skin, hair and eyes their color.

While blond, brown and black-haired people produce melanin, those with red hair have a mutation of this receptor. It produces a different coloring called pheomelanin, which results in freckles, fair skin and ginger hair. About 5 percent of whites are estimated to have these characteristics.

While the relationship between MC1R and pain sensitivity is not entirely understood, researchers have found MC1R receptors in the brain and some of them are known to influence pain sensitivity.

Non-redheads can also carry a variant of the MC1R gene. In this dental study that had 144 participants, about a quarter of the non-redheads had variants of the MC1R gene. These people also experienced heightened anxiety and avoided dental care compared with others who did not have the variant.

There is no commercial test available for variations of the MC1R gene.

After Sessler and his colleagues published the first studies about redheads and pain susceptibility, he received nearly 100 e-mails from redheads around the country who complained of terrible experiences at the dentist’s office.

Dr. Christine Binkley, an associate professor at the University of Louisville’s School of Dentistry, in Kentucky, also observed the same phenomenon in her 25 years of practice.

Her redheaded patients seemed “anxious and didn’t get numb. It’s a difficult experience for them,” said Binkley, one of the study’s authors.

But this doesn’t seem to affect all people with red hair.

“I have a [redheaded] hygienist that I have to numb up a lot more than normal, ” said Dr. Peter Vanstrom, an Atlanta, Georgia, dentist. “She’s very sensitive. I have another redheaded patient who is tough as nails, but his father is extremely difficult to numb.”

Binkley said the best tip for dentists is to “pay more attention, evaluate everyone for dental anxiety, and ask them about previous experiences.”

“If you know someone’s anxious, do different things,” she said. “Make sure they’re numb before you start working on them.”

Patients who’ve had bad experiences with pain should inform their dentists.

The next phase of research is to evaluate whether more anesthesia is needed for people with red hair and those with variants of the MCR1 gene for dental procedures.

The authors say an unpleasant incident — much like the one Anderson had this January — could cause patients to postpone dental care and exacerbate any problems they might have.

Anderson got a root canal because she dreaded the dentist after a bad experience of getting cavity fillings. Inevitably, Anderson has to return to her dentist to follow up on her root canal and this fills her with apprehension.

“I have wicked dread of the dentist,” she said. “I was up for two hours in the middle of the night because of the dentist.”

Source: The Jakarta Globe
By Candra Malik
7-31-09

Karanganyar, Central Java. Britain’s Prince Charles has set aside 2 billion euros ($2.8 billion) to help Indonesia and other developing countries preserve their rain forests, State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar said on Thursday.

“His representative came on Wednesday afternoon and asked Indonesia’s government to prepare to discuss the scheme further,” Witoelar said at a seminar on bank funding and environmental projects.

Aside from Indonesia, the money will also be used in other developing countries with tropical rain forests, such as Papua New Guinea, Congo, Costa Rica and Mexico.

“The amount of the aid will differ for each country based on the size of their tropical forests and the environmental problems they face,” he said.

Indonesia was included after delegates from the United Kingdom surveyed forests in Sumatra, Java and Kalimantan last year. The money is intended to be used on reforestation projects.

Witoelar did not offer an exact figure for the size of the damaged or destroyed forests in the country, but estimated it at 40 percent of the total.

“As environment minister, I can only say that Indonesia’s forests are in severe condition,” he said.

“In the next five years, we must plant two billion trees, or 400 million trees per year. Otherwise our f orests will be history.”

In fact, while the fund created by Prince Charles is substantial, Witoelar said he believed it was only enough to plant a fraction of the trees needed to replenish the world’s rain forests .

However, reforestation is not the only solution in the fight against global warming. Witoelar said the world must adopt development practices that prioritize environmental protection and replace the growth-at-any-cost model that currently dominates in many developing countries.

He said a green economy would give priority to clean energy, rural energy development and reducing emissions.

“At the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate in L’Aquila, Italy, on July 9, the major global powers reconfirmed their commitment to developing environment-friendly energy. I hope Indonesia can do that, too,” he said.

By Rhett Butler
mongabay.com
July 31, 2009

Indigenous Penan have set up roadblocks in Malaysian Borneo to stop loggers from encroaching on their rainforest land, reports Survival International, an indigenous rights’ group.

Armed with spears and blowpipes, dozens of Penan are calling for an end to logging on their land. Police have confronted them but there have been no arrests, according to Survival.

The Penan, some of whom still live as nomadic hunter-gatherers in the rainforests of Sarawak, have been battling loggers since the 1980s, when large-scale industrial logging commenced in the Malaysian state. At times they have faced intimidation and violent crackdowns at the hands of security forces hired by logging firms and Malaysian police. Meanwhile vast tracts of Sarawak’s rainforest has been stripped of its valuable timber. Now forestry firms are eyeing forest lands for conversion to oil palm plantations, which will likely leave the Penan even worse off since these estates support less game than even logged-over forest.

“This piece of forest is the only place left for us to hunt and find food. But there’s only a little bit left,” a Penan tribesman told Survival. “Last night I went hunting and came back with nothing. If we can’t save this bit of forest, we will have nothing to eat.”

Stephen Corry, Survival’s director, agreed: “The logging and oil palm companies are robbing the Penan not just of their forests but of their food and water. It is essential that the Malaysian government recognizes the Penan’s rights to their land and stops allowing the companies to take everything in sight.”

The plight of the Penan made international headlines in the 1990s due a campaign by Bruno Manser, a Swiss national, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 2000. Since then the cause has been championed by the Bruno Manser Fund.

10,000-12,000 Penan are believed to remain in Sarawak, about 400 of whom are nomadic, according to Survival.

Fri, 07/31/2009 2:04 PM | Reader’s Forum

Since confiscating 11 orangutans from a private zoo on Feb. 5, the National Park authorities have remained suspiciously tight-lipped. Will anyone be prosecuted? Will the orangutans be repatriated to Indonesia?

Readers may consider this to be remarkably reminiscent of behavior the authorities adopted in 2006, when they did all they could to block the return of up to 100 illegally-held orangutans back to Indonesia.

All attempts to find out the long overdue results of DNA tests of these 11 orangutans have met with silence. We are left to wonder why no one will be transparent with such information. If, as is very likely, these orangutans were all illegally imported into Thailand, the authorities have a legal obligation to return them to their original country without delay.

Even more troubling for many is the apparent lack of enthusiasm from Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand (WFFT) who are currently looking after the orangutans, to return them back home to Indonesia. WFFT have made it clear they want to keep them.

It is difficult to understand why a wildlife rescue centre, apparently opposed to trade in wildlife, is seemingly reluctant to send these creatures, caught in the wild, returned to the forests of Indonesia – rather be kept caged in Thailand.

By making no attempts to return these orangutans to Indonesia, WFFT is knowingly, albeit with approval of the Thai authorities, holding onto illegally traded, highly endangered and internationally protected orangutans – all of which puts WFFT in the position of being part of the problem with these orangutans, rather than part of the solution.

For every orangutan that is traded illegally, another four have been killed during capture or have died in transit; which means, those in Thailand responsible for this trade have caused the deaths of 44 orangutans. Those who now refuse to do the right thing and return these orangutans to Indonesia, without further delay, may well be seen to be condoning this cruel and illegal trade.

Five months have passed and it’s time we had some answers.

The alternative is another full-blown international campaign naming and shaming Thailand for its part, once again, in the killing of and illegal trade in orangutans. This will only further damage an already fragile tourism industry, but who wants to visit a country involved in the illegal trade of orangutans, amongst many other species?

Sean Whyte
England

Source: The Jakarta Post

July 30, 2009 at 11:55 pm
Source: Nature’s Crusaders

Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) says they are “Taking the Lead in Major Conservation Initiative for the The Bukit Tigapuluh Forest Why?

“As home to one of the world’s most biodiverse rainforests, creating synergy between using the forest for needed economic development and the necessity to preserve this rare global good is one of the biggest challenges facing Indonesia today. With an extremely high population density, forestry plays a significant role in reducing poverty as well as maintaining an important environmental balance for the nation. As the biggest player in the Indonesian pulpwood plantation, pulp and paper industry, APP is an integral part in finding the answer to this challenge.” claims APP.

This unique tropical forest is Sumatra’s last remaining large forest blocks, home to two tribes of indigenous people, endangered elephants, tigers, orangutans and 250 mammals and bird species. The Bukit Tigapuluh Forest Landscape in central Sumatra contains some of the most biodiversity on Earth. It is also the location of a successful project to reintroduce orangutans, which now reside in an area. APPs history of “ environmental success” On February 2009, one of APP’s exclusive fiber suppliers, Arara Abadi, signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish a collaborative program of Research and Development of Science and Technology in Giam Siak Kecil – Bukit Batu (GSK – BB) Landscape in Riau Province, Sumatera. However, in 2007-08, APP affiliates began constructing a massive highway for logging vehicles that threatens one of Indonesia’s most important forests. The highway would cut an enormous swath through The Bukit Tigapuluh Forest the location of a successful project to reintroduceorangutans, which now reside in an area currently proposed for protected status but that is already being cleared by APP-affiliated companies.

In 2007, APP and Sinarmas Forestry (SMF) proposed a Biosphere Reserve, located mostly in the peat swamp forest of Riau Province, consists of almost 178,000 ha, over 40% of which was part of SMF plantation partners’ concession area and was set aside for permanent conservation. This is the first Biosphere Reserve initiative in South East Asia proposed by the private sector.

In 2008, after an investigation published in March by an environmental coalition called Eyes on the Forest showed evidence of a new road built by APP, heading through the Kampar peninsula, one of the world’s largest contiguous tropical peat swamp forests, with more carbon per hectare than any other ecosystem on Earth. The investigation found tracks on the new road of the critically endangered Sumatran Tiger, whose wild population has been reduced to less than 500 individuals.

APP claimed that it was building this state-of-the-art, paved highway for the benefit of the local communities, though satellite imagery shows that the road does not go anywhere near the two settlements.

Also APP was also found to be conducting illegal logging in Yunnan Province in China in 2005, while a subsidiary of the firm called “Green Rich” was caught illegally logging in Cambodia, leading a 2005 investigation into the company to conclude:

“APP’s business model is a tactically aggressive one: it turns huge profits by quickly stripping forests bare, exploiting age-old forests and indigenous peoples, and leaving town before the environmental consequences are felt. By the time communities and governments lodge complaints and lawsuits, APP has divested itself of local interests and assets”

APP is one of the world’s leading pulp and paper companies in the world and is one of the largest vertically integrated pulp & paper producer in Asia, excluding Japan it could do much more to help the world. The company’s combined pulp, paper, and packaging capacities in Indonesia amount to over 7 million tons, using fiber and wood residues from new and developed plantations. APP supplies uncoated and colored papers; cartons and tubes, and a variety of stationery products including spiral notebooks, loose-leaf notebook paper, envelopes, and hardcover books. The company also makes office paper and bleached hardwood kraft pulp. These products have contributed to deforestation and increase pollution significantly for Sumatra and the world to deal with.

APP and its owner has been mired in illegal practices over the last 19 + years

1. a scam involving off shore money, US banks and Wall Street brokers in the early 1990s

2. APP is at the center of many environmental controversies including possible illegal logging in Cambodia and in Indonesia,

3. APP has breached agreements with three major environmental organizations.

4. APP is also well known for defaulting on debt repayments in 2001, during a period of wide-scale financial problems in the South East Asia region.

APP’s does business on the backs of indigenous peoples and at the expense of our world

“The APP business model is a tactically aggressive one:

APP’s turns huge profits by quickly stripping forests bare, exploiting age-old forests and indigenous peoples,

and leaving town before the environmental consequences are felt. By the time communities and governments

lodge complaints and lawsuits, APP has divested itself of local interests and assets.”

Some US companies have stopped doing business with APP so should the rest of the world.

Staples ended their 11-year relationship with APP, which had formerly supplied between 5 and 9% of the paper sold at the chain “due to their clear lack of progress in improving their environmental performance.” Other companies including Office Depot and Wall-Mart had cut ties previously on environmental grounds, and these have been followed more recently by Australian retailer Woolworths Limited.Brazil has increased its purchase of their paper and packaging products dramatically. I guess the fact that their rain forests are being mined and torn up by the thousands of acres a day has blinded them to using products produced by yet another foreign giant doing business as usual.

By Priscilla Huff
Washington
29 July 2009
Source: Voice of America

The United States has signed an agreement to forgive nearly $30 million in Indonesian debt in return for the large Southeast Asian country agreeing to protect forests on Sumatra Island. The deal is the largest debt-for-nature swap the U.S. government has organized so far under the U.S. Tropical Forest Conservation Act and its first such deal with Indonesia – one of the fastest deforestation rates in the world. VOA reports:

A tree is felled in the forests of Indonesia. A country which loses an area the size of Switzerland each year to logging. Indonesia’s massive deforestation rate makes it the world’s third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide behind the United States and China.

Deforestation also affects the country’s wildlife. These forests are home to some of the world’s most endangered species including endangered tigers, elephants, rhinos and orangutan. In a new deal, the U.S. has agreed to trade $30 million in debt repayments for increased conservation of their habitat.

Jennifer Morris is the senior vice president for the ecosystem finance division of Conservation International, the group which brokered the deal between the United States and Indonesia.

“Basically, instead of repaying that debt, to put that money that they would have repaid to the US government into conservation, so this deal which is incredibly historic, its the largest ever debt, what’s called a debt swap, that’s ever happened, and this one is specifically for the country of Indonesia,” Morris said.

The deal signed by the US Treasury Department permits Indonesia to put the money into a trust to protect 13 areas of forest on the island of Sumatra.

Walter Lohman of the Heritage Foundation says he is concerned about the money getting to the right place, but he sees a lot of positives. “It’s just another way of giving assistance. You could ask the same question about why do we give the world $20 billion in assistance every year? It’s about building a relationship,” he said, “We’re building a relationship with the Indonesians.”

That is a point underscored in key meetings between American and Indonesian officials.

“I look forward to continuing to work with the foreign minister and the Indonesian government on all of these issues. And I am confident that our relationship will grow stronger and deeper in the future,” Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said.

Conservation International says the deal is an innovative way of helping both the people and the species of Indonesia.

The United States has signed similar, smaller agreements with countries such as the Philippines, Guatemala and Peru.

“It’s one of the best mechanisms we that we have for development assistance from developed countries where that money can be used in a different way,” Morris added. “Instead of that money going directly back or instead of being forgiven, the government of Indonesia has made this really important commitment to invest in conservation for the local people and for these critical species.”

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who just won his second term in this month’s (July’s) presidential elections, has made cracking down on illegal logging a priority.