August 30, 2009

Nurfika Osman
Police Detain Four Illegal Loggers

The National Police this past weekend detained four of twelve suspects believed to be part of a wood-smuggling syndicate in the Kotawaringin Timur district of Central Kalimantan Province. The four are owners of illegal sawmills and investors who finance cutters to fell trees illegally.

“They are going to be sent to National Police headquarters immediately for trial in Jakarta,” said Brig. Gen. Suhardi Alius, the head of National Police’s Special Crimes Directorate, adding the suspects had put the police in conflict with impoverished tree fellers.

“They put us in conflict with poor tree fellers, making it appear as if we steal their income when we conduct our operations against illegal logging,” he said. The modus operandi of this syndicate was different than that of previous illegal logging operations in that this group issued false documents for their timber, identifying it as legal.

“They also falsified the species of the timber, claiming it was [fast-growing] sengon timber whereas it was in fact bengkirai [ironwood], a more expensive species,” he said. The operation was authorized by National Police Chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri.

Last week, the National Police seized 12 ships carrying approximately 6,600 cubic meters of timber thought to have been logged illegally that was to be smuggled from Kotawaringin Timur to Java. The value of the seized timber was estimated at Rp 39 billion ($3.9 million).

Due to suspicions that local police might lack independence in their handling of the case, 55 police officers were dispatched directly from Jakarta.

Experts say Kalimantan has been experiencing a rapid rate of deforestation over the last 25 years. Currently it is estimated that 1.48 million square meters of forest is lost in the region every hour.

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.com/news/police-detain-four-illegal-loggers/326991

By Sarah Stewart (AFP)

LONG NEN, Malaysia — In the language of the nomadic Penan there is no word for forest, it is simply their universe, and its destruction is snuffing out the ancient lifestyle of this tribe who are among the world’s last hunter-gatherers.

Wielding spears and dressed in loincloths, one small band who emerged from the Borneo jungles to tell their tale said that encroachment by timber and plantation firms has made their already hard life impossible.

They said they are ready to stop roaming and settle in villages, giving weight to fears that the 300-400 Penan thought to still be nomadic may all be heading this way, or even that their way of life is already extinct.

“Our problem is that there is just not enough to eat, there are no wild boar to catch any more,” said Sagong, the headman of the group.

“The companies logged all the teak already, and now they are going to clear the land for palm oil plantations,” said the young chief, who brought 15 of his people to a blockade against the timber and plantation companies.

“If that happens, we lose everything, we cannot survive this,” he said.

“Yes it is sad to leave this life of roaming. But what can we do? We have to strive for the best for ourselves. It is our fate to face this challenge.”

A lean and muscular man aged in his 30s, Sagong said their last hope was to join the anti-logging campaign which has escalated recently in Sarawak state, on Malaysia’s half of Borneo, an island shared with Indonesia.

“I came here to man the blockade and safeguard the land,” he said at one of the barriers built of logs and bamboo, among seven constructed in the region in recent months to force the timber trucks to a halt.

The Penan of Sarawak, who are estimated to number around 10,000, had mostly abandoned their nomadic ways and settled in villages by the 1970s under the influence of Christian missionaries.

Even the settled Penan still retain a deep connection to the jungle, foraging for rattan, medicinal plants, fruits, and sago palm — a starchy staple. Wild game are hunted with finely crafted blowpipes and poison darts.

The Penan have been opposing logging for decades, but the spectre of bulldozers coming in to clear-fell what is left of the jungles has proved too much to bear.

Jayl Langub, an anthropologist from the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, said the nomadic Penan are being thrust into the modern world through contact with loggers, satellite TV, and the boarding schools where some send their children.

“It would be better if they made their own decision and settled at their own pace, but these changes are coming very rapidly and I think it just overwhelms them,” he said.

“However much they want to remain nomadic, the changes to the landscape mean it probably would not be possible for them to continue anyway… unless they live next to a national park, or unless areas are converted into reserves.”

Ian Mackenzie, a linguist who has studied the Penan since 1991, said he believes that few of the fabled group of 300-400 are truly nomadic as most have taken up some farming and established base camps with sturdier timber huts.

“There are various reasons for it but I would say the primary reason is that it’s economically untenable to live as hunter-gatherers when their jungle has been logged three times,” he said.

“The end of this ancient lifestyle is a very tragic cultural loss,” he said. “That’s how humans were supposed to live, how we all lived a long time ago, and this is the last flicker of it gone.”

Mackenzie, one of a handful of foreigners to speak Penan fluently, said that any groups who wanted to settle should have as many generations as they needed to make the momentous transition.

“To force them to make it brutally in a few years, it’s almost beyond the capacity of human beings to make that leap. It’s as if you or I were dropped down in the middle of the primary jungle and forced to survive.”

On a sliver of hilltop not far from the blockade, Sagong’s tribe from the district of Ba Marong has constructed three sturdy open-sided huts, raised from the ground and built of saplings and bamboo lashed together with vines.

In a tropical downpour that drenched the canopy and turned the ground to mud, they sat serenely with their children — including a five-month-old baby — who, despite these most basic conditions were clean, dry and healthy.

As she played with a baby monkey that the family kept as a pet, Sagong’s daughter Nili smiled and shook her head when she was asked whether she liked this life in the rainforest.

“I would like to go to school,” she said shyly.

These days few Penan still sport the traditional bowl-shaped haircut, woven bamboo hats, brightly beaded necklaces and stretched earlobes that sometimes dangle near the shoulders.

In his baseball cap paired with a purple loincloth, and bare chest marked with tattoos including Christian images, snakes and a skull and crossbones, Sagong laughed when asked about his appearance.

“I’m a new generation, I don’t dress like that,” he said as he stood next to his father-in-law, who wore a monkey tooth around his neck, bunches of woven bangles, and played a bamboo nose flute.

“For us the jungle was our bank, we survived without money. Our life depended on the sago palm and wild animals and for generations we have lived like this,” said the older man, Ngau Anyi.

Sagong said his own band of 27 people wanted help to establish a proper house with access to schools and medical care, while still having the chance to hunt and gather in the forest.

“Our wish is to have our own village, to do farming,” he said. “We see other settlements and that’s what we want. We have to spend a lot of time building huts and moving around. It’s a hard life.”

The plight of the Penan was made famous in the 1980s by environmental activist Bruno Manser, who waged a crusade to protect their way of life and fend off the loggers. He vanished in 2000 — many suspect foul play.

Manser lived with a group of nomadic Penan from 1984 to 1990 and learnt to speak Penan as well as how to survive in the jungle, while gathering a huge amount of botanical and cultural information.

“We have been accused of being against development, of wanting to keep the Penan in a museum,” said Lukas Straumann, director of the Bruno Manser Fund, which continues to campaign for the people of the rainforests.

“Maybe there was a little bit of truth to that. But what we hear from the Penan is that they want development, to participate in modern life, but it has to be development at their own pace.”

Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iZniz0k_u8ezhJsZ8JQ4W4NQw0vw

Report reveals fear of toxins in milk
By KIM KNIGHT – Sunday Star Times
30/08/2009

Pork import plan worries industry Beef prices hit by dairy slump Sheep farmers wary of high dollar Be careful when cutting costs, says vet Farmers’ voice signs up new man Unearthing the key to good soil Council will stick with own awards The battle for Cold Creek water Farmers held hands, played with hula hoops Creep grazing increases lamb weaning weights

Fungi that produce deadly toxins that could pass into the human food chain through cow’s milk were found in imported palm kernel animal feed, according to a confidential AgResearch report that came to public attention only last week.

Green MP Sue Kedgley said she was “mystified” no further testing was ordered when the report’s findings were made known in 2006.

According to the report, marked confidential and internal, scientists found “a variety of potentially harmful fungi that can produce mycotoxins and cause significant risk to animal health”.

The report said, “it is of even more concern that some of the mycotoxins can be excreted in cow’s milk and could consequently pose a threat to human health and create an export issue for New Zealand’s dairy industry”.

The research is being prepared for publication in an international journal but was last week discounted by the rural and food safety sectors, who said it posed no new human health risks, and the fungi was already in pasture.

Kedgley said toxins potentially produced by the fungi had been implicated as a cause of liver cancer. “Every which way you look at it, that’s a serious health risk, as well as an export risk to our agricultural trade, and, I believe, a huge risk to our dairy exports if consumers globally work out that our so-called grass-fed cows are actually one of the largest consumers of palm kernel. Certainly they were last year.”

Last week, the Sunday Star-Times revealed that in 2008, New Zealand imported a quarter of the total world supply of palm kernel expeller (PKE) 1.1 million tonnes. Dr Vengeta Rao, the secretary-general of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, the international body set up to promote the growth and use of sustainable palm oil, said very little of that would have been RSPO-certified.

Three years ago, when the AgResearch report was written, only 318,000 tonnes of PKE entered the country. PKE is controversial because of its environmental impact the loss of tropical rainforest and destruction of animal habitats.

The AgResearch report said that although importation standards required heat treatment before shipping, “mycotoxins produced by fungi would still be present as many mycotoxins are heat-tolerant” and it called for funding to carry out an extended survey to determine health and biosecurity risks of imported PKE.

Last week AgResearch would not name the report’s recipients, but confirmed it was offered “to a whole raft of different agencies”. No funding was forthcoming. “If such serious risks are presented, at the very least you would do some follow-up research,” said Kedgley.

Federated Farmers said disclosure of the report was “reckless and irresponsible”.

“AgResearch put together a draft report on the `shocking expose’ that palm kernel expeller, when wet, attracts fungi,” Lachlan McKenzie, dairy farmers chairman, said. “I understand some AgResearch scientists were touting for additional funding and didn’t even bother with a toxicology test on what was found.”
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McKenzie said “most people don’t believe the recycling of a waste by-product like palm kernel expeller into animal feed is a bad thing, so long as it comes from certified sources. Especially if that waste would otherwise be burnt or just left to rot”.

AgResearch spokesman Jimmy Suttie said the initial work was unfunded and based on a scientist’s curiosity. Further work had confirmed earlier findings.

“[But] the scientists did not investigate the toxicity of these fungi… I can confirm that all of the organisms the scientist found are already present in New Zealand.”

Fonterra, the co-operative of 10,500 farmers who produce about 90% of NZ milk, said it was aware of the report.

“We do not believe it raises any new issues with regard to potential raw milk or product quality,” said spokesman David Glendining. “We routinely test raw milk for aflatoxins, which can be present in feed which is not stored appropriately. This risk is common to most bulk supplementary feeds and we encourage farmers to employ best practice in both storage and feeding out to dairy cows.”

Maf Biosecurity also said it did not believe there was a significant risk of toxic contamination.

“There have never been cases of toxins being found in dairy products in New Zealand linked to this source and as far as MAFBNZ is aware, no animals have ever become poisoned from eating palm kernel meal.”

Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/farming/2814945/Report-reveals-fear-of-toxins-in-milk\

August 30, 2009
Michael Sheridan
Source: The Times Online

HUNDREDS of Borneo tribes men armed with blowpipes are blockading roads in protest against companies they accuse of destroying their rainforests to grow oil palms for “green” biofuel, cooking oil, soap and margarine.

The confrontation is taking place in the endangered forests of the Malaysian state of Sarawak, where members of the Penan tribe have existed for centuries as nomadic hunter-gatherers living on fish, wild animals and plants.

“This is a last resort,” said See Chee How, a lawyer fighting land rights cases for indigenous people. “There have been allegations of rape by loggers, the rivers are being polluted and the Penan fear for their food supplies.”

Palm oil provides a third of all cooking oils and is used in household brands such as Palmolive soap and Flora margarine.

Soaring demand for its use in “green” biofuel has pushed up the price by 45% this year, prompting companies to clear more rainforest and plant yet more palms. The latest expansion seems to have set off the blockades.

Timber operations by four companies were halted while police and local politicians attempted to negotiate with the tribesmen late last week.

Lihan Jok, a state assembly member, accused unidentified “outsiders” of fomenting trouble and pledged to have “sincere” and “heart-to-heart” discussions. “I have spoken to the timber companies affected by the blockades. Their managements said they have always treated the Penan well,” he told a local newspaper.

The tribesmen responded by demanding that officials come to see the “dire situation” in their villages. Twelve villages had united to send their men, clad in traditional hats pierced with hornbill feathers and carrying blowpipes, onto the jungle roads to block the timber lorries.

“These logging companies don’t clear the whole forest – they take the valuable trees and wreak a lot of destruction along the way,” said Miriam Ross, a British researcher for Survival International who has lived alongside the Penan.

“When the plantations are established it’s just rows and rows of palm oil, it’s not a forest,” she explained. “There’s not even any space for them, so they [the tribesmen[ can see it is a real threat.”

Stephen Corry, director of Survival, said the Malaysian government must recognise the land rights of local people and stop the companies operating without the tribe’s consent.

The blockades raised the stakes in a conflict that has unfolded for three decades on Borneo, an island treasure house of rare wildlife and plants that is also a rich source of timber and minerals. It pits indigenous tribes, broadly known as Dayaks, against governments and companies seeking to exploit resources.

Sarawak’s state government, which has been ruled by the same grandee, Abdul Taib Mah-mud, for 28 years, has presided over what environmental campaigners say is the systematic destruction of the rainforests.

Taib responds that Sarawak’s plans to double its income by 2020 by building dams and power stations will bring progress and prosperity to all its 2.3m people, about half of whom are Dayaks.

However, threats and violence have beset the Dayak resistance against companies granted licences by Taib’s government to exploit the rainforest. Two years ago the skull of Kelesau Naan, a troublesome village leader, washed up on a muddy riverbank. His disappearance remains unexplained. So does that of Bruno Manser, a Swiss campaigner, who vanished into the rainforest in May 2000.

“I believe the police and the government will have to handle these new protests carefully,” said an activist in Kuching, the capital of Sarawak. “This time they know the world is watching.”

Malaysia’s main opposition party is promising reform if it prevails in Sarawak’s next parliamentary election, due to be held by 2011. Its allegation of “crony capitalism” have focused on Taib, 73, who is finance minister and minister of planning and resources as well as chief minister.

Members of Taib’s famil control or hold shares in several of the companies that have reaped generous rewards from licences, concessions or contracts issued by the state. The Taib family has consistently denied any wrongdoing or conflict of interest.

“The reality is that such projects generate large profits for a small number of people, the elites and the corporations,” said a coalition of Dayak groups.

Pressure from campaigners recently led Unilever, which makes Dove soap and Flora margarine, to commit itself to buy all its palm oil by 2015 from “sustainable” sources. Colgate-Palmolive said it had a similar commitment but sourced only a tiny proportion of its oil from Malaysia.

August 29, 2009

Indonesia’s pull factor
By CECILIA KOK

DRIVEN by its strong domestic consumption, Indonesia has proved its economic resilience in the midst of a global slowdown after posting a relatively strong growth of 4% year-on-year (y-o-y) in the three months to June.

With a population of 226 million – the fourth largest in the world – Indonesia is increasingly being seen as an attractive investment destination by many foreign investors, including those from Malaysia.

In fact, Malaysian companies have become more active with their investments since the 1990s to tap the huge market opportunities that the country offers.

Among the sectors where Malaysian presence can be found are plantations, banking, telecommunications and infrastructure.

Cultivating growth

It is believed that about 50% of Indonesia’s oil palm plantations are controlled by Malaysian companies, including IJM Plantations Bhd, United Plantations Bhd, Asiatic Development Bhd, Sime Darby Bhd, Kuala Lumpur Kepong Bhd and IOI Corp Bhd.

Analysts opine that the limited agriculture land in Malaysia would continue to drive Malaysian planters to expand their plantation land bank.

Take IJM Plantations. Since last year, the company has been eyeing to acquire 40,000ha of oil palm estates to add to its existing land bank.

With 70% of its acquisition target met as at end-July, IJM Plantations is expected to complete its buying spree of oil palm estates there by the end of the year.

But expanding plantation land bank is not a smooth process, as foreign companies can be bogged down by costly land prices and bureaucratic red tape. In addition, companies also face the risks of “disruptive” changes in the terms and regulations set by authorities.

Singular Asset Management Sdn Bhd chief investment officer Teoh Kok Lin explains that such risks are a common problem in emerging economies like Indonesia.

But he says conditions have improved over the last five years, particularly under the current leadership that has been focusing on providing political stability and implementing sound economic policies to boost Indonesia’s economy.

Huge lure

Teoh commends the liberal policies practised by the Indonesian government for its banking system, such as allowing foreign equity ownership of up to 100%, as a huge draw to investors.

With banking penetration being just 33% of its GDP, the market offers tremendous medium- to long-term prospects for foreign bankers.

Among the Malaysian banks that have jumped on the Indonesian bandwagon are Bumiputra-Commerce Holdings Bhd (BCHB), through CIMB Niaga, and Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank), through its controversial acquisition of PT Bank Internasional Indonesia (BII).

BCHB’s investment has been a fruitful venture, as CIMB Niaga accounted for 22% of the group’s pre-tax profit for the second quarter ended June, compared with 12% in the previous quarter. Contributions from its Indonesian operations are the main driver for its 2% y-o-y net profit growth to RM663.2mil for the quarter in review.

As for Maybank, it is targeting to break even on its investment in BII only by 2013. Maybank completed its acquisition of the bank at a whopping RM8.6bil in October last year.

In the telecommunications sector, Axiata Group Bhd and Maxis Communications Bhd have become active players in that market.

Axiata holds about 84% stake in Indonesia’s third-largest mobile phone operator, PT Excelcomindo Pratama Tbk, while Maxis owns 44% in PT Natrindo Telepon Seluler.

Going forward, Teoh believes that the pressing need for quality infrastructure there will make the construction sector the next attraction for Malaysian companies.

He sees emerging opportunities in the sector given the government focus in the area. In the Indonesian 2009 budget, US$7.5bil had been allocated for infrastructure spending and an additional US$703mil for labour intensive infrastructure projects in the country. —

http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/8/29/business/4588138&sec=business

By Jonathan Gorvett in Sarawak State, Borneo

Source: Al Jazeera

In the jungles of central Borneo, loggers and native tribes, environmentalists and plantation companies, rights lawyers and government developers are now locked in an increasingly desperate battle.

The future of one of the world’s last great rainforests is at stake.

The outcome of this fight could determine much beyond Borneo’s borders too, as environmental scientists become increasingly alarmed at the effect deforestation taking place here is having on the world’s weather.

The current front line in this confrontation lies about 160km inland from the town of Miri, in the Eastern Malaysian state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo.

In recent days a string of barricades have gone up in this region, the Upper Baram river, as native tribespeople try to prevent logging and plantation companies entering what the tribesmen see as the last remnants of their land.

Spears and machetes

One such barricade is outside Long Deloh where, across a narrow logging track in the heart of the Borneo rainforest, a thin line of Penan tribesmen defend a makeshift blockade with spears and local machetes, known as parangs.

“This has been our land for generations and now they are trying to cut down what little we have left,” says Jackson Luhat Paren, the headman of the village of Long Deloh, whose inhabitants built the barricade.

“We are here because we want to preserve our land for the next generation. Without our land we are nothing and we will defend it with our lives if necessary.”

The Penan claim that the land around their long houses is their Native Customary Rights (NCR) land.

This is land that native people can claim under Sarawak law as their own, if they can prove that they have cultivated it prior to 1958.

Yet the once-nomadic Penan have few documents to prove anything – some even lack identity cards or birth certificates.

“This is where the whole problem lies,” says Baru Bian, a lawyer based in the Sarwak capital of Kuching, who has worked on the NCR issue for many years.

“It is quite a challenge to prove a claim to NCR [land] in court, while in the meantime, the government has gone ahead and issued licenses to logging and plantation companies to work this disputed land.”

Oil palm plantations

While logging has continued in Sarawak for decades, it is the recent growth of the oil palm industry which has become an overshadowing threat for the Penan.

The government plans to have allocate one million hectares to oil palm plantations by 2010. Oil palm trees provide a source of food and a potential source of bio-diesel.

Yet many environmental scientists are alarmed by the effect of replacing natural forest growth with a single species of tree.

“This is really the big story in climate change,” says Lois Verchot, the principal scientist for Climate Change at the Jakarta-based Centre for International Forestry Research.

“One of the key problems in carbon emissions comes from cutting down the rainforest. Perhaps 40-50 tonnes of carbon per hectare is stored in an oil palm plantation, while 150-400 tonnes of carbon is stored in a hectare of natural rainforest.

“You cut down the rainforest to plant oil palm, you release a huge amount of carbon. Plus many animals can’t live in oil palm plantations. Orangutans, for example, need a completely different forest habitat to survive.”

Yet the state government of Sarawak argues that developing this land – by logging, clearing and then planting for oil palm – is the best chance the people of the state have for future prosperity.

Fighting poverty?

“The economics of it are simple,” says Abdullah Chek Sahmat, the general manager of Sarawak’s Land Custody and Development Authority.

“The traditional way to use forest land maybe provides about 500kg of rice a year, using slash and burn farming techniques that are also environmentally damaging,” he says.

Cutting down natural rainforest releases “huge amounts of carbon”, says Verchot

“This 500kg of rice is worth about $142 per hectare per year. If you put the same land under oil palm, you’ll make $3550 per hectare per year at current prices.”

“If you want people to get out of poverty, which way makes the most sense?” he asks.

Meanwhile, the Penan, who are among some of Sarawak’s poorest inhabitants, are facing their own bleak battle for survival.

The 100 or so inhabitants of Long Deloh were nomadic until a few generations ago, when they settled in two long houses at a remote bend in the River Patah.

“The hills around here were deeply forested and full of animals,” recalls Along Hot, a Long Deloh inhabitant and hunter.

“You could find leopards, wild boar and orangutans. The water in the river was clear and you could drink it, you could use a net to catch fish there were so many.”

All that changed, these Penan say, when the logging companies arrived.

Water ‘polluted’

“There were a lot of illnesses from drinking the water after the logging company came,” says Jackson.

“The animals started disappearing too, scared away by the chainsaws. We also lost a lot of our fruit trees and fish ponds that became filled with rubbish from the logging.”

Some of the Penan are now facing severe shortages of food and drinking water.

On August 23, the Catholic Church in Sarawak appealed for aid for a number of Penan communities in the region.

A bad drought has exacerbated existing shortages.

Modernisation as a solution

The government, meanwhile, says that such crises can only be averted if the Penan move out of the forest and into modern settlements.

“The Penans need education and medical care as part of the development process,” says local state assemblyman Nelson Balang, a member of Malaysia’s ruling Barisan Nasional group.

“Some Westerners want the Penan to stay as they are, in poverty,” adds Chek Sahmat of the Land Custody and Development Authority.

“But we must do what is in the interests of our own people, or we will not be a free country.”

The Penan, however, stand defiant.

“We have no choice but to defend this barricade,” says Jackson.

“We are trying to defend our culture, our whole way of life. If we lose this, what will be left for our children and our children’s children?”

View photos and learn more at the source: http://www.internationalanimalrescue.org/news/2009/aug09-28.shtml

August 2009
IAR team in Indonesia helps orangutans in crisis

International Animal Rescue’s team in Indonesia is embarking on a new project to help captive orangutans in West Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo.) They have just signed an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the Forestry Department to agree plans for the rescue, rehabilitation and release of orangutans that have lost their treetop homes to deforestation for palm oil plantations. The agreement allows for the purchase of land and the creation of facilities where the rescued animals can be rehabilitated before being released back into protected areas of forest.

Karmele Llano Sanchez, International Animal Rescue’s Veterinary Director in Indonesia, says: “We’re delighted to have reached agreement with the BKSDA (forestry department) on a project to help the orangutans in West Kalimantan. There is an urgent need to help animals that are already suffering injuries and disease from their time in captivity and now we can take immediate action to help them.

“There is currently no rehabilitation facility for rescued orangutans in West Kalimantan and our priority is to set up a temporary centre where they can be given appropriate care and veterinary treatment.”

The team has already identified many captive orangutans living in deplorable conditions: some are chained up on pallets over an open sewer choked with human waste, others are confined in small dark cages, wracked with boredom and frustration.

International Animal Rescue already has the experience and expertise to help the orangutans. Its primate rescue centre in Ciapus on the island of Java is successfully rehabilitating macaque monkeys and endangered slow lorises and has recently released 35 macaques back into the wild.

Alan Knight OBE, Chief Executive, says: “We are thrilled to be able to join our colleagues in other groups who are already helping orangutans. Thanks to the cooperation of the Forestry Department and the generosity of our supporters, we really feel empowered to take this project on. Individual orangutans are suffering, and at the same time the future of the entire species is under threat. The need to act is critical if we are to protect these beautiful animals and their habitat.”