Protecting orangutans
In December 2007, a spokesperson for the Forestry Ministry told The Jakarta Post that since the 1970s, about 3,000 orangutans had been killed every year.
Government departments when dealing with this issue are notoriously economical with the truth, so it is fair to say their estimate is likely to be on the low side.
That is about 100,000 orangutans and countless millions of other animals and birds sacrificed in the name of progress, or to me more precise to make a few people very, very rich.
A good start would be for the government itself to immediately stop selling licenses to palm oil companies permitting them to cut down rainforests and in doing so, kill orangutans, a legally protected species.
Mr. President, the world is watching you. Do you really want to be remembered as the President who could have taken action to stop orangutans, Indonesia’s most famous and revered species, from becoming extinct, but who chose not to?
Is it also not about time your government began to enforce the Kinshasha Declaration for Great Apes, an agreement you entered into in 2005 but have so far totally ignored? If you cannot be trusted to implement that agreement, why should anyone trust anything you said in Bali last December?
SEAN WHYTE
Chief Executive
Nature Alert
England, UK
Source: The Jakarta Post
