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Illegal Wildlife Trade a Major Problem

Posted on: Sunday, 10 July 2005, 21:00 CDT

ORANG-UTAN, which means "the human of the forest" in the Malay language,

is truly a remarkable animal.

With only about 55,000 found on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, its

natural habitat has become fragmented or disappeared altogether as a

result of logging, forest fires and the conversion of forest lands into

oil palm plantations.

If that wasn't enough, the species has fallen victim to the growing and

profitable illegal wildlife trade.

Orang-utans are protected in Indonesia, but many are still kept

illegally as pets.

According to Traffic, the wildlife trade monitoring network - a joint

programme of WWF and IUCN (World Conservation Union) - about 20

orang-utans are traded each month from the Indonesian part of Borneo.

Some are sold for as low as US$45 (RM170).

If a caged animal is lucky enough to be rescued, it will go to one of

the island's many animal sanctuaries, like the Nyaru Menteng, a centre

run by the Borneo Orang-utan Survival (BOS) Foundation in Indonesia's

central Kalimantan region.

"Our rescue teams are removing more and more young orphans as forests

are being cut down to make room for oil palm plantations," said BOS

spokesman Jo-lan van Leeuwen, as her favourite ape, Tara, crawled on her

lap.

"In the absence of forest, the orang-utans tend to stay near the

plantations where they eat the oil palm shoots, but it's not enough for

them to live on.

"What's more, they're often killed by plantation owners because they

destroy the young trees or take the young ones off to the villages to

keep as pets or to sell them.

"Fortunately, we manage to find some of the animals before they end up

being trafficked."

It is impossible to walk across the grounds of Nyaru Menteng and not be

endeared by the orphaned orang-utans.

A group of about 20 of the nappy-wearing apes are looked after by

surrogate females, and women from the nearby village work shifts to tend

after the little ones 24 hours a day.

"Without maternal care, these babies are doomed," van Leeuwen said.

"We are trying to rear them before returning them to the wild.

"Visitors to this part of the sanctuary are not allowed so that they

don't get too accustomed to people."

For many of the orphans, it was people that got them into trouble in

the first place.

Take, for example, Kesi whose mother was killed on an oil palm

plantation, probably with machetes as Kesi is missing a hand.

The wound healed before she was found, but she would have starved

without help.

Even more shocking is the story of Pony, a female who spent eight years

in a "brothel village" where crime and lawlessness go together.

She was found chained, shaved and abused.

"We have nothing to indicate that sexual abuse of orang-utans is

happening systematically," van Leeuwen said.

"Pony's case seems to be exceptional, but the increasing flow of

animals from plantations is certainly disturbing."

Source: New Straits Times

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