Kalimantan Fires Push Orangutans to the Brink
12/17/98
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Title: Kalimantan Fires Push Orangutans to the Brink
Source: WWF
Status: Distribute freely with proper credit to source
Date: 12/17/98
JAKARTA In a bid to save the world's last remaining wild orangutans and
other endangered species, WWF Indonesia is calling on the Indonesian
government to rein in timber companies and stop conversion of the
country's remaining natural forests into agricultural land for oil
palm and other plantations.
WWF research into the causes and impacts of the 1997/98 forest fires shows
that Indonesia's forests are shrinking at an unsustainable rate under an
onslaught of rapid land clearing that has brought ecological disaster to
one of the world's most biodiverse nations.
With some 5.5 million hectares of Sumatra and Kalimantan already converted
to palm oil plantations, and another 24.5 million hectares of Eastern
Indonesia earmarked for conversion, the government must now act to protect
remaining forests and concentrate plantation development solely on land
already genuinely degraded by fires or other causes, says WWF, one of the
world's leading non-governmental conservation groups.
The 1997/98 fires that ravaged up to 10 million hectares of Kalimantan and
Sumatra, were largely caused by an opening up of forest areas by
plantation companies and a resulting influx of people. Poor land use
planning, poor forest management by timber concessions, and badly-
controlled burning for land clearing and other purposes during El Nino
drought conditions all contributed to the disaster.
The fires and resulting haze, which cost Indonesia and neighbouring
countries an estimated $4.5 billion and brought massive dislocation to
much of SE Asia, left vast tracts of degraded land. The most degraded of
this land could be used for oil palm and other plantation estates, which
are crucial export earners for Indonesia's beleaguered economy.
This approach, which would involve major changes in government land
allocation practices, both at national and provincial levels, could spell
survival for orangutans and other endangered species pushed to the brink
of extinction by loss of their rainforest habitat. Even before the 1997
fires, orangutan habitat in Indonesia and Malaysia declined by an
estimated 80% in the 1970s and 1980s. According to WWF, some 40% of
the 1997/98 Kalimantan fires occurred in areas with orangutan populations.
WWF is therefore calling on the Indonesian government to:
* Protect the nation's remaining natural forests and biodiversity by
confining plantation conversion to already severely degraded land.
* Make land allocation, classification, and tenure laws equitable,
transparent, and difficult to circumvent.
* Improve the system for awarding and supervising timber concessions to
minimize social and environmental disruption and fire hazard.
* Control access to forests by agricultural settlers and illegal loggers.
* Improve the system for allocating land for oil palm and other
plantations to avoid unnecessary forest conversion and enforce
zero burning waste removal.
* Coordinate fire response efforts through institutional accountability,
increased transparency and improved information.
All the reports generated by WWF Indonesia's Forest Fire Project can be
found on our website at www.wwf.or.id. For further information contact
Sri Lestari or Chris Lom at WWF Indonesia: Tel.(62.21) 720.3095 Ext. 16
Fax. (62.21) 739.5907 Email. Sril@wwfnet.org / clom@wwfnet.org