ProboscisMonkey.org

Indonesia approves first REDD+ project in Borneo

Kristina Medici — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 22:31:06 +0000

The Indonesian government has approved its first REDD+ project to reduce its world’s highest emissions rate from deforestation and peatlands degradation.

But the program still faces many hurdles in the country, including governance challenges, corruption, and strong opposition from the plantation, mining, and logging sectors.

Read the full article

For a critical position about REDD solution have look at Redd-Monitor.

Norway is by far the biggest donor to REDD initiatives around the world, with two billion dollar deals, one in Brazil and one in Indonesia.

Malaysian Council: Palm-oil no threat to wildlife!

Kristina Medici — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 09:59:48 +0000

HOW YOUR SHOPPING LIST
IS MAKING ORANG-UTANS (and Proboscis Monkeys) EXTINCT

By David Edwards in Mirror.co.uk
27 March 2006

EMERGING warily from the forest’s cover a male orang-utan listens for danger. Believing he is safe, he leads his mate and their baby into the clearing.

Suddenly all hell breaks loose. A dozen men spring from their hiding places, hurling a net over the family.

The gang quickly club the male to death, rip the terrified baby from her mother’s arms, then douse her in petrol and set her alight. The baby orang-utan will be sold on for a pittance as a pet.

This is happening each day in Indonesia and Malaysia. And we’re all unwitting accomplices, because each time we buy chocolate, margarine or toothpaste, it’s likely we’re driving the orangutan [and Proboscis Monkeys] to extinction.

In 15 years, South-East Asia’s orang-utan population has halved to fewer than 60,000 and there could be none left in just 12 years.

The reason is palm oil – now the world’s favourite vegetable oil, used in thousands of products and consumed by a billion people a year.

One in 10 products on supermarket shelves contains it. It’s cheap, versatile and, with no cholesterol, very healthy. For the end consumer, at least… Britain imports 914,000 tonnes a year, making us the second biggest European importer after The Netherlands. Almost all of it comes from Indonesia and Malaysia. No wonder they’ve scheduled 22.5million acres of forest for clearance.

Not all palm oil plantations are killing orang-utans but, as their habitat is razed, the species is paying a terrible price.

Friends Of The Earth’s Ed Matthew visited a forest in Kalimantan, Indonesia, in 2004 and saw lush plant life and a thriving eco-system, complete with orangutans.

When he returned last November, it was a different story – the whole forest had been cut down and torched, replaced by a silent, barren plain ready for planting oil palms.

“The saddest part was knowing that a family of orang-utans I saw on my previous visit were now almost certainly dead,” he said.

Some palm oil firms log the land then burn remaining vegetation, a practice that led to the devastating fires of 1997 and 1998 that destroyed 25,000sq miles of forest.

“The burning isn’t legal but the country is so corrupt 1,000 fires are lit every year,” adds Matthew, FoE’s corporate accountability campaigner.

The drive for increased production means it’s not just the orang-utan that’s threatened. Many other species also face oblivion, including the Sumatran tiger, elephant and rhino, along with gibbons and tapirs.

“We need international cooperation now to address this crisis,” says Dr Willie Smits, chairman of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation.

The spiralling demand for palm oil is also taking its toll on the indigenous population. Millions are having their land stolen and stripped, says FoE, while many proterol, testers have been tortured or killed.

Pressure groups want the industry more tightly regulated and are urging Britons to put pressure on supermarkets and politicians.

FoE wrote to 96 UK firms asking them to trace the source of palm oil in their products. Of the 18 that bothered to respond, none could say if it came from non-destructive plantation sources.

The Malaysian Palm Oil Promotion Council defends its profitable cholescrop. It says there’s plenty of legislation regulating the industry and no evidence of any threat to wildlife. It adds that palm oil is a “well planned agricultural industry”.

In a bid to find a way forward, the World Wildlife Fund has asked more businesses to join its Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, an association set up in 2003 and comprising members from all along the supply chain.

While supermarkets including Asda, Waitrose and the Co-op have joined, Tesco and Iceland have not.

A Tesco spokeswoman says: “Almost all of the palm oil used by our ‘own-brand’ makers is bought through members or affiliate members of the RSPO. We fully support its aims.”

An Iceland spokeswoman says that its suppliers have a policy which requires that alternative sources to palm oil are reviewed where feasible.

It may not be too late to save the orang-utan from extinction but, as the roar of chainsaws rings through South-East Asia, the moment gets ever nearer.

PRODUCTS MADE WITH PALM OIL

Bread
Mayonnaise
Soap
Yoghurt
Cereal bars
Margarine
Fish Fingers
Crackers
Chocolate
Chips
Biscuits

Palm oil-diesel. Extinction and climate disaster.

Kristina Medici — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 21:26:14 +0000

Bad news: Indonesia and Malaysia are preparing major expansions of palm oil plantations in order to cater for increasing EU biofuel demand. As this Greenpiece article says we have precious little time left to save not only our endangered Proboscis Monkeys but the whole planet from a climate crisis.

Rainforest is destroyed and carbon-rich peatland drained in the production of palm oil and this destruction is a huge source of greenhouse gas emissions which cause climate change.

Investments should go into truly sustainable biofuels, such as those produced from waste, which do not require the use of land.

And we have to give priority to energy-saving measures: supporting the production of lighter and smaller cars with more efficient engines, developing public transport and rail transport powered with renewables.

Read the full article by Kees Kodde

WWF official Proboscis Monkey Information

Kristina Medici — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 21:06:33 +0000

We support the good work of the WWF but what they do in order to save Proboscis Monkey we hope to hear from them soon. Enclosed their recent info:

Distribution, habitat and behaviour

Endemic to Borneo. Can be found along the coastal areas, mangrove swamps and riverine forests of Borneo.
In 1977, there were about 6400 of them in Sarawak, but now there are only about 1000 in Sarawak, with perhaps another 2000 in Sabah and 4000 in Kalimantan. Some populations along the west coast of Sabah have disappeared entirely.
The only known reserves to have a sustained and secure proboscis population are Tanjung Puting and possibly Mount Palung National Park in Kalimantan.

Description and natural history

A very bizarre-looking primate, the tree-dwelling proboscis monkey gets its name from its huge pendulous nose. The nose overhangs the mouth and the monkey has to push it aside in order to eat. The female has a shorter and more snubby version.
They have pot bellies and are very noisy primates with their strange honking sounds.
Only primate species adapted for swimming with some webbing between its fingers. They are proficient swimmers, moving quietly (so as not to attract its natural predator, the crocodile) using a form of dog paddle, and like to dive off a tree branch high above the water, sometimes with babies clinging to their mothers’ fur.
The male averages 24kg in weight, twice as much as the female. Hence it tends to move more carefully than the females or younger males do.
Adults have an orangey red coat, greyish on their bottom half, and a long thick white tail. Newborns have deep blue faces with upturned noses, but assume adult colouring when they are about nine months old.
Lives on a special diet of leaves, flowers and seeds of vegetation found only in riverine, peat swamps and mangrove forests.

Threats

Because it feeds and lives in mangrove and riverine forests, the draining of wetlands and development along riverbanks for agricultural purposes and human settlement are its biggest threat through habitat loss.
Peat fires.
Sedimentation of lower river banks that change coastal soil ecology and vegetation.

Conservation

Now listed as an endangered species, their long-term survival is dependent on protection given by gazetted parks and wildlife sanctuaries such as the proposed Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary, an important wetland in Sabah.
Enforce protection, institute strict regulations on land use of wetlands and pollution management to minimise environmental damage to the specie’s natural habitats.