Orangutans Losing Their Forests Faster Than Expected, Extinction Draws Near, & How You Can Avoid Making Their Prognosis Worse

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Broken heart time. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has an environmental forum underway in Nairobi. Their Rapid Response report offers a bleak assessment of the future of our Asian cousins, the orangutans, or “people of the forest” in the local languages of Indonesia and Malaysia.

The report says that natural rainforests of Sumatra and Borneo are being cleared so rapidly that up to 98% may be destroyed by 2022 without urgent action. The rate of loss, which has accelerated in the past five years, outstrips a previous UNEP report released in 2002 at the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) Then, experts estimated that most of the suitable orangutan habitat would be lost by 2032.

The illegal logging, driven by global demands, accounts for tens of millions of cubic metres annually and an estimated more than 73% of all logging in Indonesia. Approximately 20% of the logs are smuggled directly out of Indonesia, the remaining is used to support an extensive international and local wood industry, and then exported to the international markets by well-organized, but elusive commercial networks.

New satellite imagery reveals that the illegal logging is now entering a new critical phase: As the demands grow, the industry and international market are running out of cheap illegal timber and are now entering the national parks where the only remaining timber available in commercial amounts is found.

Satellite images confirm, together with data from the Indonesian Government, that illegal logging is now taking place in 37 out of 41 national parks, and likely growing. “At current rates of intrusions, it is likely that some parks may become severely degraded in as little as three to five years, that is by 2012”, says the new study “The last stand of the orangutan: State of emergency.”

Overall the report is concluding that loss of orangutan habitat is happening at a rate up to 30% higher than previously thought.

Bornean and Sumatran orangutans are classed as Endangered and Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List, and are listed on Appendix 1 of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). It doesn’t get much worse than this. Orangutans also share their forests with other threatened and ecologically important species including the Sumatran tiger, Sumatran rhinoceros and Asian elephant.

The Orangutan Conservancy, headed by such luminaries as Jane Goodall, Suwanna B. Gauntlett, and Edward O. Wilson, describes orangutans as among our closest relatives, sharing 97 percent of our DNA, while embracing a different lifestyle.

Some might say orangutans have four hands instead of two hands and two feet. This makes them graceful and agile while climbing through the trees but it makes walking on the ground somewhat slow and awkward. That is why the orangutan is at a great disadvantage on the ground, and why the orangutan rarely comes down from the treetops. Their food is there, their home is there and they are safer there.

But the trees are disappearing, largely to support the Western demand for tropical hardwoods, tropical plywood, rayon, and palm-oil products. The Orangutan Conservancy suggests how we can help.

“Let us remember, always, that we are the consumers. By exercising free choice, by choosing what to buy, what not to buy, we have the power, collectively to change the ethics of business of industry. We have the potential to exert immense power for good–we each carry it with us, in our purses, checkbooks, and credit cards.” —Jane Goodall, Reason for Hope

Many items sold today originating from Indonesia are made from materials that come from these vanishing rainforests or are related to the endangered species that are fast disappearing from these forests. As you shop, you can avoid these items by asking yourself:

* Do I really need that picture frame or piece of furniture crafted from tropical hardwood?

* Do I really need a suit made of rayon?

* Do I want to make palm oil a part of my diet?

* Is it really fair to keep an endangered animal such as a primate in captivity as a pet?

* Is there proof that this exotic wood product has come from well-managed forests by an accredited certifier of the Forest Stewardship Council?

The Sierra Club provides a list of thing of things you and I can do to make our consumption of forest products more sustainable.

* reduce consumption by using both sides of your paper, using email, and reading newspapers online

* reduce junk mail by writing to Mail Preference Service, c/o Direct Marketing Association, P.O. Box 9008, Farmingdale, NY 11735-9008

* complete the circle: purchase recycled and tree-free products

* buy only certified forest products and certified or salvaged wood for construction and furnishings

* avoid purchasing rayon viscose clothing

* purchase certified shade grown and organic coffee

In your local community

* ask local stores to carry tree free and recycled products

* support (or start) community recycling programs, for mixed paper as well as newspaper

* encourage local stores to stock sustainably certified, salvaged or recycled wood.

* request that office-supply stores stock recycled and tree-free paper.

* ask local building contractors to use certified wood products.

At work or school

* do not print unnecessary documents and proofread to reduce the need to re-print papers

* program photocopiers to default to two-sided copying

* begin a recycling program and provide bins for all departments and rooms

* purchase recycled, chlorine-free, and/or alternative fiber products

Public policy activism

* ban road building and logging in National Forests (McKinney-Leach bill)

* remove or reverse subsidies to timber harvesting

* ask elected officials to use only recycled or alternative fiber papers in their offices

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate