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Indonesia...
Indonesia is a large place, one of my favourite
places in the world. I have made several visits here
over the years, and still don't feel I know the country.
Sumatra is a huge island with much primary and undisturbed
rainforest remaining, but a look out of the airplane window
will prove to anyone that enormous tracts of this island
is now plantation. This is home to some very
rare animals like the tiger and rhino. Borneo is perhaps
the most famous island in Indonesia after Bali, and host
to some famous orangutans. But spread throughout many
of the other islands of this huge archipelago, especially
Java and Sulawesi, hides a whole host of other fascinating
wildlife, such as the Anoa and Babirusa (see Sulawesi Gallery).
Below are just 3 very threatened animals you may already
know....
Sumatran
tiger
Panthera tigris sumatrae
Tesso Nilo National Park is home to a significant
number of the remaining 400 Sumatran tigers left in the
wild today.
However, large-scale habitat conversion to
commercial plantation is rapidly eating away the tigers'
natural forests. Illegal logging is also prevalent in much
of Sumatra, with local paper mills relying upon wood from
tropical rainforests. Fire and poaching also takes
it toll.
Unless an end is brought to rampant habitat loss and the
illegal trade in tiger parts, Indonesia may lose its last
remaining tiger species.
Bornean
orang-u-tan
Pongo pygmaeus
Sepilok Rehabilitation
centre in Sabah is world renowned for its Orangutans.
But photographing them looking wild is difficult, so a trip
to the south coast of Borneo, to the Tanjung Puting National
Park is a must (Gunung Leuser NP in Sumatra is another good
place). Tanjung Puting is known to have a large
diversity of forest ecosystems, including freshwater swamp
forest, peat swamp forest, mangrove forest, and coastal
forest. It is in such swampy habitat that Orangutans
can be found.
The main threat to orangutans
is exactly the same as for the tiger. Approximately
80% of their habitat has been destroyed in just the last
decade. Only a few viable populations of orangutans
remain in the wild. Currently almost none of these populations
are sufficiently well managed and adequately protected.
Now, nearly 1,000 orphan orangutans live in rescue centres
like Sepilok.
Dr. Willie Smits, Chairman
of Borneo Orangutan Survival, declared passionately, "From
the number of orangutans confiscated and smuggled in 2003,
I estimate that 6000 were lost from the wild last year.
What does this mean? Without immediate action, the orangutans
are doomed."
On the upside, new populations
of orangutans have been discovered in East Kalimantan (Indonesian
Borneo), with numbers there as high as 2,500. Let's
make sure we do not support any further illegal logging.
"I'm fed up"
Siamang
gibbon
Symphalangus syndactylus
This Sumatran gibbon is a common target of
the pet trade, although habitat loss is also a severe threat.
It is famous for its melodious and loud morning call.
back to
Conservation Gallery
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