Jakarta Globe, Angela
Dewan, May 5, 2013
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| A rescued male Sumatran orangutan, named “Gokong Puntung” after the Chinese monkey God, whose mother was beaten up by poachers, learns to climb tree branches at the quarantine centre of Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program in Sibolangit district, Sumatra, on April 8. (AFP Photo/Romeo Gacad) |
Sibolangit.
A baby Sumatran orangutan swings playfully on a branch at an Indonesian rescue
center, a far cry from the terror he endured when his pristine rainforest home
was razed to the ground.
Now alarm
is growing at a plan activists say will open up new swathes of virgin forest on
Sumatra island for commercial exploitation and lay roads through a vital
ecosystem, increasing the risk to many endangered species.
The plan,
which Aceh authorities say aims to open up a small amount of forest for
communities to develop, is set to be approved by Jakarta despite its moves
towards extending a national moratorium on new logging permits.
Green
groups say such policies illustrate how the ban can be circumvented to open up new areas for deforestation,
threatening to boost Indonesia’s already high emissions of carbon dioxide.
“This plan
is a huge threat to species living in the forest, especially orangutans, tigers
and elephants that live in the lowland forests that will likely be cleared first,” Ian Singleton of
the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program told AFP.
Environmentalists
warn that some one million hectares — around the size of Cyprus — could be
opened up in Aceh province for exploitation by mining, palm oil and paper
companies. Officials dispute that figure.
There are
particular fears about part of the project which would lay roads through the
Leuser ecosystem, an area of stunning beauty where peat swamp and dense forest
surround waterfalls and mountains poking through clouds.
The area,
mostly in Aceh, is home to around 5,800 of the remaining 6,600 critically
endangered Sumatran orangutans as well as elephants, bears and snakes including
King Cobras.
Singleton
warns that cases like that of the baby ape, rescued from Leuser, would rise
dramatically if the road project goes ahead, as orangutan populations need
long, uninterrupted stretches of forest to survive.
Named
Gokong Puntung after the Chinese monkey god, the young ape had been living in
an area where several companies cleared the land despite the tough protection
it was supposed to have been afforded.
The primate
was left stranded and clinging to his mother in a lone tree with no others to
swing to. His mother was beaten by a group of passing men, and the baby was
sold to a plantation worker for $10.
He was
rescued in February and taken to the center run by Singleton’s group across the
Aceh border in Sibolangit district, North Sumatra province.
“Genetic
experts say you need 250 to 500 orangutans minimum to have a population that’s
viable in the long term without too many bad inbreeding effects,” said
Singleton.
“We’ve only
got about six of those populations left, and every time you put a road through
the middle of one, you effectively cut it in half.”
Aceh
forestry department planning chief Saminuddin B. Tou insists the roads will help link remote communities to the
outside world — although activists say there are few buildings in the area and
the network mainly helps big companies with access.
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| Smoke envelopes a peatland forest hit by fire in western Aceh province’s Tripa in Sumatra as peatland forests are converted for palm oil plantation in this June 27, 2012 file photo. (AFP Photo) |
A murky web
Jakarta has
signaled it will sign off on Aceh’s plan in the coming weeks, even as it is
expected to extend the moratorium on new logging permits which expires on May
20 and has been in force for two years.
There is
also strong support in the Aceh parliament which has the final say, and
officials say they hope it will pass soon.
Although it
seems to fly in the face of the national moratorium, the project is possible because it hinges on
Aceh’s decision to overturn its own deforestation ban which was introduced at
the local level six years ago.
The ban,
stronger than the national measure, was brought in by the previous local
administration — but it will be scrapped under the plan.
Environmentalists
say it is one of the more glaring examples of how officials are using a murky
web of local laws and technical explanation to push through new deforestation
in defiance of the national moratorium.
“Companies
and local governments have found all sorts of ways to get around the ban,”
Friends of the Earth forest campaigner Zenzi Suhadi said.
However,
the head of the Aceh forestry department, Husaini Syamaun, said in a statement
that the plan “was not aimed at the development of mines and plantations” and
did not break any laws.
The
administration insists it will only free up around 200,000 hectares of new
forest for exploitation.
But in
reality a much larger area will be opened up, activists say.
Prior to
the local ban, many mining and palm oil companies were granted concessions to chop down virgin rainforest in
Aceh, but they had to freeze their activities when the province’s moratorium
came in.
Officials
argue that the plan will simply “reactivate” these areas of forest that had been open for logging in the
past, so do not include them in their
calculations.
Tou also
insisted most of the project was an “administrative change” as a lot of forest
had in reality been cleared by local communities already. “It’s not still
virgin forest, it’s already been converted by the people,” he said.
Agence France-Presse
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