Palm oil
plantations are destroying the Sumatran apes' habitat, leaving just 200 of the
animals struggling for existence
The Guardian, The Observer, Gethin Chamberlain, Sunday 15 December 2013
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| Gokong Puntung, a one-year-old male orangutan, rescued from a chicken cage at a house in Aceh, Sumatra. Photograph: Gethin Chamberlain for the Observer |
Even in the
first light of dawn in the Tripa swamp forest of Sumatra it is clear that
something is terribly wrong. Where there should be lush foliage stretching away
towards the horizon, there are only the skeletons of trees. Smoke drifts across
a scene of devastation.
Tripa is
part of the Leuser Ecosystem, one of the world's most ecologically important
rainforests and once home to its densest population of Sumatran orangutans.
As recently
as 1990, there were 60,000 hectares of swamp forest in Tripa: now just 10,000
remain, the rest grubbed up to make way for palm oil plantations servicing the
needs of some of the world's biggest brands. Over the same period, the
population of 2,000 orangutans has dwindled to just 200.
In the face
of international protests, Indonesia banned any fresh felling of forests two
years ago, but battles continue in the courts over existing plantation
concessions.
Here, on
the edge of one of the remaining stands of forest, it is clear that the
destruction is continuing.
Deep
trenches have been driven through the peat, draining away the water, killing
the trees, which have been burnt and bulldozed. The smell of wood smoke is
everywhere. But of the orangutans who once lived here, there is not a trace.
This is the
tough physical landscape in which environmental campaigners fighting to save
the last of the orangutans are taking on the plantation companies, trying to
keep track of what is happening on the ground so that they can intervene to
rescue apes stranded by the destruction.
But
physically entering the plantations is dangerous and often impractical; where
the water has not been drained away, the ground is a swamp, inhabited by
crocodiles. Where canals have been cut to drain away the water, the dried peat
is thick and crumbly and it is easy to sink up to the knees. Walking even short
distances away from the roads is physically draining and the network of wide
canals has to be bridged with logs. The plantations do not welcome visitors and
the Observer had to evade security guards to gain entrance.
To overcome
these problems, campaigners have turned to a technology that has become
controversial for its military usage but that in this case could help to save
the orangutans and their forest: drones.
Graham
Usher, from the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme, produces a large
flight case and starts to unpack his prized possession, a polystyrene Raptor
aircraft with a two-metre wingspan and cameras facing forward and down.
The £2,000
drone can fly for more than half an hour over a range of 30-40km, controlled by
a computer, recording the extent of the destruction of the forest.
"The
main use of it is to get real time data on forest loss and confirm what's going
on with fires," he says.
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| Habitats under threat. Photograph: Observer |
They can
also use the drone to track animals that have been fitted with radio collars.
Graham opens his computer and clicks on a video. Immediately, the screen fills
with an aerial view of forest, then a cleared patch of land and then new
plantation as the drone passes overhead. "We are getting very powerful
images of what is going on in the field," he says.
The footage
is helping them to establish where new burning is taking place and which
plantations are potentially breaking the law. Areas of forest where the peat is
deeper than three metres should be protected – the peat is a carbon trap – but
in practice many plantations do not measure the depth.
"They
shouldn't be developing it but the power of commerce and capital subverts all
legislation in this country. There is no law enforcement or rule of law,"
says Usher.
The battle
to save the orangutans is not helped by the readiness of multinational
corporations to use palm oil from unverified sources. Hundreds of products on
UK supermarket shelves are made with palm oil or its derivatives sourced from
plantations on land that was once home to Sumatran orangutans.
Environmental
campaigners say that the complex nature of the palm oil supply chain makes it
uniquely difficult for companies to ensure that the oil they use has been
produced ethically and sustainably.
"One
of the big issues is that we simply don't know where the palm oil used in
products on UK supermarket shelves comes from. It may well be that it came from
Tripa," says Usher.
In October,
the Rainforest Foundation UK singled out Superdrug and Procter and Gamble
(particularly its Head and Shoulders, Pantene and Herbal Essences hair
products) for criticism over the use of unsustainable palm oil. A traffic light
system produced using the companies' responses to questions from the Ethical
Consumer group also placed Imperial Leather, Original Source and Estée Lauder
hair products in the red-light category.
A separate
report by Greenpeace, also issued in October into Sumatran palm oil production,
accused Procter and Gamble and Mondelez International (formerly Kraft) of using
"dirty" palm oil. The group called on the brands to recognise the
environmental cost of "irresponsible palm oil production". According
to the Rainforest Foundation's executive director, Simon Counsell, part of the
problem is that even companies that do sign up to ethical schemes, such as the
Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, cannot be certain that all the oil they
receive is ethically produced because of the way oil from different plantations
is mixed at processing plants.
"The
smaller companies sell to bigger companies and it all gets mixed. Even those
companies making some effort cannot be certain that what they are getting is
what they have paid for," he said.
Driving out
of Tripa, the whole area appears to have been given over to palm oil
plantations; some long-established, 20-25ft tall trees in regimented rows,
others recently planted. Every now and again there is a digger, driving a new
road into what little forest remains, the first stage of the process that will
end with the forest burned and gone and replaced with young oil palms.
There is a
steady flow of lorries loaded with palm fruits, heading for the processing
plant not far from the town of Meulaboh. From there, tankers take the oil to
the city of Medan for shipping onwards.
It is
outside Medan that the orangutan victims of clearances are taken to recover, at
the SOCP's quarantine centre. These are the animals rescued from isolated
stands of forest or from captivity. Those that can be will eventually be
released back into another part of the island.
Anto, a
local orangutan expert, says the spread of the plantations is fragmenting the
remaining forest and isolating the orangutans.
"Then
people are poaching the orangutans because it is easy to catch them," he
says. "People isolate them in a tree and then they cut the tree or they
make the orangutan so afraid that it climbs down and is caught. After that they
can kill it and sometimes eat it. Or they can trade it."
This is
what happened to Gokong Puntung and his mother. The one-year-old ape – now
recovering with the help of SOCP – was rescued from Sidojadi village in
February. He had been captured a month earlier in the Tripa forest.
A group of
fishermen spotted Gokong Puntung and his mother trapped in a single tree and
unable to reach the rest of the forest without coming down. The men apparently
decided to try to grab the baby in the hope of selling it. One climbed the
tree, forcing the mother to fall to the ground, where another man set about her
and beat her with a length of timber. In the confusion, mother and baby became
separated and the fishermen were able to get away. They sold the animal for
less than £6 to a plantation worker.
"We
got information from people who heard an orangutan crying in one house,"
says SOCP vet Yenny Saraswati. "They went in the house and found the baby
orangutan in a chicken cage. The owner said he had bought it from people who
had taken it from the plantation."
It was a
very unusual case: more often, the mother is killed.
"They
are very good mothers – better than humans," she says. "A lot of
human mothers don't care for their babies, but I have never seen an orangutan
leave its baby. They always hug them and don't let them cry."
That's why
poachers tend to kill the mothers, says Anto. "They hit it with sticks.
One person uses a forked stick to hold its head and the others hit it and beat
it to death. But the young orangutans they sell."
The effect
on Tripa's orangutans has been disastrous. Cut off from the population on the
rest of the island, they teeter on the brink of viability; experts say they
really need a population of about 250 to survive long term and, because
orangutans produce offspring only once every six or seven years, it takes a
long time to replenish a depleted population.
Those that
remain in the forest face other dangers. Some die when the forest is burned,
others starve to death as their food supply is destroyed.
If the
orangutans did not already have it tough, there may yet be worse to come: gold
has been found in Aceh's remaining forests and mining is starting.
"If
there is no government effort to protect the remaining area, we will never know
the orangutans here again," says Anto.
"If
this continues they will be gone within 10 years."
In response
to the criticism over its use of unsustainable palm oil, Superdrug said it
"is aware of the complex issues surrounding palm oil and its derivatives,
which are currently used in some of its own-brand products, and is committed to
working with its suppliers to use sustainable alternatives when they become
widely available."
Estée
Lauder Companies, which makes Aveda hair products, said: "We share the
concern about the potential environmental effects of palm oil plantations,
including deforestation and the destruction of biodiversity and habitats."
The
statement said that its palm oil (made from the pulped fruit) came from
sustainable sources. But the company said the majority of its brands used palm
kernel oil (from the crushed palm fruit kernels) and that it was working to
develop sustainable supplies.
"We
are committed to acting responsibly and will continue to work with our
suppliers to find the best ways to encourage and support the development of
sustainable palm kernel oil sources."
PZ Cussons,
which makes Original Source and Imperial Leather products, along with the
Sanctuary SPA range, said it was committed to using raw materials from
sustainable and environmentally friendly sources wherever possible.
The company
said it had "embarked on a sustainability journey" and was working
with other producers to gain a better understanding of the supply chain and
"to promote the growth and use of sustainable oil palm products".
Mondelez International (formerly Kraft) said it wanted to eliminate unethical
plantations from its supply chain by 2020.
"We
fully share concerns about the environmental impacts of palm oil production,
including deforestation. As a final buyer, engaging our supply chain is the
most meaningful action we can take to ensure palm oil is grown
sustainably," said a spokesman.
"Palm
oil should be produced on legally held land, protecting tropical forests and
peat land, respecting human rights, including land rights, and without forced
or child labour.
"We
expect palm oil suppliers to provide us transparency on the proportion of their
supplies traceable to plantations meeting these principles by the end of 2013
and to eliminate supplies that do not meet these criteria by 2020."
Procter
& Gamble, which makes Head and Shoulders, Herbal Essences and Pantene
products, said it was "strongly opposed to irresponsible deforestation
practices and our position on the sustainable sourcing of palm oil is
consistent with our corporate sustainability principles and guidelines.
"We
are committed to the sustainable sourcing of palm oil and have set a public
target that, by 2015, we will only purchase palm oil from sources where
sustainable and responsible production has been confirmed."
FIGHT FOR
EXISTENCE
Orangutans
are facing extinction as their habitats are becoming fragmented and
agricultural production expands.
Populations
of orangutans have been broken up into groups and this is causing a problem for
the survival of the species.
The WWF
estimates that a century ago there were more than 230,000 orangutans living in
the wild, now they think there are only 41,000 in Borneo and 7,500 in Sumatra.
Others put the figures at 54,000 in Borneo and 6,600 in Sumatra.
Some
conservationists predict that orangutans could disappear in as little as 20 to
30 years, others think it could happen in a few hundred years.
Orangutans
share 96.4% of their genes with humans.
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