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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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