News from Sumatra - An update from our partners at SOCP

Please read the orangutan update below written by our partners at the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme. Together we are working to protect the habitat and future of all three critically endangered species of orangutan:

On Wednesday 26th August, 2020, the orangutan post-release monitoring team at the SOCP’s Jantho orangutan reintroduction site, in Aceh province, came across an adult female orangutan. After a quick check to see if they could figure out who it was, they noticed that she was carrying a young infant, no more than a few months old! The baby orangutan is male and is the third baby orangutan born in Jantho since the SOCP's Orangutan Reintroduction Programme began releasing orangutans into the Jantho Nature Reseve in 2011. Mother and baby both appear to be healthy and are behaving just like wild orangutans would. The infant is being carried properly by his mother and has been seen breastfeeding without difficulty on numerous occasions.

After checking some earlier photographs the team are confident the mother is 'Edelweiss', actually the very first orangutan to be released at Jantho back in 2011. After her release she immediately moved away from the camp area and deep into the forest. On February 11, 2020, a female orangutan strongly suspected to be Edelweiss was observed not far from the orangutan reintroduction site and at that time she was showing signs of being pregnant.

The aim of SOCP's orangutan release program at Jantho is to build a new, wild population of Sumatran orangutans (pongo abelii) as a "safety net" or "backup", should a of catastrophe befall the remaining truly wild populations in and around the Leuser Ecosystem. This is especially important in the midst of the current pandemic, as whilst the scientific evidence suggests orangutans and the other great apes are susceptible to infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the effect it might have on them remains entirely unknown.

To date, more than 120 individual orangutans have been successfully released into the Jantho Nature Reserve but many more are needed before the population could be considered genetically viable and self-sustaining for the long term. For this reason, every orangutan released or born in Jantho’s forests is extremely significant and important, and gives new hope for the future of this critically endangered species.

Director of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme, Dr Ian Singleton said “We always knew it would be several years before we really started to see infants being born on a regular basis among the new population of orangutans we are creating in Jantho. This is because most of the orangutans we release there are 5 to 8 years old, whilst wild orangutan females tend to be around 15 years old on average when they have their first infant. It's great to see these new infants starting to appear though, and it's especially rewarding when you think about all the hard work, spanning many years, that goes into reintroducing each and every one of the orangutans we have released to date. That these new infants have never known captivity and human contact is also extremely heart-warming, and hopefully they never will, unlike their parents, whose own mother’s were almost certainly killed during their original capture and some of whom have endured years chained by the neck or kept in tiny cages at the hands of their illegal owners. The orangutans we are releasing in Jantho, and those now being born there, really are the founders of this entirely new wild population, and it's never been more important to have these ‘back up’ populations as we face the extremely worrying prospect of SARS-CoV-2 infections passing from humans to orangutans, both in captivity and in the wild”.

Photos by Kike Arnal/Arcus Foundation

Our new partnership to protect all three species of orangutan

Orangutan Foundation is pleased to announce that we have entered into a new partnership to support the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme, which has been operating in Sumatra for the past 20 years.

Whilst we have supported this programme in the past, this new partnership will ensure that in the future, the Foundation is more effective in its efforts to help conserve all three critically endangered species of orangutan - Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutans.

We will now be including news updates from Sumatra and Borneo in our e-news, blogs and social media posts.

Photos by Kike Arnal/Arcus Foundation

Spare a few minutes to help save habitat of critically endangered great ape

Please sign this petition to the Indonesian President to halt the destuction of the Tripa Swamps, home to a few hundred critically endangered orangutans.

Press release from “Coalition to save the Tripa peat swamps”

Increase in fires burning in Tripa highlight Indonesian Government failing to cease deforestation; orangutan population doomed unless illegal activities halted immediately.

Tripa aerial flyover June 27 2012, 2pm

Another massive wave of fires currently sweeping across the Tripa peat swamp forests has highlighted the accelerating destruction and ongoing disregard of Indonesian National Law by palm oil companies inside the protected Leuser Ecosystem, despite a high level National Investigation launched months ago, which is yet to report on findings.

A recent spike in the number of fires was recorded by satellites monitoring fire hotspot activity in Sumatra, and confirmed by field staff yesterday who filmed and photographed numerous fires burning in the palm oil concessions operating right across in Tripa.

The five companies at present actively operating in Tripa have responded to the increased media scrutiny and current investigation by increasing security on their plantations. Some are even being guarded by military and police personnel stationed along access routes while illegally lit fires burn inside.

“The ongoing destructive activities of these companies during the investigation indicates their complete disregard for Indonesian law and the authority of the ongoing investigation, and the government is allowing this to happen.” Stated Kamaruddin, lawyer for the Tripa community.

“A direct Presidential Instruction is urgently required to bring an immediate halt to the rampant and illegal destruction of Tripa, not a speech telling the world deforestation is a thing of the past.” Kamaruddin added.

“There is no doubt that each of these companies is breaking several laws. Whilst we realize, and very much appreciate and support the investigation going on (by the Department of Environment), it’s proving to be too little too late. These companies simply have to be ordered to stop immediately, and that order to be strictly enforced, otherwise the Peat Forests and inhabitants of Tripa will be lost forever”, he added.

One of the five companies operating in Tripa, PT. Kallista Alam, was challenged in court and its concession area recently reinstated as off limits to deforestation and degradation in the 2nd revision of Moratorium Map on May 25th, 2012. This particular concession has been the subject of an ongoing legal battle as it clearly contravenes National Spatial Law No 26/2007 and Government Regulation 26/2008, since it was granted inside the Leuser Ecosystem National Strategic Area for environmental protection, in which no concessions can be granted that damage the environmental protection function of the ecosystem, and in which all activities that do damage the ecosystem must be halted, and damaged areas restored.

Fires continued to rage late yesterday in the northern stretches of the PT Kallista Alam concession. Likewise, numerous obviously deliberately set fires were also observed in the concessions of PT. Surya Panen Subur 2, PT. Cemerlang Abadi, PT. Gelora Sawita Makmur , PT. Dua Perkasa Lestari and an area known as the PT Patriot Guna Sakti Abadi concession, even though the latter was never formally granted.

“The situation is indeed extremely dire” reports Dr Ian Singleton of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme. “Every time I have visited Tripa in the last 12 months I have found several orangutans, hanging on for their very survival, right at the forest edge. Its very easy to find them and we have already evacuated a few lucky ones to safer areas. But when you see the scale and speed of the current wave of destruction and the condition of the remaining forests, there can be no doubt whatsoever that many have already died in Tripa due to the fires themselves, or due to starvation as a result of the loss of their habitat and food resources”, he explained.

The Tripa peat swamp forests have received considerable international attention, much of it focusing on the fact that the burning of Tripa’s peat swamp forests made a mockery of a 1 billion USD agreement between the Governments of Indonesia and Norway to reduce carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, also known as the REDD deal, since the peat alone in Tripa sequesters huge amount of carbon that is being released into the atmosphere even now .

Tripa was also high on the agenda at the first meeting between the newly inaugurated Governor of Aceh and the European Union, just a few days ago. Furthermore, on June 13th at a global policy address on the future of Indonesia's forests, ahead of Rio+20 summit, at CIFOR, President SBY himself proclaimed that “deforestation is a thing of the past” and "Losing our tropical rain forests would constitute the ultimate national, global and planetary disaster.  That's why Indonesia has reversed course by committing to sustainable forestry."

Yet the ongoing destruction witnessed by the coalition team in recent days is a clear indication that these are simply empty words, and that Indonesia is giving no reasons for its international commitments to be taken as anything more than mere rhetoric.

Dr Singleton also pointed out, “There is still a decent orangutan population in Tripa, however hard and fast it is being extinguished, and there are also large tracts of land that have been cleared of forests but never used. If these companies were immediately instructed to stop all their destructive operations while the legal investigation process continues, and then removed, ideally with prosecutions and appropriate punishment, Tripa, its orangutan population, and many of the contributions it once made to local community livelihoods could still be restored.”

“But without an immediate halt it will all be lost, to the ultimate benefit of only a handful of already incredibly rich people based elsewhere. This whole thing makes absolutely no sense at all, not environmentally nor even economically. It is simply greed, on a massive scale. A simply staggering scale in fact.” Stressed Dr. Ian Singleton. 

Notes for Editors:

Further Hi-res photos available on www.endoftheicons.wordpress.com

Please find map below with satellite monitored fires from the period 17/06/12 - 26/06/12 new data will become available over the coming days

For Further Press inquiries, Please Contact:

Kamaruddin (Bahasa Indonesian Only)

Tripa Community Lawyer

08116700118

Dr Ian Singleton

Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme

Email: mokko123@gmail.com

Mobile: +62811650491

Also, for further media statement, please contact:

Saud Usman Nasution

Spokesperson for Indonesian National Police

+62 811 979 2222

PT. Kallista Alam

• Komp. Taman Setiabudi Indah II, blok V (ruko) No. 11-14, Medan 20133 Phone: 061 – 8216541

Fax: 061 – 8216532

• Jl.Cycas II Blok UU, No.55 Taman Setia Budi Indah, Medan, North Sumatera

Phone: 061-800200, 812380

Fax: 021-812380

PT. Surya Panen Subur 2

• Jl.Pulo Ayang raya,Blok OR Kav.1 Kawasan industri Pulogadung Jakarta13930

Phone: (021)4616555

Fax: (021)4616550

PT. Cemerlang Abadi

• Central Plaza, 3rd Floor, Jl.Jend.Sudirman Kav.47 Jakarta 12930

Phone: 021-5255414,5255413

Fax: 021-520748

PT. Dua Perkasa Lestari

• Rasuna Office Park ZO 10-11 Rasuna Epicentrum, Jakarta

Phone: 021-83703232, 031-5925239

Fax: 021-83704488, 031-5925387

PT. Gelora Sawita Makmur

• LENDMARK Centre,Tower A, 8th floor,Jl. Jend sudirman No.1 Jakarta 12910

Phone: (021)5712790, 5712853

Fax: (021)5712716

Save The Tripa Swamps - Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme

Ian Singleton, Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme's (SOCP) Director of Conservation, has kindly written todays post for this blog to mark Orangutan Awareness Week 2008. This last few years we, at the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP), have been kept very busy trying to save the Tripa peat swamps on the west coast of Aceh. Our “normal” work tackles all aspects of orangutan conservation (SOCP photo gallery) in Sumatra including:-

1. Confiscation, quarantine and reintroduction of illegal pet orangutans 2. Research, surveys and monitoring of wild populations 3. Education and awareness raising 4. Habitat conservation, especially the Batang Toru Forests of North Sumatra and the remaining peat swamp forests of Aceh’s west coast.

The Tripa swamp forests probably harbored around 1,500 or more orangutans at the beginning of the 1990’s but in the years leading up to the fall of the Suharto government and the escalation of the Aceh separatist conflict much of these forests were allocated as oil palm estates. Some of these estates cleared their land, established drainage canals and even planted oil palms in parts of their concessions, but all were then left abandoned during the conflict between 1999 and 2005, during which time they became overgrown and drainage canals became blocked and stagnant.

Destruction of the Tripa Swamps (photo from SOCP)

Digging Drainage Canals (photo from SOCP)

Over the last year or two, however, some of them have resumed operations, meaning new forest clearance (logging, burning etc), new drainage canals, clearing some of the old oil palms and planting with new ones. Naturally, many of the activities of these estates is not consistent with existing laws. For a start, peat of greater than 3 m depth cannot legally be converted, and much of the area under these estates has been measured by SOCP and found to be up to 5 m deep or more. There is also a moratorium on all logging in Aceh, issued by the Governor in 2007, but implementation of this regulation in the field is still lacking.

Much of the peat due for conversion is more than 5 metres deep and stores huge amounts of carbon. (photo from SOCP)

The destruction of the Tripa peat swamps not only endangers the 250 or so orangutans still surviving there, but also has major implications for climate change and for local communities. The peat swamps store vast amounts of carbon, which will all be released to the atmosphere over the coming years if the clearance and drainage is allowed to continue. Drying of peatlands also results in subsidence of around 1 m in 20 years, extremely worrying in an area on the coast that is already only around 1 m above sea level. Given this, the development of these swamps makes no sense, not even economically.

Due to the urgency of this situation, SOCP has been working extremely hard to bring all these issues to public attention. We have been lobbying local and national governments and our education department has been focusing on the local communities in the area. The issue has already been broadcast on international TV programs and published in both national and international media. It seems now that people are beginning to take notice, but we must continue to be diligent.

For more information on this issue please visit our website and download the Tripa value report. Also see a recent article 'Urgent Action Needed Over Sumatran Peat Forest Logging' in the Telegraph.

Thank you,

Ian