UN lauds Indonesia’s crackdown on illegal timber to save orangutans

The United Nations has welcomed efforts by the Indonesian Government to crack down on illegal logging which is both endangering orangutans – one of the world’s few great apes – by destroying their habitat and increasing opportunities for them to be bought and sold illicitly.

Recently, Indonesian authorities have intensified their efforts to curb the illegal timber trade, seizing 30,000 cubic metres of processed wood in Nunukan in East Kalimantan province and arresting six people. More have been arrested in the same province n conjunction with an additional 40,000 cubic metres that officials have seized.

“We can only applaud the efforts of the Indonesia authorities to stamp out illegal logging and illegal timber trading,” said Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), in a statement released today. “It is this illegal trade and the networks of groups who indiscriminately exploit these nature-based assets that are putting forest ecosystems, local people’s livelihoods, the orangutan and a whole host of other species in peril.”

He added that the 70,000 cubic metres of confiscated wood is the equivalent of 3,000 truckloads of timber.

However, he said it is estimated that illegal logging is a $4 billion business annually in Indonesia, resulting in 2.1 million hectares of Indonesia’s forests being cleared, which equates to several hundred thousands truckloads of timber and corresponds to an unbroken line of trucks from Paris to Bangkok.

The Great Apes Survival Project (GRASP), a joint initiative of UNEP and UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) report that hundreds of orangutans have fled to “refugee” camps as their habitat is destroyed by illegal logging.

“We are observing illegal trade in live orangutans as a by-product of the illegal logging,” said GRASP’s Melanie Virtue. “When the forests are burnt or cut down, mothers are often killed while the juveniles are caught to be used as pets, or sold on to zoos or safari parks.”

Although the exact number of orangutans sold and exported is unknown, it is believed to be in the hundreds, if not higher. Recently, large numbers of illegally obtained young Bornean orangutans have been found in zoos in Thailand and Cambodia.

The UN warns that without international and regional support, the rainforests of South-East Asia, where the orangutans live, could be destroyed, also jeopardizing the livelihoods of people who rely on such ecosystems.

According to a UNEP study in February – entitled “Last stand of the orangutan: state of emergency” – natural rainforests of Sumatra and Borneo are being cleared so rapidly that up to 98 per cent may be destroyed by 2022 without urgent action, outstripping projections of an earlier UNEP report by 10 years due to an acceleration in the past five years of illegal logging.

As demand for timber grows, the industry and international market are running out of cheap illegal timber and are now entering the national parks, the orangutans’ last refuge, where the only remaining timber available in commercial amounts is found.

In another development, Mr. Steiner said the commitment made by the leaders of the “Group of Eight” leading industrialized nations at a summit last week to assist African development and also to reduce greenhouse gas emissions go hand in hand.

“The two agreements are mutually supportive and are just the kind of joined thinking we need,” the Executive Director said. “A commitment to climate change ensures that the carbon markets will thrive and develop over the coming years and decades.”

This will “transfer funds from the North to the South” for such projects as clean and renewable energy initiatives, he added, which will result in both lowered emissions and bolstered African development.