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[Josh Greenman <joshg1973 AT yahoo.com>]

http://www.hillnews.com/news/092104/orangutans.aspx

Sen. Leahy’s long-haired constituents: orangutans

By Geoff Earle

EAST KALIMANTAN, Indonesia — It’s a long way from the Capitol’s ornate Senate
Appropriations Committee room to the teeming jungles of Southeast Asia. But 
Congress is
taking steps to prevent the extinction of one of the region’s most beloved 
creatures:
orangutans.
  
Orangutans are among the hardest animals to spot in the jungle. Those in 
search of Asia’s
only great ape usually have to settle for glimpsing an orangutan nest, or 
hearing an
orangutan’s piercing, gurgling “long call” from high above in the forest 
canopy.

“Despite being very large-bodied and bright orange, they can be rather 
elusive,” said
Roberto Delgado, an anthropology professor at Hunter College who studies 
orangutan
behavior.

But while they usually keep out of sight, orangutans have earned a loyal 
following among
humans — who tend to identify closely with their close animal relatives 
(humans and
orangutans share about 96 percent of their genetic material).

This kinship has helped orangutans to draw international support for their 
preservation —
even as logging and fire destroy their only remaining habitat at an alarming 
pace. Today,
orangutans exist in only two places in the wild: the Indonesian part of the 
island of
Borneo (called Kalimantan) and the island of Sumatra. 

The species faces such dire prospects that Congress recently took action, 
providing $2.5
million in fiscal 2004 for programs to conserve wild orangutans in Indonesia. 

The same amount is provided in the Senate Appropriations Committee’s report 
for the
fiscal 2005 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill. 

The funding represents a unique effort by Congress to play a direct role in 
the 
conservation of a particular species. There are other congressional efforts 
to preserve
tropical rain forests in South America and Central Africa, but nothing quite 
like the
orangutan effort. (Congress has supported efforts to ban the international 
ivory trade,
which threatens elephants, while contributing to a fund to preserve the 
peregrine
falcon.)

The orangutan money is small change by congressional budget standards, but
conservationists say a dollar can go a long way in the developing world. “You 
can make a
difference with a little money, if it’s used well, for programs like this,” 
said Tim
Rieser, the minority clerk on the Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on 
Foreign
Operations.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) took an interest in orangutan conservation as 
chairman of
Foreign Operations when Democrats controlled the Senate. He has been an 
advocate for
orangutan funding ever since. 

“Indonesia is halfway around the world, but protecting endangered species is 
everyone’s
responsibility,” said Leahy.

Several environmental organizations, including The Nature Conservancy, 
Conservation
International, the World Wildlife Fund and the Orangutan Foundation, won 
grants from the
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which administers the 
orangutan
program.

A few years ago, researchers for The Nature Conservancy (TNC) discovered a 
previously
unknown population of orangutans in East Kalimantan. Based on nest counts and 
sightings
and some projections, the population is thought to number as many as 2,000. 

According to Delgado, these orangutans constitute a separate subspecies that 
is
genetically distinct from the orangutans of Sumatra. Delgado, who also has 
done field
research in Sumatra, estimated the total number of orangutans in the world at
20,000-25,000.  

Environmentalists hope the congressional funding will supplement other 
efforts to protect
the forest here, which supports a range of species, from rare tropical birds 
to bats,
bugs and snakes — along with an indigenous Dyak human population that makes 
its living in
the forest. Borneo’s tropical rain forests are considered to be among the most
biologically diverse in the world.

TNC recently brought together a team of international and Indonesian 
scientists to
catalog the biological diversity that exists here — including numerous 
smaller species
such as cockroaches and snails that exist nowhere else in the world. As part 
of the
survey, researchers spotted a few orangutan nests in tall trees around 
massive rock
formations known as karst systems, which punctuate the forest landscape here. 

The karst — which consists of ancient coral reefs mashed together through 
continental
drift — is rich in calcium. As water leaches through the rock, it forms 
caves, cliffs and
sinkholes that house an array of species. The terrain is rugged and 
inaccessible, keeping
some areas out of reach of large logging concessions. Many remote karst 
forests in
Kalimantan are far away from any village and can be reached only by 
helicopter or after a
long riverboat ride.

As part of its conservation efforts, TNC also has established health 
facilities and
clean-water projects in small Dyak communities in the forest, as a way to 
attempt to
demonstrate some tangible benefits for forest-conservation practices. “It 
earns us trust
— especially with a population that’s been ignored and exploited for so 
long,” said Scott
Stanley, who directs TNC’s efforts in East Kalimantan.

The chief danger to the orangutan is the destruction of its habitat. Much of 
the land has
been logged, and environmentalists estimate that as much as 70 percent of the 
logging is
illegal (as opposed to logging that is authorized by the government). By 
thinning the
forest, the logging leads to a greater chance of fire.

In 1997-1998, massive forest fires burned hundreds of thousands of acres of 
forests in
Borneo, sending plumes of smoke and haze that lingered in Malaysia and 
Singapore for
months.

Indigenous hunters still sometimes kill orangutans for food in Borneo 
(although this is
less of a threat in more heavily Muslim Sumatra, where doctrines on eating 
forbid it).
Orangutan poaching for those seeking exotic pets also is a threat, as is lax 
government
enforcement of conservation practices, even in protected areas. 

The species is particularly susceptible to threats because of its own 
biology. 

Orangutans reproduce only about every eight years.

While scientists welcome the orangutan assistance from Washington, some 
regret that
similar funding is not made available for basic research into other species 
about which
less is known. Some also argue that funds would be best directed toward 
simple habitat
conservation, rather than aiding a particular animal.

“For the sexy species, there are funds,” said Leo Salas, a Venezuelan 
biologist who
helped organize TNC’s survey efforts in Indonesia. “There are funds for big 
cats. There
are funds for rhinos. Every sexy species is blessed with money for work. A 
lot of
politicking goes into this.” 

But, Salas added, “Orangutans could be used as a flagship species” to 
encourage other
conservation efforts in the forest.