Why We Need to Help Save the Orangutan
- If current logging trends continue, most of Indonesia's National Parks are likely to be severely damaged within the next decade.
- They are amongst the last areas to hold valuable timber in commercially viable amounts.
- The situation is now acute for both the Bornean Orangutan and Sumatran Orangutan.
- These species are classed as Endangered and Critically Endangered respectively by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), and are listed on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
- The rapid rate of removal of food trees, killing of orangutans displaced by logging and plantation development, and fragmentation of remaining intact forest constitutes a conservation emergency.
- More than one thousand orangutans are living in rescue centres in Borneo alone, with uncertain chances of ever returning to the wild.
- Recent estimates suggest that there are 40,000 to 50,000 Bornean Orangutans and only 6,600 Sumatran Orangutans remaining in the wild.
- The Bornean Orangutan is classified as Endangered by IUCN (the World Conservation Union), indicating that it has a very high risk of extinction in the wild in the near future.
- The Sumatran Orangutan is classified as Critically Endangered by IUCN, indicating that it has an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild in the near future.
- Since 1900, the number of Sumatran orangutans is thought to have fallen by over 90%, with a rapidly accelerating loss towards the end of the twentieth century. (McConkey 2005).
