News - The Problems Orangutans face

28 October 2008
Nine-year-old Yuni held on tight to her mother's hand as a large orangutan approached an enclosure window of the Smutzer Primate Center in Ragunan Zoo, South Jakarta.

28 October 2008
A middle-aged man sat on a chair in his pet shop at an animal market in East Jakarta, waiting for his customers. He sells many kinds of birds, snakes, turtles, cats, dogs and monkeys.

20 October 2008
Palm oil plantations are encroaching on rain forest reserves on the Indonesia island of Borneo, where the endangered primates live.

20 October 2008
The Tripa area of peat swamp forest is being logged to make way for new palm oil plantations and the effects will have dire consequences for the people and wildlife that live there.

11th October 2008
The ten governors of Sumatra — along with four federal ministers — have signed an agreement to protect forests and other ecosystems on the Indonesian island, according to WWF.

8 October 2008
In the Guinness Book of Records (GWR) 2009 Edition released this month, Indonesia is once again referred to as the country with the world's highest rate of deforestation.

7 October 2008
Malaysian palm oil exported for use in food, biofuels and cosmetics is far from 'green' - contrary to claims by Malaysian palm oil producers - shows the new report "Malaysian Palm Oil: Green Gold or Green Wash?" released today (October 7) by Friends of the Earth groups.

19 September 2008
"We should choose between human interests or those of the monkeys," said Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono

16 September 2008
Lead author, Emily Fitzherbert from the Zoological Society of London and University of East Anglia said: "There has been much debate over the role of palm oil production in tropical deforestation and its impacts on biodiversity. We wanted to put the discussion on a firm scientific footing."

9 September 2008
Pressures are mounting to save endangered orangutans in Central Kalimantan, where most of the world's only great ape lives under increasingly bleak conditions due to declining forests -- their habitat.

9 September 2008
Blamed for pushing orangutans out of their habitat, palm oil companies are being urged to help conserve the endangered species in Kalimantan.

31 August 2008
Indonesia is facing challenges meeting growing demand in the international market for certified palm oil products, as none of the country's producers have obtained sustainable palm oil certification.

28 August 2008
Developed country governments should re-direct biofuel subsidies toward preventing deforestation for a far better climate outcome, a UK think-tank claims. Policy Edge has produced analysis suggesting that doing so would produce far greater savings in greenhouse gas emissions for every dollar spent on climate change mitigation.

27 August 2008
Disheartening news from Indonesia as palm oil companies oppose any moratorium on forest and peat land conversions.

21 August 2008
Australia released an initial US$2 million Tuesday out of a US$13.7 million fund for Asia-Pacific nations to help protect forests and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the government announced Tuesday. The first two beneficiaries will be Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.

20 August 2008
Conservationists are claiming an early victory in the preservation of Indonesian native forests, not by taking action in the lush forests of Papua and Kalimantan, but by protesting on the streets of Western cities.

14 August 2008
The Eco Products Fund, LP, a private equity fund jointly managed by New Forests Inc. of Washington, D.C. and Equator Environmental, LLC of New York City, and the Government of Sabah in Malaysia today launched the Malua Wildlife Habitat Conservation Bank (Malua BioBank, www.maluabiobank.com), a first-of-its-kind business model for rainforest conservation.

7 August 2008
Another victim of the expansion of oil palm plantations into rainforest habitat....Indonesian villagers threatened Tuesday to poison rare wild elephants that are destroying their palmoil plantations in search of food.

5 August 2008
Almost half the world's monkeys and apes are facing a worsening threat of extinction because of deforestation and hunting for meat, an international report showed.

2 August 2008
An initiative to help to stop orang-utans being driven into extinction has put the price of saving the apes at £568.48 a head.

17 July 2008
Tiger skins and rare caged primates openly sold at markets in the heart of Indonesia's capital are the most brazen and visible aspect of a thriving illegal wildlife trade.

11 July 2008
The government will impose a new regulation in October demanding manufacturing companies use at least 2.5 percent biofuel in their fuel consumption to reduce their dependency on fossil fuel.

9 July 2008
Rising demand for palm oil will decimate biodiversity unless producers and politicians can work together to preserve as much remaining natural forest as possible, ecologists have warned.

26 June 2008
Following on from Unilever's call for a moratorium on rainforest destruction in Indonesia, there is more promising news - this time from Malaysia

22 June 2008
A new agreement between Australia and Indonesia aims to preserve Indonesia's forests through measuring stored carbon.

 

Our concern with palm oil tends to focus on the impact on orangutans, in particular on the destruction of their habitat as the industry expands ever further into the rainforest. However the impacts go beyond this.

15 June 2008
A WILDLIFE campaigners' bid to force food manufacturers to list palm oil on product labels has been rejected by federal authorities.

17 June 2008
Indonesia is expected to be the first nation to carry out forest carbon projects to help combat climate change thanks to a newly launched forest carbon partnership with Australia.

4 June 2008
Palm oil is everywhere. This globally traded vegetable oil is found in thousands of products you buy off the shelf, including ice cream, chocolate, biscuits, crisps, lipsticks, toothpaste, soap, detergents, cosmetics.

UK: Supermarket comes to aid of rainforest with palm oil ban Date Published: November 21, 2007 Source: Guardian Unlimited Sainsburys has announced a ban on an ingredient used in tens of thousands of its products that is blamed for the destruction of...