ORANGUTANS 'FACING EXTINCTION'
24.1.2006
From www.sbs.com.au
A new study says deforestation and palm oil plantations in Malaysian Borneo are driving orangutans to the brink of extinction.
Researchers used faeces and hair collected from organutans' communities to put together a DNA database of orangutans living in the Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary in the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo.
"The genetic study shows that there is a high risk of extinction in Sabah in the near future if this decline goes on unabated," warned one of the authors, Marc Ancrenaz of the Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Project.
The study, published in US science journal PLoS [Public Library of Science] Biology, said researchers were able to build a genetic picture of around 200 orangutans.
By comparing the information against computer projections of a stable projection, they found that the Kinabatangan orangutans had a much broader genetic base just over a century ago, indicating that their community was far more numerous back then.
However the base started to narrow as deforestation began in the region in the 1890s, and accelerated in the 1950s and 1970s as the primates in the gene pool lessened.
Orangutans are the only great ape to be found outside of Africa.
There are two species: Pongo abeli, found only in northern Sumatra, Indonesia, and Pongo pygmaeus, found in Borneo, an island shared by Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.
Most of the P pygmaeus orangutans are in Sabah.
An estimated figure for overall numbers for both populations has been put at 27,000, however experts say this is unreliable.
Much of Sabah's natural rainforest has been cleared to make way for palm plantations.
There are only two small pockets of protected rainforest left along the Kinabatangan River, fragmenting the orangutans' habitat.
Many orangutans in the region are now isolated and unable to breed.
"This population will disappear forever if [natural] forests are converted to oil-palm agriculture," Laurentius Ambu, deputy director of the Sabah Wildlife Department, said in a PLoS press release.
"The results of our genetic study underscore the need to act now to protect the long-term survival of the species. The animals still show enough genetic diversity to stabilise, if immediate steps are taken to reconnect remnant forest patches and halt further deforestation."
Last Tuesday, the Malaysian government said it plans to boost palm oil product by up to 25 percent to meet surging demand for the alternative fuel biodiesel.
The country hopes to achieve this by boosting yields by a quarter over the next five years, in addition to increasing acreage in Sabah and the eastern state of Sarawak.
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