Orangutan Foundation

Category: Forest Fires, Orangutans | Date: Aug 27 2009 | By: orangutanfoundation

We have just heard from Ashley Leiman, Orangutan Foundation’s Director, who is currently in Central Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo that, as of today (27^th August 2009), the local Department of Forestry has sent out fire fighting teams to localized fire hot spots.

The area where our field programmes are based has received virtually no rain for seven to eight weeks and all the rivers are extremely low. Ashley, who was calling from the Orangutan Foundation office in Pangkalan Bun, said “there is the smell of smoke in the air”. Orangutan Foundation has guard posts equipped with fire fighting equipment and our employees are alert and ready to take action if necessary.

Over two weeks ago we launched an appeal on behalf of our partners, CIMTROP (Centre for International Cooperation in the Management of Tropical Peatland), working in the Sebangau Forests.  Thank you to everyone who responded so quickly and generously, your donations will be directed to CIMTROP, who are working around the clock to tackle the raging fires.

Orangutan Foundation is now widening this fire appeal to include other forest areas at risk.

Tags: Borneo, Forest Fires, Indonesia, Orangutans, Wildlife

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Category: Forest Fires, Orangutans, Uncategorized | Date: Aug 26 2009 | By: orangutanfoundation

The link below has been sent to us by Dr Suwido Limin, Director of CIMTROP (Centre for International Co-operation in Management of Tropical Peatland). It is a short video on YouTube showing footage of the fires in Kalampangan, Sebangau Forest.  It highlights just how dangerous CIMTROP’s work is.

A huge thank you to Care For The Wild International for donating £3,600 through Orangutan Foundation to CIMTROP and to Orangutan Aid for donating £150. Thank you to our members, who have been very generous in donating to CIMTROP through Orangutan Foundation. Thank you David B for your donation through this blog.

If anyone is thinking of donating through Wildlife Direct please leave a comment stating your donation is for the Sebangau Fires.

Tags: Borneo, Forest Fires, Orangutans, Sebangau

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Category: Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve, Lamdandau Vet, Orangutans, Rehabilitation | Date: Aug 21 2009 | By: orangutanfoundation

Huge thanks to Rachel and Kees for donating and personally delivering two digital cameras and err…some fudge (very tasty!). The cameras are now being used in Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve by Dr Fikri, our vet and Mr Tigor, Manager of Orangutan Re-introduction Programme (see photos below of orangutan Lady Di and her infant).

 From left to right: Dr Fiqri (vet), Rees, Pak Uduk (helps to manage the orangutan release camps) and Rachel.  

Bornean female orangutan, Lady Di with bandaged arm.

A mother’s love - Lady Di and her infant

Lady Di with bandage removed from her arm -now fully recovered and roaming free

Thanks,

June

 p/s  lighting actually struck the office the other day, luckily we had our plugs pulled at that time. Terrible rainstorm which means less computer productivity but on the bright side it lessens the risk of forest fires.

Tags: forest habitat, orangutan, photos, reintroduction

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Category: Forest Fires, Orangutans, Uncategorized | Date: Aug 17 2009 | By: orangutanfoundation

Some images sent through from Dr Suwido Limin, Director of CIMTROP, Centre for International Cooperation in the Management of Tropical Peatland. The work that Dr Suwido and his team are undertaking is very dangerous and Suwido has to provide insurance for his team (also expensive and not easy to get). His men are working away from roads and operate 24 hours a day transporting heavy equipment manually or by motor cycle to where it is needed. It is even more dangerous in the dark. As Dr.Suwido Limin reports, this is a hazardous job. “Peat fires are unique as they spread below the surface, on average 20-30cm below ground but sometimes as deep as 60cm, which makes fighting them both dangerous and unpredictable. You can put out fire in one place and then flames suddenly shoot up behind you.”

Orangutan Foundation sent out £3,000 to CIMTROP last week. Thank you to Mara, of Hong Kong based Orangutan Aid, for your offer to donate US$200 and to thank you to Orangutan Foundation ambassador and member, Helen who donated £70 towards tackling the fires through Give As You Earn.  We will keep you updated this situation.

CIMTROP team tackling the fires. Photo by CIMTROP

Fires at Sebangau Forest, Central Kalimantan. Photo by CIMTROP

Motorbikes are needed to carry equipment and access the fires. Photo by CIMTROP

Photo by CIMTROP 

For more information read the press release below.

PRESS RELEASE. RAGING FOREST FIRES THREATEN WILD ORANGUTANS IN BORNEO 

Forest fires are breaking out in the Sabangau peat-swamp forests in Central Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, threatening the lives of the estimated 8,000 wild orangutans living here.  This is exceptionally worrying during times of extreme drought caused by El Niño. This year Borneo is once again firmly in the grip of such a drought. During previous El Niño years several hundred thousand hectares of primary rainforest burnt in this area, destroying the habitat of thousands of orangutans and other endangered plants and wildlife. According to Dr. Suwido Limin, Director of the Indonesian peatland conservation organisation CIMTROP, management of the forest by forestry companies over the last forty years has led to the loss of forest rights for local people. In order to restore the local community’s engagement with the forest, these rights need to be returned.

Dr. Limin has witnessed out of contol fires many times before and is concerned that 2009 will see a repeat. He has spent the last twenty years studying and protecting this unique ecosystem and knows very well the risks involved. “These fires have started as a result of human actions; newcomers to the area have attempted to follow traditional Dayak farming methods for land clearance but they lack the experience to control the fires they start. When peat dries out it burns very easily and at great temperatures. Once these fires take hold, they burn and burn and can be almost impossible to put out until the rains come again. In that time huge areas of forest and irreplaceable peat deposits may be lost”.

Peatland fires are not only a major threat to the natural environment and the many species that live here but also to the health of the local population due to smoke inhalation. Nationally, huge clouds of smoke are blacking out the sun, affecting air and sea traffic and potentially causing millions of dollars of lost revenue. On a global scale, they are one of the largest sources of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute significantly to rising global temperatures and hence climate change.

To try and prevent this happening, CIMTROP run a rapid-response fire-fighting team (locally known as the Tim Serbu Api, or TSA) to tackle fires as soon as they are reported and before they get out of control. The team monitors an area of 100,000 hectares and is made up of local people who have received training and equipment from CIMTROP and are ready to be called upon when fires break out. But, as Dr. Limin reports, this is a hazardous job. “Peat fires are unique as they spread below the surface, on average 20-30cm below ground but sometimes as deep as 60cm, which makes fighting them both dangerous and unpredictable. You can put out fire in one place and then flames suddenly shoot up behind you.”

One fire hotspot is Kalampangan which borders both the NLPSF (the Natural Laboratory for Peat Swamp Forest), an international research site established by CIMTROP, and Sabangau National Park – home to the world’s largest orang-utan population. CIMTROP’s fire-fighting team have been battling fires in Kalampangan non-stop for the past ten days and will continue to monitor the fires until the rains come. Local residents report the fire took hold incredibly quickly, raging through the tinder-dry vegetation, decimating all in its path and burning down into the peat. Here orangutan sleeping nests can be seen in trees shrouded in smoke and rhinoceros hornbills fly through the haze overhead. On the ground, the TSA create fire breaks and pump water from nearby canals and bore-holes onto the fires. Bore-holes often need to be twenty meters or more deep to access sufficient water to tackle the fire, taking up to six hours and teams of three or four trained workers to dig. Extinguishing just one square metre of burning peat takes two to three hundred litres of water.

Alim, a long-term TSA team member, is enthusiastic to talk about their work and what they need. “We use water pumps and special fire-fighting hose to carry water from the water bores and canals to the burning areas. At the moment, we have twenty TSA rapid-response fire suppression team members, all fully trained specialists in fighting peat fires. They work alongside ten more people split between the River Patrol Team (Tim Patroli), which carry out daily patrols along the boundary of the NLPSF using the Sabangau river, and the TSA Ground Patrol Unit who use motorbikes to monitor the forest from the land. All our teams keep in contact with each other using two-way radios. Of course, it would be great if we could have more equipment so we can cover more ground. Ideally, I would like sixty permanent TSA members so we can set up more fire-fighting points working simultaneously in this fire hotspot while also allowing the team to get some rest! We need more water pumps, lots more hose and permanent bore-hole sites so we can channel water to burning areas more easily. Unfortunately, one of our patrol bikes was destroyed in the Kalampangan fire making patrolling much harder.”

Dr. Limin is proud of his team and their dedication in such difficult conditions. In 2006 they battled successfully for five months to save an area of pristine forest, and he expects a similar commitment this time around. But he echoes Alim’s calls for more equipment and personnel. “It is difficult to maintain funding for the TSA over the long-term because major fires occur maybe once every three or four years. We need to have the capacity to guarantee income and operational costs for the TSA and Tim Patroli and have funds permanently available for immediate use when fire hits. Disasters do not wait while mitigation strategies are discussed and put in place; they hit hard and fast, with little warning. We rely on donations, and are very grateful for the financial support we receive, but at the moment we simply don’t have the resources we need to tackle all the fires that are starting.”

Tags: Borneo, carbon emissions, Fires, forests, Orangutans, peat

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 13 2009 | By: orangutanfoundation

Below is a post writen by Felicity Paget. It was meant to be put earlier this week but the Sebangau Fires post went up instead. Tomorrow we should have an update about the situation in Sebangau, Central Kalimantan and we will keep you informed of the urgent situation there. 

Felicity is currently doing her undergraduate thesis in Camp Buluh for the summer and she is sponsored by the Australian Orangutan Project (AOP). Apologies for the poor quality images. Over to Felicity….

“Well, I’ve completed a total of 25 days of dawn to dusk follows on 5 orangutans at camp Buluh in the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve. I am collecting data for an evaluation study of the released males at camp Buluh. I will now go to camp Siswoyo to complete 25 days of follows there and this will serve as my comparison. These 25 data collection days took me well over 30 days in total. I wasn’t entirely sure at first, why AOP and my uni supervisor thought I could do it. Gradually, however, I became acclimatised and somehow learned to have fun. The fun part was largely due to the awesome staff members who were always happy and laughing. I wonder how many people are that happy at work and my guess would be not many.

These rehabilitant orangutans are all male and extremely social as far as orangutans are concerned. I must admit this was quite surprising. They love to wrestle with each other whether with those above or below them in their clearly defined and seemingly linear social hierarchy.

Photo: Male orangutan Warsito likes to sleep

Photo: Male orangutan Wookie is the smartest of the bunch!

 Male orangutan Zidane - now back to full health!

There are two very small wild orangutans, one male and one female, who frequently visit the feeding platform. Betli is the female and as you can imagine is very popular among the Buluh inhabitants. She is still very very small though and although she seems to invite copulations, none have been observed. Doni is a wild male and is very timid but over the month he seemed to grow accustomed to my presence at the feeding platform.

Male orangutan Omang - King of Buluh 

The current King of Buluh is Omang. He is a magnificent creature. I really grew very fond of Omang even though he was the biggest, the naughtiest and potentially the most dangerous to me. All of the staff at Camp Buluh are amazing. I grew extremely fond of them all and will miss them dearly. On sick days Mrs Ussmini would look after me and give me therapeutic massages. During the follows I was closely protected by the extremely competent and knowledgeable young male staff. They were keen to study English with me and helped me tremendously with my ‘Bahasa Indonesia’. I have been extremely lucky to have their help and without them none of this research would have been possible.

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 11 2009 | By: orangutanfoundation

We have just received a very worrying email from colleagues working near Sebangau National Park, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. They report a sad and dangerous situation in Sebangau and Kalampangan, where there are big fires in both areas. There are orangutans in the forest where these fires are now threatening. Please donate whatever you can to help avert this desperate situation.  

The size of the fire was approximately 400 X 500 meters and has been covering the Kalampangan area now for days. Mr Suwido and his team from CIMTROP (Centre for International Cooperation in the Management of Tropical Peatland) have been trying to dig wells but the budget is very limited. Their operations will have to stop in the next few days if they cannot generate a supporting budget. By Suwido’s calculation, to continue the operation of protection against fire in Kalampangan , minimally, he needs a support budget of US $ 6.000. The situation is predicted to worsen over the coming weeks as conditions become drier.Again we ask you to please donate whatever you can to help avert this desperate situation. Please use the general donation button and leave a comment stating it is for Sebangau. From past experience this situation can be controlled, they just need the resources to do it.Further Information About Sebangau Forests

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