Abstract
Protection of a species implies that a legal framework exists which prohibits people from disturbing, catching, and killing that species or from keeping and trading it (or parts of its body) . Protection can be effective only if the public is aware of and acknowledges the legal framework, and if law enforcement is in place and active.
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The apes fetched prices between some 7000 Dutch guilders and 25,000 German Marks in Europe (i.e. between US$ 5,000–10,000 at the time).
She specifically recommended improved protection for the ‘Loeser Reserve’ in Sumatra, and the establishment of a large orang-utan sanctuary in the `Ininhabited and inaccessible area of the Ulu Segama’in eastern Sabah, for which the Harrissons had issued a formal proposal in 1963 (Harrisson, pers. comm. and 1965).
Westermann, in his capacity of chairman of all major conservation organisations and secretarrof the Organisation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO) in the Netherlands, was instrumental in arranging strong governmental support for FAO to establish a special conservation advisory project in Indonesia, headed by John Blower, a former game warden in Africa.
The extent of this supposedly protected area network is unclear, ranging from 62,018 (p. 214) to 70,572 km2 (p. 215) (MacKinnon, 1992).
The latest official map of the DG-PHPA Planning Section (July 1996) has omitted the Kendawangan and Danau Sentarum conservation areas. A proposal to establish the Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary in the logged-over flood plain of the river Kinabatangan, and the Malinau Wildlife Reserve in the Southern Forest reserve in Sabah, is in progress (Payne, pers. comm.).
The ‘National Parks’ in Indonesia are in fact designated as such (calon Taman Nasional) as long as detailed regulations, boundary delineation and zoning have not been formally established; such designated National Parks have a very weak legal basis, and in practice offer fewer opportunities than a timber concession for protection against encroachment (Rijksen and Griffiths, 1995).
The article was written by Sir Hesketh Bell and Dr Charles Mitchell; in September 1929 eight orang-utans arrived at Rotterdam Harbour, the survivors of a shipment of 32 individuals which had been smuggled out of Sumatra.
The first post-war wildlife surveys were cover-ups for US intelligence operations aimed at acquiring information on the political situation in Indonesia’s revolutionary hot spots, namely, Aceh and West Java.
cf. K. MacKinnon (1986), who estimated 415,000 km2 in Borneo.
In 1985 the coffee-table book Indonesia — Paradise on the Equator (Muller and Zach) carried an illustration (p. 176–77) showing an orang-utan skull being used in an enactment of a traditional ‘head hunting’ raid.
During the present survey it was learned that until 1994, when regulations were gradually becorning better enforced, some ships departing from Sarnpit (Central Kalimantan) during the night reportedly carried as mnany as eighty orang-utan juveniles with false permits (acquired at a price of some $ 25/ape) to Singapore, Taiwan and Japan; in Banjarmasin orang-utan juveniles were auctioned among ship crews of foreign cargo vessels.
The IWF is an endowment Fund for nature conservation under the aegis of the Ministry of Forestry; its board consists of (former) top functionaries of the Ministry. Since communication beyond the private sphere at the Ministry is poorly developed, there is no way of knowing how or whether this money has been effectively allocated.
Support for the present survey was outside the framework of the WWF Indonesia Pogramme. A partner team of the DG PHPA and IBN was formed comprising Mr. A. Muin and Mr. E. Meijaard. When the DG was succeeded in 1994, Mr. Muin was transferred to another assignment, and the active interest of the agency waned. Mr. Meijaard was subsequently accepted within the framework of the International MoF-Tropenbos Programme, under the guidance of the Agency for Forestry Research and Development (AFRD), and found a new (PHPA) partner in Mr. Bachtiar.
In addition to newspaper and magazine articles, some TV and radio producers immediately recognised the enormity of the problem and did their best to inform a larger public of the ape’s predicament; foremost among these were Gerard Baars Productions (Tros TV — Holland), Sarah Cunliffe TV Productions (BBC/NBC), Mike Searle (Storyteller Productions, Discovery Channel, Australia); and Marijke van der Meer (Wereldomroep the Netherlands).
The title may suggest that the article was a reaction to the expanding emergency concerning massive poaching of the apes and habitat destruction, but no mention is made of this, apart from the comment: ‘Last year it was even discovered_that farmers were being paid bounties for killing orangutans as agricultural pests in E. Kalimantan from a project set up under a World Bank loan’ (MacKinnon, 1992; p. 213).
The establishment in 1994 of the Golden Ark Foundation was an attempt to raise funds for the active protection of endangered species like the orangutan.
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© 1999 Stichting Tropenbos/H.D. Rijksen / H.D. Rijksen and E. Meijaard
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Rijksen, H.D., Meijaard, E. (1999). History of Orang-Utan Conservation. In: Our vanishing relative. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-9020-9_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-9020-9_6
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