Mama and baby orangutan saved from palm oil developers

A mother orangutan and its baby were rescued from an area of forest that was being bulldozed for an oil palm plantation in Sumatra, reports the Orangutan Information Centre (OIC), which participated in the translocation of the red apes. The rescue was conducted by the OIC’s Human Orangutan Conflict Response Unit (HOCRU) with the assistance of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (SCOP), the Leuser Ecosystem Management Authority (BPKEL), and the Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA). It was the second orangutan rescue in ten days at the site. The female orangutan and her baby were isolated in a patch of forest within an oil palm plantation owned by PT Sisirau, an Indonesian palm oil company, in Aceh Province. Sisirau was preparing to bulldoze the forest, according to OIC. The orangutans were captured and released into Gunung Leuser National Park roughly four kilometers from the plantation. “At 4.15pm, HOCRU, the rest of the team and members of KETAPEL, a local farmers’ group, released the orangutans in the OIC rainforest restoration site in Besitang," said Panut Hadisiswoyo, Founder and Director of the OIC, in a statement. "Mr Hasan Basri, Chairman of KETAPEL, who also helped with the release, said the orangutans were very healthy and quickly moved to grab tree branches when released. The orangutans must be very happy to be back in natural forests.” Sumatran orangutans are critically endangered due to habitat destruction and poaching for the pet trade. Plantation development for palm oil and pulp and paper production are among the biggest threats to the species, which numbers around 6,600 in the wild. Borneo is also home to orangutans. The population of the four subspecies on the island is estimated at around 50,000. Bornean orangutans are also threatened by oil palm plantations, but subsistence hunting is a significant cause of mortality, especially in Kalimantan or Indonesian Borneo.