Today's News, Tomorrow's Lesson - World Orangutan Day

Darren Evans

Over the last two decades the world’s orangutan population has
declined by more than 50 per cent.

Despite being one of the most intelligent primate species on Earth,
the orangutan is now endangered, mainly due to poaching, the illegal
pet trade and loss of habitat.

In Indonesia and Malaysia vast areas of the orangutan’s native
rainforests are being removed to develop palm oil plantations. An area
the size of 300 football fields is cleared every hour to make way for
oil palms. The oil derived from the crop is used in almost 50
per cent of consumer goods.

What happens to orangutans affected by this process is harrowing,
according to Dr Karmele Llano Sanchez, executive director of
International Animal Rescue Indonesia.

“When the forest is destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations,
it’s easier for hunters to find and shoot orangutans,” she said. “These
hunters kill the mother and other members of the family and take the
babies to sell them into the pet trade.”

Today, on World Orangutan Day, campaigners are calling on companies
to only buy palm oil from sustainable sources. Wildlife charity WWF
says consumers are only buying half of the sustainably produced palm
oil being manufactured.

Coffee giant Starbucks has become the particular focus of attention
amid claims it continues to buy palm oil from unsustainable sources for
use in its baked goods, despite taking an ethical stance on other
issues. Campaigners have urged a boycott of Starbucks and are sending
letters of protest to its headquarters in Seattle, Washington.

Starbucks says all its products in the US and Europe use palm oil
from sustainable sources and it has committed to extending this to all
its stores worldwide by 2015. In recent years, other companies, including Nestlé, Mars, McDonald’s and Walmart, have made
similar commitments.

With fewer than 60,000 orangutans estimated to be left in the wild,
action to back up the promises can’t come soon enough.