Sad, but true, we’re on the way to losing the world’s orangutan population. We continue to shout from the hilltops that the health of the environment is linked to the health of each individual on earth. That means you, your family and your friends, not to mention those across the globe. So when Big Agriculture destroys the earth for non-green food production, it also destroys habitats which rocks the balance of life on the planet. The orangutan problem stems from the greedy bastards who are farming palm oil

Tanjung Puting National Park on the island of Borneo is made up of vast tracts of wetlands, forest and ancient peat swamps. Its 1,600 square miles are home to endangered species including proboscis monkeys, gibbons, clouded leopards, more than 220 species of birds, and orangutans.1 Orangutans, which live only on Borneo and Sumatra, are seriously endangered. Not only is their natural habitat being destroyed, they are captured and attacked by palm oil workers who do not want the animals to harm them or their crops. Tanjung Puting offers a rehabilitation home for 2,000 once-captive orangutans, but even these apes are threatened by the encroachment of palm oil plantations. The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation predicts that if palm oil plantations continue to expand at their current rate, the orangutan will be extinct by 2012.

Gunung Palung National Park, another haven for orangutans, is being encroached upon by Cargill-owned plantations. To the east, Borneo’s largest national park – the Kayan Mentarang National Park—is being threatened by the proposed 850 kilometer Kalimantan Border Oil Palm Mega-Project. If developed, it would be the single largest palm oil plantation in the world, destroying intact tropical rainforests and the ancestral territory of up to a million Dayak people, according to the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples Rights.

If you care enough to get involved with this problem, click here.

Sources:

1. Rainforest Agribusiness, The Last Haven for Orangutans Threatened by ADM’s Palm Oil Expansion, ran.org

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