Borneo’s orangutans in ‘alarming’ decline
PARIS: The orangutan population on the island of Borneo has shrunk by a quarter in the last decade, researchers said Friday, urging a rethink of strategies to protect the critically-endangered great ape.
The first-ever analysis of longterm orangutan population trends revealed a worrying decline, they said.
An international team of researchers used a combination of helicopter and ground surveys, interviews with local communities, and modelling techniques to draw a picture of change over the past ten years.
Previous counts have largely relied on estimations based on ground and aerial surveys of orangutan nests. Some suggested that Bornean orangutan numbers were in fact increasing.
The new findings, the team said in a statement, are “a wake-up call for the orangutan conservation community and the Indonesian and Malaysian governments who have committed to saving the species.”
Every year, some US$30-40 million is spent in the region to halt wildlife decline.
“The study shows that these funds are not effectively spent,” said the team.
The biggest threat to orangutans, one of only two great ape species found in Asia yesterday, are habitat loss due to farming and climate change, and their killing for food or in conflict with humans. Some 2,500 orangutans are killed in Borneo every year, the researchers said.
The findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports. The study provides no raw population numbers, but an estimate of individuals per 100 square kilometres (39 square miles) of forest – down from about 15 in the period 1997-2002 to about 10 in 2009-2015.
“The species (is) estimated to have declined at an alarming rate of 25 per cent over the past 10 years,” the researchers concluded.