Sunday Times (Sri Lanka)

'She has lost everything'

- By Chris Parsons

Lying on her back helpless and dying, Green the female orangutan is a picture of sadness as she faces her final hours.

The tragic female ape has been confined to a mattress inside a shack after her rainforest home was logged and burned to the ground through ruthless deforestat­ion.

She clutches at her pillow and sits lifelessly on her mattress, defenceles­s as the lush Indonesian ecosystem she called home is destroyed, leaving her homeless.

Later on in the heart-breaking film, rescue centre workers carry a body bag away from the room where Green saw out her last few days, highlighti­ng her as the latest victim of deforestat­ion and palm oil plantation­s.

Her plight was filmed as part of a poignant 48-minute feature film by Patrick Rouxel, who obtained footage in Indonesian national parks to show the extent to which he believes deforestat­ion is 'raping our planet'.

Mr Rouxel's incredibly moving film aims to show how the timber, pulp and paper and palm oil industries, along with general consumeris­m, are combining to ravage natural resources worldwide.

The footage of Green's final days and hours is interspers­ed with shots of trees being hacked down in Sumatra, Indonesia, along with shots of the wood products which result from the widespread deforestat­ion.

In one particular­ly distressin­g segment, Green lies on the muddy floor helpless, the tall trees which were normally her natural habitat having been hacked down.

The film then shows her being packed into a large rucksack and driven away on a pickup truck.

Mr Rouxel said Green was taken to orangutan refuge in Kalimantan, Indonesia, after being rescued from a palm oil plantation several days previously.

The filmmaker told Al Jazeera Green had suffered an intracereb­ral haemorrhag­e, leaving her paralysed on the left side of her body.

He the filmed Green at her bedside for three days, culminatin­g in a heart-wrenching final shot where the mattress on which she slept is seen empty.

Mr Rouxel, who has previously worked as a cameraman for Greenpeace and the WWF in Indonesia and Africa, received critical acclaim for his moving film.

The film, which has no human commentary at all, received over 35 internatio­nal awards at various wildlife film festivals.

Mr Rouxel himself, who is half Swedish and half French, told Al Jazeera Green was taken to a hospital after being rescued, but 'died of sorrow' because she had 'lost everything'.

Mr Rouxel said: 'Being a captive animal in Indonesia is pure hell because the notion of animal wellbeing does not exist there.

'And every day, through the things we buy, we encourage this destructio­n and suffering.'

Earlier this month it was reported how environmen­tal activists have taken to rescuing orangutans left injured or trapped by workers felling trees for palm oil plantation­s.

Hundreds of primates like Green are regularly trapped and face death through slaughter or injury in large parts of Sumatra, Indonesia.

But dedicated team members of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservati­on Programme (SOCP) aim to save as many of the primates as possible.

Without their work the helpless primates are left in often deadly conflict with ruthless loggers in Indonesia's degraded forests.

Indonesia is said to have one of the world's worst deforestat­ion rates, averaging at around 2 million hectares a year.

The process expanded in the 1970s following greater demand from the timber and palm oil industries.

Experts believe that although forest cover in Indonesia in the 1950s was around 160 million hectares, today less than 48 million remain.

Mr Rouxel's film can be viewed at www.greenthefi­lm.com/?cat=7

 ??  ?? Ravaged: Experts believe around 2 million hectares of forest cover are burned down or logged in Indonesia each year
Ravaged: Experts believe around 2 million hectares of forest cover are burned down or logged in Indonesia each year

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