One More Orangutan Undergoes Rehabilitation

Jakarta, Dec 2 (Antara) - Moci, a less than two- year male orangutan has been handed to the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF) and the Central Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) for rehabilitation. The poor orangutan was handed to the BOSF and BKSDA on November 30, 2016 by Delly, a resident of Parempei village in Central Kalimantan, who had kept Moci for a year but was then unable to take care of one of human's closest cousins. BOSF Public Relations official Fridman remarked in Palangka Raya that Delly found the orangutan, separated from its mother, in an oil palm plantation one year ago. Delly took the orangutan home and kept it in a two-by-two meter wooden cage, fed it daily with fruit, rice and sweetened condensed milk. But over time, Delly said he was no longer able to feed Moci, and finally decided to hand over the dehydrated animal to the BOSF and BKSDA for rehabilitation. Fridman noted that Mocy was the 29th orangutan, handed over to the Nyaru Menteng Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation. According to him, Moci joins a long list of orangutan orphans who must pass through a long rehabilitation process before being released into their habitat. Until now, the BOSF and BKSDA are in the process of rehabilitating 469 orangutans, but for the one like Moci, the rehabilitation process could take 7 to 8 years before the animal is released into the wild. Orangutans help spread seeds and open the forest canopy but never before has their existence been threatened so severely. Many experts believe orangutans could vanish in the wild sooner or later as natural disaster and human abuse of the forest are pushing one of human's closest cousins to extinction. As shocking as the rapid loss of rainforests has been over these past few decades, nothing compares to the amount of land being bulldozed by palm oil plantations that destroy thousands of hectares in pursuit of massive profits, and also take with it the lives of many orangutans. If nothing is done to address palm oil plantation, deforestation, poaching and hunting as the main threats to orangutans, they will sooner or later be gone from this earth. Over the span of 25 years since 1991, the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation has managed to save more than 2,000 orangutans, even though the population continues to decline. BOSF CEO Jamartin Sihite has said the responsibility to conserve orangutans and their habitat was on the shoulders of all stakeholders, in this case, the government, communities, businesses to community organizations. Sihite reiterated that since its establishment in 1991, the BOSF has rescued more than 2,000 orangutans, and currently some 700 of them are being treated in two rehabilitation centers, namely Nyaru Menteng in Central Kalimantan and Samboja Lestari in East Kalimantan. According to him, the large number of orangutans that are still in the rehabilitation centers show that there are still many things that need to be addressed in the conservation of orangutans and their habitat, as a responsibility that has been shouldered by the BOSF. The BOS Foundation has tied up for cooperation with various parties At its 25th anniversary this year, the foundation would like to briefly reflect on its successes and failures over the years, to help create a plan for the future of orangutans. "Whatever result the BOSF has achieved today, is a long journey and it would not have been possible without cooperation with all parties that have been involved in various efforts to conserve orangutans and their habitat," Sihite remarked. However, he said that this year the BOSF received some bad news, as the Bornean Orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) conservation status was classified as "critically endangered" due to a further loss of habitat. It is predicted that the wild orangutans' population is going to sharply decrease in the coming years. "This forces us to immediately find suitable forest areas for releasing orangutans from our rehabilitation centers, but this is our collective responsibility," he noted. Sihite explained that the BOS Foundation desperately needs support and commitment from both central and regional governments, not only to provide suitable areas, but also to strengthen law enforcement in case of crimes related to habitat destruction. The Central Kalimantan Conservation of Natural Resources (BKSDA) has been working actively with the BOSF, but the foundation simply needs more active hands to ensure conservation of orangutans and their habitats. The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation is an Indonesian non-profit NGO founded by Dr Willie Smits in 1991 and dedicated to the conservation of the endangered Bornean orangutans and its habitat through the involvement of local people. It is audited by a multinational auditor company and operates under the formal agreement with the Indonesian Ministry of Forest to conserve and rehabilitate orangutans. BOSF manages orangutans' rescue, rehabilitation and re-introduction programs in East and Central Kalimantan. With 804 orangutans per November 2012 in its care and employing between six hundred and a thousand people at a hundred sites, the BOS is the biggest primate conservation NGO worldwide. The Bornean orangutan is now critically endangered, with population in sharp decline due to habitat destruction and illegal hunting, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) declared recently.