W KALIMANTAN'S ORANGUTAN POPULATION DOWN 50 PERCENT

Pontianak, West Kalimantan, June 9 (ANTARA) - The population of orangutans in West Kalimantan Province's forests has fallen by 50 percent over the past 10 years due to deforestation in low-land areas.

Forests in West Kalimantan were estimated to have 6,675 orangutans of Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus and Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii species, Ade Yuliani, a spokesman of the Titian Foundation, said here on Tuesday.

Illegal logging activities, forest fires and forest conversion into large-scale plantations, were among main factors which have threatened the survival of orangutans in the wild," she said.

Orangutan poaching for consumption and illegal trading also threatened the orangutan population, she said.

North Kayong is one of the areas in West Kalimantan which have been very active in opening new plantation areas.

Some 47 oil palm companies have operated and will be opened in North Kayong, Yuliani quoting data from Ketapang District administration, West Kalimantan.

Parts of the forest areas converted into oil palm plantations were orangutan habitats, he said.

Meanwhile, WWF-Indonesia for Putussibau area recently said the population of orangutan at Lake Sentarum National Park, Kapuas Hulu District, had decreased by 62 percent from 1,300 heads 10 years ago.

WWF said the national park was ideal for the habitat of orangutans because the 130,000-hectare forest area has high density.

Meanwhile, 800-hectare Betung Kerihun National Park has around 1,030 orangutans, and only half of the national park is ideal for orangutan habitat.

According to the 2004 data based on the Orangutan Population and Habitat Viability Assessment, the population of Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus was 7,936 heads, (14,10 percent of the total population of orangutan species), Pongo pygmaeus morio 15,406 heads (27,40 percent), and Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii 32,906 heads (58,50 percent).

A research expedition in the Kerihun Betung National Park, Sibau and Embaloh, showed that most of the orangutans lived outside the national park, namely in the protected forests and industrial forests.***3***