Orang utans Sabah dlm NGEO!!

amazed

Saturday February 7, 2009
Sabah抯 orang utans to feature in National Geographic
By RUBEN SARIO

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah's orang utan conservation efforts will be featured in a National Geographic channel documentary that is scheduled for screening to potential international audience of 260 million households in November.

The documentary is being produced by Kuala Lumpur-based Novista Sdn Bhd that was engaged by the National Development Film Corporaration (Finas) for the project.

Novista director Lina Teoh said filming of the documentary would begin in the middle of the year at various locations around the state.

"We feel there has been a lot of positive work done in Sabah to conserve the orang utan and this is among the things the documentary will focus on," said Teoh after briefing State Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjum about the documentary on Saturday.

Teoh said about 10 people would be involved in the filming work following their research into Sabah's orang utan for nearly a year.

She said Novista's plan was to invite an internationally renowned Malaysian artiste to narrate the documentary.

"We are in the midst of identifying and discussing with some artistes to see could be involved in this project," said Teoh whose company had produced a documentary on the Kuala Lumpur Smart Tunnel for the Mega Structure segment on the National Geographic channel.

Masidi said the state government, through his ministry, would be supporting the filming of the documentary, which he said would create more international awareness about Sabah.

"This project is good from the perspective of our conservation efforts and tourism sector as well," he said in adding that his ministry would support the filming in terms of logistics as well as ensuring Novista obtained the necessary permits and clearances as quickly as possible.

Sabah's orang utan conservation effort is focused at Sepilok in the east coast Sandakan district where orphaned and displaced primates are sheltered and rehabilitated to prepare them for life in the wild.

Wildlife experts estimate that the orang utan population in Sabah is about 11,000 and consider it a vulnerable species.




jom tgk ramai2  MOSTI best nih!!!  aku worang2 utang punyer citer mmg minat sgt.... ingat nak tanya si beskot tu... dia nak tengok gak tak  long lost relatives dia nih.......... jgn mare ekkkk  

BeskotCekelat

aku mane main tgk citer org utan nih..
Kt jlnraya m'sia nih melambak :@
Siap bley tgk live lg. huhu..
kalo citer tentang kehidupan Qoda Belang afrika nk gak aku tgk...

liyamariska

teringat cite org utan betina menggoda sorg pengkaji haiwan nih...

amazed

Originally posted by BeskotCekelat at 7-2-2009 03:20 PM
aku mane main tgk citer org utan nih..
Kt jlnraya m'sia nih melambak :@
Siap bley tgk live lg. huhu..
kalo citer tentang kehidupan Qoda Belang afrika nk gak aku tgk...

hah!! ko lebey suka qoda belang2 ghopanyer.....  tingat aku  kisah ko naik qoda belang jumpa ulaq jin  ekkkkk  



aku lak qoda belang2 nih.. aku suka buat sop ajer...... taste laik   ciken!!!  

amazed

Orang utan under threat

2009/09/20



In Central Kalimantan, the hunters and poachers have the blood of orang utan on their hands. The forests that are home to these animals are also being cleared at an alarming rate in the name of development. A rehabilitation centre offers some measure of hope, writes AMY CHEW.

NODDY, an orphaned baby orang utan, climbs up a tree and stares into the distance at the Nyaru Menteng Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre, his future as uncertain as the existence of the forests which used to be his home.

His mother was killed in the wilds, under what circumstances, his carers do not really know.

But what is sure is that she met with a cruel and violent end -- hacked to pieces, burnt or shot to death -- like so many others before her.

Orang utan have emotions just like humans. They can cry, worry and experience sorrow and joy.

In a forest in Sampit, an animal poacher fires a shot at a female orang utan with a baby in her arms. As the orang utan falls, she clings tightly to her baby.

When the hunter comes over to the dying creature, he is stunned -- he sees tears flowing from its eyes.

"The mother held on to her baby until she breathed her last," recounts Eko Haryuwono, founder of the Nyaru Menteng orang utan rescue unit.

"The hunter was moved by the orang utan's tears and has since stopped killing them."

The hunter now helps the rescue team by informing the unit of orang utan in danger of being killed or poached.

The orang utan, or people of the forest, is our closest relative. Orang utan and humans share 98 per cent of the same DNA.

"They have emotions just like humans. They can cry, worry and experience sorrow and joy just like us," says Eko.

While only two per cent of DNA separates us from the orang utan, we have often shown ourselves to be more beast than human.

We grab a disproportionate share of the land and leave little or nothing for the animals.


Forest land is relentlessly being cleared to make way for oil palm plantations as demand for bio-fuel rises, driving the orang utan out of their homes and to certain death.

[table][/table]Workers at huge oil palm plantations regard the orang utan as pests and often kill them in the most cruel and inhumane way.

"They (workers) pour petrol over them, then throw a lighted match to set them on fire. This happened in a huge plantation company in 2003," says Eko.

"We have also found body parts of orang utan in oil palm plantation. The animal was chopped to pieces."

Eko and his team also find orang utan beaten to death with iron bars and wooden planks.

"Some were beaten unconscious and buried alive. We humans should be ashamed of ourselves," Eko says quietly.

Nyaru Menteng, which sits on 6.5ha of land, was originally set up to house 100 orang utan but the number has now grown to 648.

It is funded by the Borneo Orang Utan Survival Foundation (BOS) of Indonesia and BOS International.

Rehabilitation in the centre means teaching the baby orang utan how to climb trees and look for food -- skills to help them fend for themselves in the wild.

The majority of the orang utan brought to the centre are orphans who have lost their mother, who would otherwise have been the one teaching them survival skills.

The centre faces great difficulties in finding forest land to release the mammal back into the wild after rehabilitating them as forest land shrinks.

Indonesia has 120 million ha of forest and peat land out of which 28.3 million ha have been cleared or degraded, according to the Forestry Ministry.

Illegal logging and timber companies also drive the rapid deforestation of Indonesia's pristine forests and peat lands which are important "green lungs" to the world.

Indonesian environmentalists have often called on the government to give out permits of degraded land to large plantation companies. But the call is seldom heeded as forest trees are worth millions of dollars in the timber trade.

"Many palm oil companies clear forests and orang utan habitat to generate income from the valuable timber as it would be five years before new plantings of oil palm produce any products," says Michelle Desilets, director of the British-based Orang Utan Land Trust.

According to Desilets, palm oil companies are even allowed to develop within designated national parks like the Tanjung Puting National Park which is home to 6,000 orang utan.

Tanjung Puting is located in Central Kalimantan .

"When plantations clear habitat, the orang utan are driven into ever smaller patches of forest with dwindling food supply," says Desilets.

"Starving and desperate for whatever nutrition they can find, the orang utan venture into the newly-planted areas and eat the young shoots of the plant. As a result, they become regarded as an agricultural pest."

Indonesia and Malaysia combined produce nearly 90 per cent of the global palm oil supply. Many of the multi-million dollar plantation companies operating in Central Kalimantan have Malaysians and Singaporeans as their joint venture partners.

Desilets appeals to the Malaysian and Indonesian government to put a moratorium on the conversion of primary forests, high conservation value forests and peat land into industrial logging and oil palm plantations.

"We would (also) like to see both governments take a united stand to combat illegal logging and trade in endangered species, put more resources into protecting forests through ranger patrols, fire-fighting efforts and satellite surveillance," he says.

With an estimated 5,000 orang utan perishing every year, there is little time left to save the remaining 45,000 in the wild.

Experts believe it is only a matter of time before the animals become extinct.

"It will be difficult to protect them all without the commitment of the governments of Indonesia and Malaysia ," she says.

"It is distressing to think that even if we can save 10,000 of them, about 35,000 wild orang utan will needlessly suffer and die. "We need all the help we can get to minimise these numbers."

Saving the orang utan will be a demonstration of our humanity, that we are indeed worthy to be called humans, and not beasts.

amazed

Pulihara populasi orang utan

Oleh SITTI NOR AZIZAH TALATA

Dr. Marc Ancrenaz semasa memberi ceramah pada Kolokium Orang Utan 2009 di Shangri-La Rasa Ria Resort, Sabah pada Oktober tahun lalu.

KOTA KINABALU 10 Mac - Kajian genetik terhadap orang utan di negeri ini menunjukkan populasi hidupan liar itu merosot antara 50 hingga 90 peratus sejak kebelakangan ini.

Kajian oleh pertubuhan antarabangsa yang dikenali sebagai Hutan dan Jabatan Hidupan Liar Sabah (JHLS) pada 2004 mendapati kira-kira 62 peratus daripada 11,000 orang utan di Sabah berada di luar kawasan perlindungan seperti di hutan komersial.

Bagaimanapun, jumlah itu dikatakan merosot hampir setiap tahun.
Faktor penyumbang kepada kemerosotan populasi orang utan dikatakan berpunca daripada aktiviti memburu dan perniagaan binatang peliharaan.

Selain itu, masalah tersebut turut dikaitkan dengan penerokaan hutan untuk pembukaan ladang kelapa sawit yang semakin berkembang pesat sehingga dikatakan menjejaskan kebanyakan habitat haiwan tersebut.

Panel Penasihat Jabatan Hidupan Liar Sabah (JHLS), Dr. Marc Ancrenaz berkata, sejak kebelakangan ini, banyak diperkatakan kaitan antara perkembangan industri kelapa sawit dengan kemerosotan spesies tersebut.

''Adalah tidak benar jika sesetengah pihak berpendapat industri kelapa sawit tidak bertanggungjawab secara langsung dalam menyumbang kepada kemerosotan populasi orang utan.
''Kajian genetik di Sabah menunjukkan populasi orang utan merosot di antara 50 hingga 90 peratus dalam beberapa dekad ini.

''Sebelum ini, aktiviti memburu dan perniagaan binatang peliharaan (pet trade) adalah antara sebab bilangan spesies ini turun secara mendadak.

''Bagaimanapun, bilangan orang utan yang berkurangan dan semakin menurun berkait rapat dengan 'kehilangan hutan' apabila ia dimajukan untuk tujuan perladangan," katanya kepada Utusan Malaysia.

Dr. Ancrenaz yang mempunyai 20 tahun pengalaman dalam bidang biologi hidupan liar berkata, Borneo dan Sumatera merupakan dua wilayah habitat orang utan yang masih memiliki populasi haiwan tersebut yang tinggi.

Namun, katanya, populasi haiwan di dua kawasan itu dikhuatiri berkurangan ekoran aktiviti pengubahsuaian dan guna tanah bagi pembangunan kelapa sawit dan penanaman pokok bagi tujuan industri berkenaan.
Keadaan ini, jelasnya tidak dinafikan menyebabkan kehilangan kepelbagaian biologi dan kemusnahan spesies seperti orang utan.

''Saya berpendapat, perkara ini berlaku kerana terdapat dua kumpulan iaitu kumpulan pelindung orang utan dan kumpulan kelapa sawit.

''Kedua-dua kumpulan ini mempunyai pendirian tegas tentang apa yang mereka percaya dan keadaan ini menyukarkan mereka untuk mengambil pandangan yang tidak memihak pada mana-mana kumpulan.

''Pihak industri yang ditentang pejuang alam sekitar mengambil pendekatan defensif dengan menafikan industri kelapa sawit adalah punca kepada masalah yang wujud kini. Keadaan ini dikenali sebagai 'greenwashing'.

''Pertubuhan bukan kerajaan (NGO) pula mengambil pendekatan yang bertentangan atau 'blackwashing' dan menyalahkan industri untuk semua masalah," ujarnya.

Atas kesedaran ini, Dr. Ancrenaz berkata, JHLS dan sebuah NGO antarabangsa iaitu Hutan, telah mengorak langkah menjalin kerjasama dengan Majlis Minyak Sawit Malaysia (MPOC) untuk melaksanakan kajian bagi mengenal pasti status orang utan dalam landskap ladang kelapa sawit di Sabah pada tahun 2004.

Katanya, perolehan data hasil tinjauan itu digunakan oleh MPOC dalam strategi guna tanah mereka.
Dr Ancrenaz menjelaskan, pada masa kini, ladang kelapa sawit di Sabah berkeluasan 14,000 kilometer persegi atau bersamaan dengan keluasan 20 kali ganda negara Singapura.

Ini menjadikan Sabah sebagai pengeluar utama minyak sawit di Malaysia. Pokok sawit ditanam di kawasan tanah rendah, iaitu di kawasan yang ketinggiannya kurang dari 500 meter.

Malangnya, kata beliau, hutan tanah rendah dahulunya menjadi tempat tinggal kebanyakan orang utan dan pelbagai jenis hidupan liar telah bertukar kegunaan untuk tujuan perladangan.

Pembangunan ladang kelapa sawit di tanah rendah ini memusnahkan habitat kepelbagaian biologi yang unik di Borneo.
Ketika ini, Dr. Ancrenaz berkata, ratusan orang utan di Sabah mendiami habitat semula jadi mereka di kawasan lembangan Sungai Kinabatangan, Sandakan.

Beliau menambah, habitat semula jadi amat penting bagi menggalakkan hidupan liar ini berpindah randah untuk mengawal bilangan orang utan yang hidup dalam satu-satu kawasan hutan.

Katanya, pembiakan orang utan yang banyak dan tertumpu di satu-satu kawasan hutan akan menyebabkan berlaku konflik di kalangan hidupan liar itu terutama dari segi keperluan makanan.