Poaching and hunting

Thanks to deforestation, new roads are built to a better access in forests and the poachers can go near animals more easily. They stand in the forest during some weeks and fill their trucks with many corpses of great apes. All animals are removed, without any distinction between species endangered or not. The meat will be sold on markets and in restaurants. Even if Europe banned the business of Great Apes, in some restaurants, you can eat, with a special order, monkey meat.
Gorillas and chimpanzees are killed everyday in the central and Western Congo basin and in the central Africa for bushmeat. It is estimated that in Congo, 5 million of tonnes of meat of the great apes is consumed per year.

Long time ago, people killed monkeys to eat them, it was not an important threat because only the inhabitants of small villages hunted. Today, this situation has changed and the business of great apes brings in a lot of money. Skins, skulls are sold too. Hands end like ashtrays.
Monkeys are sold alive too. They go in zoos, animal's shops and at private individual. Poachers capture baby monkeys, after killing their families, and they are sold like pets.

One hundred and fourteen of the 394 primate species, or 29%, are threatened with global extinction and were placed on the IUCN Red List. If the slaughter continues at its current pace, the Great Apes will be extinct in about thirty years.

Great apes look like humans. They are intelligent and we share with chimpanzees, 98% of our genetic heritage. How can we eat them .. ??

Diane Fossey

Her life and her engagment for saving the mountain gorilla from extinction. Diane Fossey was an American zoologist who first studied in the University of California as a veterinary. One day after seeing photographs from a friend who had been in Africa, she discovered a really fascination about this large country. Thats how she made her first trip in Tanzania in 1963. There, she met M and Ms Leakey who worked at a hominid fossil area. In 1967, she founded the Karisoke Research Center in the Virunga mountains ,Rwanda. There, she achieved to go near gorillas in their natural environment and was accepted by the dominant male. She created close ties with all the community. In january 1970 Bob Campbell, the National Geographic Magazine photographer, involved by Diane Fossey determination, took photos showing her surrounded by gorillas. Thanks to this article Diane became an international celebrity. Her advertisement is clear : saving the mountain gorilla from extinction, as well as convincing the general public that gorillas are not as bad as they are sometimes depicted in movies and books.

Poaching:
Nevertheless during the civil war in the unsafe montains, gorillas suffered poaching to be sent in zoos in return for money. Diane lost about 10 gorillas of the community. In 1985 she was brutally murdered in the bedroom of her cabin, probably by poachers who desapproved her generous commitment. Diane Fossey involvment cost her the life.

Her work is somewhat similar to Jane Goodall's work with chimpanzees. She related her unique experience in the form of memoirs, which were adapted for the cinema, under the title of: "gorillas in the mist".

Palm oil

Palm oil is used as a bio fuel which suggests renewable energy. Don't drop off in hearing those words! They aren't as good as they look like.

Indonesia and Malaysia provide 83 per cent of palm oil, and these countries represent just as well the Orangutan's living place. Accordind to WWF, there are 11 milion hectars of oil palm plantations on earth including 6 milion hectars in Indonesia. The consequence of the palm oil's production is destruction of forests, forest fires and obviously the Orangutan's disappearance. This bio fuel leads to an ecological desaster because the palm oil replaces little by little the forest where fauna and flora is destroyed. The orangutan fleeing fires are found in a appaling state (suffering from burn, dehydration, respiratory disease and they have sometimes some injuries inflected by villagers.)

Palm oil is in everyday use into, for example, household products, cosmetics or food. Take a look in your closet! What is more, palm oil gives apparently heart disease...so if you wouldn't stop palm oil for saving orangutan, stop if for yourself!

sources: http://redapes.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/bospalm_oil_report.pdf -

becareful you can view some shocking pictures, so i suggest you to read only the first page

Deforestation

The destruction of Great Apes natural habitat is the main reason of their disappearance. According to FAO, 13 milions of forest's hectars are decimating on earth per year including 2 milions hectars in Indonesia, and 90 per cent of Orangutan's habitats are already destroyed.
Let's not underestimate the seriousness of the situation!

As consumers, WE are involved in this irresponsible destruction. There is an obvious connection between your daily cosumption and deforestation. The production of paper, the production of palm oil and the conversion of forest into croplands have inevitably some irreversible consequences on fauna and flora in which we are tacking part.
This article is not supposed to lecture you but it aims at raise awareness of this worlwide issue.

I talked earlier about the gravity of Orangutan's situation and sure enough he is the most threatened Great Ape. According to various reports (such as UNESCO's one), in Indonesia 98 per cent of tropical forest is about to disappear by 2012. In the meantime, to be able to satisfy wood market request, the forest industry is illegaly cutting down the forest. Worst of all, woodcutters don't hesitate to get into national park to cut down even more trees. Europe, Asia and North America are the main wood market coming from Indonesia.

Biodiversity and local community are the first victims of this disaster in which multinationals are the only one to take advantage.

What are we supposed to do? Obviously, the states concerned by this issue should be the first to find out the way to end it. Among some corruptions and weakness from the state in which we add the influence of multinationals, the consumer seems to measure up. By giving up to buy non certified wood, you fulfill your duty as a world citizen!

source: http://ecologicalproblems.blogspot.com/2008/11/indonesia-major-deforestation-problem.html - 89k -

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!!!!

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Orangutan

The word orangutan means "man of the forest" in the Malay language. The number of orangutan is decreasing, they are endangered mostly because of the deforestation.

Living place : Orangutans are the only great ape who live in Asia. They are native to Indonesia and Malaysia and live in tropical rain forests in the island of Sumatra and Borneo. Orangutans are the most arboreal of great apes, they spend nearly all of their time in trees.

Physical description : They have long and strong arms, twice as long as their legs, and swing from branch to branch with them. An adult male weights 50 - 90kg and grows to about 1,2 - 1,5 m ; an adult female weights 30 - 40 kg and stands aroud 1,1 m.
Orangutans are covered by long reddish-brown hair and they have a large head.

Behaviour : Orangutans are solitary animals. They live alone in large territories and communicate by screaming loudly.

Life span and reproduction : The life span of Orangutans is about 50 years in captivity but in the wild, the life span is only about 30 - 45 years. Orangutans, like humans, don't have a specific season for the reproduction. They are able to reproduce when they are 7 to 10 years old. Females are pregnant for 8.5 to 9 months and give birth to a single baby. The male and female orangutan stay together for only a few days.

Diet : Orangutans are omnivores but mostly herbivorous. Their favorite food are fruits, who represent 65% of their diet. They also eat insects, small animals, flowers, leaves ...

More informations : They are known for their intelligence and for using found objects as tools.

Bonobo

Living place: Around 10 000 Bonobos are only found around the Congo river, in the democratic republic of the Congo, living in the humid forests.

Physical description: Bonobo male weighs 40kg and stands around 85 cm. Bonobo female weighs 30 kg and average 78 cm.

Diet: Fruit is central to the diets. But Bonobo also eats nuts, seeds, young leaves, and insects.

Lifespan and reproduction: Female are able to give birth by age 11 or 12 and male turns sexually mature at 15 years old. The gestation period lasts 228 days and the female has one child.

Longevity: Bonobo lives older than 40 years in the wild and close to 60 in captivity.

Group life: Bonobo lives in troops of 20 to 50 animals. They aren't agressiv one another unlike chimpanzees. Bonobo 's group is seen as an egalitarian society in which males do not automatically outrank females in the group. On the contrary, their life is based on a matriarcal system in which male keeps staying with their mother during his entire life, and the female has to join another group when she reachs puberty.Sex is a social motor in group life, by easing tensions and creating alliances.

More informations: Bonobo is the smalest Great Apes. Humans and Bonobos share between 99 and 99.6% of their genetic makeup.

source: http://pen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo - 113k