LOGGERS MOVE IN ON ORANGUTAN STRONGHOLD
Species Vanishing as Rain Forests Fall
WASHINGTON (Sept. 29, 2003)—A National Geographic researcher who has directed more than 50,000 hours of field research on endangered orangutans in Borneo says illegal logging has moved into a long-term research site, threatening a critical orangutan population.
Anthropologist Cheryl Knott of Harvard University works at the site in Borneo's Gunung Palung National Park, one of the last strongholds of the endangered orangutan. Some 2,500 orangutans, representing about one-tenth of the world's remaining wild orangutans, live there.
Orangutans, great apes that are close kin of humans, live only on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, which are part of Indonesia and Malaysia, and are perhaps less well known than their higher-profile African cousins, the chimpanzees and gorillas. Knott predicts that the 15,000 to 24,000 orangutans remaining in the world may be only a memory if nothing is done to save them soon. "At the current rate of habitat destruction, orangutans could be extinct in the wild in 10 to 20 years," she writes in the October issue of National Geographic magazine. "We must stop this trend — the alternative is unthinkable."
Logging has been steadily increasing at Gunung Palung National Park but until recently remained outside Knott's study site. In January, loggers moved into it, chain-sawing the trees orangutans rely on for fruit and shelter — trees that have been observed as part of the orangutan study for almost 20 years. Several hundred trees have been felled at the study site, including ramin trees and other timber species.
In response to the chain saws' roar, some of the study orangutans behaved erratically, eating little and refusing to move from tree to tree to seek food, Knott observed. Sustained logging is likely to cause long-term damage to the orangutan population, she said.
Knott is both studying the animals and working to conserve their populations. With funding from National Geographic's Committee for Research and Exploration, she and her team have spent thousands of hours observing orangutan behavior and documenting their physiology. They recently determined the size of the park's orangutan population by counting the nests the apes build in the forest canopy to sleep in at night, estimating a total of 2,500 orangutans. Orangutans' reproduction is of particular interest to the scientists: A female orangutan bears young only about once every eight years, so populations may have trouble bouncing back when harmed by deforestation or when females are killed so that their babies can be captured for the illegal pet trade.
Knott's research has shown that females only conceive during periods of high fruit production and nutritional intake. She also has observed at her study site that fully developed adult males stay in top physical condition only for a few years. Following females and fighting with other males takes a toll on the males, diminishing prominent traits such as full cheek pads and large throat pouches. As these features disappear, Knott has found, their reproductive life cycle seems to come to a close.
Knott also has collaborated with other scientists to paint a picture of orangutan "culture" — customs passed from one generation to the next and often unique to particular populations. For example, Knott has observed that orangutans at her site make "kiss-squeak" sounds into a handful of leaves in response to strangers, but this behavior has only been seen regularly at Gunung Palung. Some 500 miles west of Borneo, in Sumatra, orangutans use sticks to pry seeds from prickly Neesia fruits — a trick that Borneo's apes have not devised.
By some estimates, more than 80 percent of all orangutan habitat has been destroyed. Deforestation in Indonesia is escalating: Each year since 1996, legal and illegal logging has gobbled some 5 million acres of forest. Recent political upheaval has brought economic turmoil and lawlessness; illegal logging sometimes occurs with the complicity of officials, who either have little power to enforce laws or choose not to.
With a grant from National Geographic's Conservation Trust, Knott is leading an awareness effort in Borneo among schoolchildren, teachers and the public about orangutans and the laws meant to protect them. More than 2,000 local students have been reached directly. One program takes students out into the forests, sometimes for their very first glimpse of a wild orangutan. "A lot of people in Indonesia have never seen an orangutan," Knott said.
The Conservation Trust grant also has funded numerous efforts of Knott's to stem illegal logging and hunting. Working with authorities, for example, her team brokered an agreement to provide to the nearby village of Tanjung Gunung a new irrigation system and road repairs in exchange for a signed agreement that villagers would no longer cut down trees in the national park.
The team also has confiscated more than 20 orangutans snatched from the forest to be pets. Half of the pet owners turned out to be police or military officials.
Rain forests might recover from a small amount of selective logging, and some orangutans could endure such incursions, Knott believes. But the ongoing destruction of the trees the orangutans call home surely threatens their long-term survival.
More information on Cheryl Knott's research on orangutans is available at:
nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0310 and fas.harvard.edu/~gporang/
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Contacts:
Barbara Moffet
202-857-7756
bmoffet@ngs.org
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