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Indonesia: Endangered Orangutans further Threatened by illegal logging

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Rampant illegal logging has been taking place in Indonesia. Logging for wood products is responsible for about one-third of total global deforestation. Deforestation itself leads to serious losses of habitat, especially when pressure from the global market base takes the logging industry into national parks. In Indonesia, it’s the loss of habitat for the Orangutans. About 73% percent of Indonesia’s logging is illegal.

National parks remain the only commercially viable timber fields on Borneo and Sumatra. Illegal logging is now taking place in 37 out of the country’s 41 national parks The great apes share their habitat with the Sumatran tiger, Sumatran rhinoceros, Asian elephant, and other threatened species who will all suffer the ill effects of habitat loss.

United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) report The Last Stand of the Orangutan warns:

About 98 percent of natural rain forests on the islands could be gone by 2022.

The rapid rate of removal of food trees, killing of orangutans displaced by logging and plantation development, and fragmentation of remaining intact forest constitutes a conservation emergency.

Illegal logging includes: corrupt means to gain access to forests, extraction without permission or from a protected area, cutting of protected species or extraction of timber in excess of agreed limits. Illegalities may also occur during transport, including illegal processing and export, misdeclaration to customs, and avoidance of taxes and other charges.

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Tackling the Problem

Reducing the demand for illegal logs and timber products, by coding to track legal logs.
Reduce corruption so that there is no over-allocation of logging concessions and processing licenses.
Provision of alternative employment opportunities for those dependant on illegal trade.

As long as greater profits can be derived from acting illegally rather than legally, the incentive will be plain. Though the government is trying to protect the same with the army , and specially equipped rangers, more efforts by the world community are required. Crime is a serious side effect of prohibitory laws, Prevention will result only with heart felt consciousness and a need to protect the biodiversity from amongst the people.

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