A rare Borneo orangutan and her baby have been rescued from an attack by angry villagers in Indonesia as they were escaping rampant wildfires.
The malnourished mother and her youngster were found traumatised and hugging one another when they were saved by International Animal Rescue.
Frightened locals reportedly hurled rocks at them and tried to tie them up.
Tell the Embassy of Malaysia what you think about this and any abuse of orangutans anywhere.
Due to the massive international demand for palm oil, palm oil plantations are rapidly replacing the rainforest habitat of the critically endangered orangutan; with over 90% of their habitat already destroyed in the last 20 years.
Orangutans are some of our closest relatives, sharing approximately 97% of their DNA with humans. Orangutan means ‘Person of the jungle’ in the Indonesian language. It is estimated that 6 to 12 of these ‘jungle people’ are killed each day for palm oil. These gentle creatures are either killed in the deforestation process, when they wonder into a palm oil plantation looking for food, or in the illegal pet trade after they’ve been captured and kept as pets in extremely poor conditions and provided with extremely poor nutrition.
Orangutans are considered as pests by the palm oil industry. In the deforestation process, workers are told that if wildlife gets in the way, they are to do whatever is necessary in order to dispose them, no matter how inhumane. Often orangutans are run over by logging machinery, beat to death, buried alive or set on fire… all in the name of palm oil.
Government data has shown that over 50,000 orangutans have already died as a result of deforestation due to palm oil in the last two decades. Experts say that if this pattern of destruction and exploitation continues, these intelligent acrobats of the jungle will be extinct in the wild within 3 to 12 years (as early as 2015). It is also thought that their jungle habitat will be completely gone within 20 years (approximately 2033).
Around 50 million tons of palm oil is produced annually; with almost all of that being non-sustainable palm oil, that replaces 12 million hectares of dense, bio-diverse rainforest. That’s the equivalent landmass of North Korea deforested each year for palm oil alone!
Palm oil is also having a shocking impact on our planet. The production of this one vegetable oil is not only responsible for polluting rivers and causing land erosion, but when the plantation workers set fire to the remaining trees, shrubs and debris to make way for the oil palms, it produces immense amount of smoke pollution that is toxic to planet earth. This has been found to be the second biggest contributor to greenhouse gas in the world.
By purchasing products that contain crude palm oil, you are helping destroy ancient, pristine rainforest, wipe out species like the orangutan, and create a large-scale ecological disaster. Think of the consequences next time you do your weekly shopping; the consequences not only for orangutans and other animals, but for us as the human race; for we cannot survive without the rainforests either. We have a choice, orangutans do not.
Close Orangutan Brothels in Asia - The Petition Site)
The unthinkable is being done to female orangutans in Indonesia. They are being captured and used in brothels as prostitutes, where they are tied down and repeatedly raped on a daily basis.
Just when you think things couldn't get much worse for the endangered orangutan, it does. 50,000 orangutans have already died in the last 2 decades as a result of deforestation- their natural habitat being replaced by palm oil plantations. They could be extinct by 2015.
They need protection- not exploitation brothels as prostitutes.
The Snack Food 20 are the makers of some of the best-known snack food brands in the world, and they're using "conflict palm oil" tied to rainforest destruction and orangutan extinction in their products. I for one do not want orangutans to go extinct just so I can have cheap packaged foods.I just sent a message to all 20 of the companies calling on them to cut conflict palm oil from their snacks. Will you join me?
