Thousands of orangutans, who share 97 percent of their DNA with humans, have been caught in what scientists warn could be one of the biggest environmental disasters in the country since the devastating fires of 1997.
More than 63 fires reported in the region in the past month have contributed to the destruction of the orangutans’ habitat, which has been devastated in the past 20 years.
An area of rain forest the size of 300 soccer fields is destroyed every hour, said Lis Key of International Animal Rescue, a United Kingdom-based non-governmental organization working to rescue animals in the region.
“It’s happening at an absolutely breathtaking rate,” Key said. “If this goes on, this could have a serious impact in extinction and bring it closer.”
The main cause of the wildfires through the years: the illegal use of fire to clear land for development in so-called slash-and-burn agriculture and to benefit the palm oil industry. The warmer temperatures and drought brought by El Nino only make the situation worse.
Many rescued orangutans are babies because their mothers have either died in the fires, or been captured and killed by locals, Key said.
Tom Mills of Los Angeles-based Orangutan Conservancy, a non-governmental organization supporting programs in Indonesia, said the effects of the fires are devastating.
“The peatland where they live is so carbon-rich that it burns forever; once it starts going up, it just doesn’t stop,” Mills told ABC News.
“Orangutans are a keystone species; if they disappear, thousands of other species disappear.”
This excerpt from a news article appeared in and is courtesy of ABC News online and can be read in its entirety here.
