SANDAKAN: A new landmark study based in Sabah’s east coast has shown that orangutans in Kinabatangan have no choice but to nest in oil palm plantations as they travel from one forest patch to another.
“These findings have long term implications for the oil palm industry and those working in conservation as we have to look at a larger landscape rather than concentrate only on forested areas,” said Dr. Marc Ancrenaz, the lead author of the findings published in Oryx, the international journal of conservation.
This study was carried out by research based non-governmental organisation, HUTAN – Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Programme (KOCP) and the Sabah Wildlife Department.
It began in 2008 with aerial surveys, followed by years of ground surveys and interviews with oil palm workers to investigate why the population of orangutans in the forested areas in Kinabatangan was dropping.
This excerpt from a news article appeared in and is courtesy of Borneo Post online and can be read in its entirety here.
