Orangutan News: Tripa Orangutans Doomed Unless Fires Halted

Fires burning in Tripa

Banda Aceh – In direct defiance of Indonesian National Law, conservation groups say palm oil companies are continuing to set the Tripa peat swamp forests ablaze, threatening the last 200 orangutans in a population that once numbered 2,000.

Despite a high level National Investigation launched months ago, the Coalition to save the Tripa peat swamps said that palm oil companies are still setting fires and destroying forests inside the protected Leuser Ecosystem of the Tripa peat swamps in Indonesia.

The forest on the coast of Aceh province, has one of the largest remaining populations of wild orangutans in the world. But companies have been decimating them by burning up the natural habitat and planting saplings for palm oil. The principle ingredient of this oil, is found in approximately half of all packaged goods sold on grocery store shelves.

Field staff filmed and photographed numerous fires burning in the palm oil concessions after noticing a recent spike in the number of fires recorded by satellites monitoring fire hotspot activity in Sumatra. It’s bad news for Tripa’s orangutans said Dr. Ian Singleton of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program (SOCP).

This is an excerpt from an article by Elizabeth Batt at Digital Journal.com.  To read the entire article click on the link below.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/327573#ixzz1zE9EqRNA

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