By Olivia Miwil - February 10, 2021 @ 10:04am
KOTA KINABALU: A good coexistence between people and orangutans outside protected areas is crucial.
Since 2008, researchers have found that orangutans are traveling through varied forest and farm type landscapes to find food and mates as they use forest patches in non-protected areas as a critical linkage to protected forest.
According to Palm Oil and NGO Alliance (Pongo) project director Felicity Oram, orangutans are surviving and even raising offsprings in small forest patches.
"But our studies have shown these intelligent great apes are quite creative at crossing estates, often undetected, to disperse from one forest patch to another," said Oram, who is also one of the co-authors of a new scientific article published in the Journal "Frontiers in Forests and Global Change".
The peer-reviewed paper was written by a group of orangutan researchers together with oil palm plantations based in Indonesia and Malaysia.
It included PT Austindo Nusantara Jaya Tbk (ANJ), United Plantations and Wilmar International, conservationists including members of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Orangutan Specialist Group, Primate Specialist Group Section on Human – Primate Interactions, IUCN Oil Palm Task Force and members of the multi-stakeholder Pongo Alliance.
Lead author, Marc Ancrenaz of Hutan, a community-based organisation working with the Sabah Wildlife Department in the Kinabatangan, emphasised this would be the way forward to ensure that the orangutans in Borneo could survive and thrive.
"Latest available estimates show that at least 10,000 orangutans are surviving in these mixed mosaic forest-plantations landscapes.
"Thus, we must work together with industries that are operating in these non-protected areas to ensure that orangutans and some other keystone species like the Bornean elephants have adequate passage and safety.
"This means having patches of forest and corridors across these landscapes transformed by human activities."
Wilmar International Sustainability officer chief Jeremy Goon added that the observation of orangutans and other wildlife species using mixed landscapes means the opportunity to invest towards the protection of wildlife in these landscapes.
"We are pleased to know that conserving forest patches in oil palm operations have had a significant impact on the populations of orangutans and other wildlife.
"We will also continue to support the research and activities by organisations such as the Pongo Alliance, who continue to exhibit positive progress towards these conservation efforts in Borneo."
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