And check out this bad news about some of our nearest relatives from Martin Hickman writing in The Independent/UK
“Hope of Freedom for Orangutans Dashed
248 endangered primates left in cages after mining company pulls out of rescue.
A world-renowned programme to return hundreds of orang-utans threatened with extinction to the wild has been thrown into disarray by the withdrawal of Britain's biggest mining company from Borneo.
Conservationist Lone Dröscher Nielsen interacts with a baby orang-utan (AP)
Dozens of orang-utans that had been due to be released this month have been left locked in cages after BHP-Billiton warned it could no longer guarantee the safety of the animals on forests it had been surveying for coal.
With BHP's support over the past two years, orang-utans from a rehabilitation centre - made famous by the BBC TV series Orang-utan Diary - have been released onto BHP's land in Kalimantan. But last month the world's largest mining company told investors it was withdrawing from the area for "strategic reasons" which it declined to explain.
A planned airlift of 48 adult orang-utans scheduled to take place on 20 July was cancelled a week before it had been due to take place.
Lone Dröscher-Nielsen, the former air stewardess who cares for 650 orang-utans at the Nyaru Menteng Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre, said BHP had warned that the Indonesian government was likely to hand its coal concessions to other companies who would not match its environmental stewardship of the land.
She added that it now seemed unlikely the Anglo-Australia mining giant would fund a plan to a create a 250,000-hectare wildlife reserve in central Borneo that could have sited 1,000 orang-utans, a genetically viable long-term population.
Some conservationists fear that orang-utans could be wiped out in the wild in little more than a decade due to the destruction of their habitat for logging, mining and palm oil plantations.” (Click here for more.)
The secret word is Shame
“Hope of Freedom for Orangutans Dashed
248 endangered primates left in cages after mining company pulls out of rescue.
A world-renowned programme to return hundreds of orang-utans threatened with extinction to the wild has been thrown into disarray by the withdrawal of Britain's biggest mining company from Borneo.
Conservationist Lone Dröscher Nielsen interacts with a baby orang-utan (AP)
Dozens of orang-utans that had been due to be released this month have been left locked in cages after BHP-Billiton warned it could no longer guarantee the safety of the animals on forests it had been surveying for coal.
With BHP's support over the past two years, orang-utans from a rehabilitation centre - made famous by the BBC TV series Orang-utan Diary - have been released onto BHP's land in Kalimantan. But last month the world's largest mining company told investors it was withdrawing from the area for "strategic reasons" which it declined to explain.
A planned airlift of 48 adult orang-utans scheduled to take place on 20 July was cancelled a week before it had been due to take place.
Lone Dröscher-Nielsen, the former air stewardess who cares for 650 orang-utans at the Nyaru Menteng Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre, said BHP had warned that the Indonesian government was likely to hand its coal concessions to other companies who would not match its environmental stewardship of the land.
She added that it now seemed unlikely the Anglo-Australia mining giant would fund a plan to a create a 250,000-hectare wildlife reserve in central Borneo that could have sited 1,000 orang-utans, a genetically viable long-term population.
Some conservationists fear that orang-utans could be wiped out in the wild in little more than a decade due to the destruction of their habitat for logging, mining and palm oil plantations.” (Click here for more.)
The secret word is Shame
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2 comments:
Excellent post highlighting this tragedy. The out of sight out mind mentality coupled with the unbound greed of corporate firms which straddle the world with impunity.
Fucking typical.
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