5 Rare Sumatran Elephants Found Dead in Indonesia

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Five endangered Sumatran elephants have been found dead in Indonesia, and conservationists said Sunday that they suspect farmers poisoned the animals to stop them from damaging crops.

The elephants - four females and one male all under the age of 5 - were found dead late Friday in Riau province on Sumatra island, said Edi Susanto, a government conservationist.

Susanto suspects that owners of nearby palm oil plantations used cyanide to poison the animals, which are known for damaging crops. He said an investigation is under way and samples from the dead elephants have been sent for analysis.

Read more...


Mother and baby Sumatran Elephants (photo does not represent the elephants mentioned in this article.

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Make a Difference for Wild Orangutans

There is a crisis affecting orangutans...the Palm Oil Crisis. How can you help? Learn more. Spread the word. www.cmzoo.org/conservation/palmOilCrisis­/



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Indonesia announces moratorium on granting new forest concessions

This article came out WHILE our team was in Indonesia/Malaysia. Norway is giving Indonesia $1 billion but the Indonesian President first had to sign a moratorium on deforestation for 2 years. This sounds great but it is a little more complicated... please read the article below.

The following image shows the rate of deforestation in Indonesia and predicts through the year 2020 the rainforest loss that will occur if the rate does not decrease or stop.





Indonesia announces moratorium on granting new forest concessions
By Jeremy Hance
mongabay.com
May 28, 2010

With one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world, the world's third largest greenhouse gas emissions due mostly to forest loss, and with a rich biodiversity that is fighting to survive amid large-scale habitat loss, Indonesia today announced a deal that may be the beginning of stopping forest loss in the Southeast Asian country. Indonesia announced a two year moratorium on granting new concessions of rainforest and peat forest for clearing in Oslo, Norway, beginning in January 2011, however concessions already granted to companies will not be stopped. The announcement came as Indonesia received 1 billion US dollars from Norway to help the country stop deforestation.

"Indonesia is prepared to suspend for two years new concessions for the conversion of peat and natural forest lands," said a statement from Indonesia as reported by Reuters. "Sufficient non-forest lands exist for Indonesia to accommodate the growth of its vitally important plantation industries, a major source of livelihoods in Indonesia." Plantation expansion, including palm oil and pulp-and-paper, will focus on lands that are already degraded.

Greenpeace, which has long fought deforestation in Indonesia, analyzed the announcement in a blog today: "This is good news, especially if it makes it into a presidential decree when [Indonesian President] Yudhoyono gets back to Jakarta, and the moratorium was a precondition laid down by Norway for its $1bn share of the financial deal which is specifically targeted at Indonesia. But it doesn't address the millions of hectares which are already in the clutches of logging companies […]Without including existing concessions, deforestation will still continue apace."

In fact Indonesia has confirmed that a 1.6 million hectare (4 million acres) agriculture estate planned for the Papua province on the western half of the island of New Guinea will still go ahead.

"But it will be in the context of this green policy," Papua governor Barnabas Suebu told Reuters. "The land that will be used for the food estate is of very low value of carbon and biodiversity."

In addition, since the moratorium doesn't go into effect until January—based on the letter of intent—some fear that concessions will be continued you to be granted at a booming rate over the next six months, putting more forests and species in jeopardy.

The announcement and the donation of 1 billion US dollars from Norway is seen as the beginning of a REDD+ (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) program in Indonesia. In fact a portion of the monies will go toward setting up a monitoring system for REDD+ and beginning REDD+ projects.

The meeting in Norway included the announcement of 4 billion US dollars to begin REDD+ projects worldwide. The funds were promised last year at the Copenhagen Climate Conference and have been put forward by the United States, France, Germany, Britain, Australia, Norway, and Japan. Denmark and Sweden promised an addition 73 million US dollars.

Indonesia is second in deforestation loss after Brazil. Between 1990 and 2005, Indonesia lost more than 28 million hectares of forest, including 21.7 hectares of virgin forest. The country's forest cover has declined from 82 percent in the 1960s to less than fifty percent today.

http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0527-hance_moratorium.html

Sustainable Palm Oil Arrives in U.S.

We just received word that the first shipment of palm oil certified under sustainability criteria has arrived in the United States.

This is a breaking news story coming from mongabay.com. They state, that according to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), AAK, a vegetable oils and fats manufacturer based in Malmo, Sweden, announced the arrival of the first shipment of segregated RSPO-certified palm oil to its refinery in Port Newark, New Jersey. .

The RSPO also announced that daily production of CSPO has now surpassed 5,000 metric tons per day. Since late 2008 more than 2.2 million tons of certified palm oil and 600,000 tons of certified palm kernals have been produced. About 600,000 tons of CSPO and kernals has been sold—mostly in Europe—so far in 2010.



Read the entire mongabay.com story online.

Home Sweet Home

We have so much more to tell everyone about, but right now we are tired! We have finally arrived back in the U.S. and are very glad to see our families again. After 37+ hours of flights and layovers it is time to get some sleep.



We will discuss our travels, share pictures, and talk about what we learned at the upcoming “Swinging in the Rainforest” event at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo on July 10, 2010 from 6:30 – 9 p.m. Get your tickets online today!

Gunung Palung National Park and Flora and Fauna International

The situation in Indonesian Borneo appears to be very bad for many orangutans. Compared to Sumatra (also in Indonesia) and Sabah, Malaysia, Indonesian Borneo is going through a major conversion from forest to oil palm plantations on a massive scale. Sumatra and Sabah, Malaysia already went through this transition many years ago and have very few orangutans left as a result. There are 87 different palm oil companies in the Ketapang region.


Palm Oil as far as the eye can see.


Truck on scale to weigh FFBs (fresh fruit bunches of palm oil).

Our next meeting was with the National Park office which is a run by the Forestry Department. The forestry official we met with told us a lot about Gunung Palung National Park. The park was established in 1927 and was enlarged in 1990. There are 2,500-3,000 orangutans in the park, it is 90,000 hectares, and 6 rangers patrol and monitor the park via trekking, water boats and ultra-light airplanes. There are currently two ultra-light pilots, but recently an NGO gave them money and tools to train more pilots. The park official we spoke with thinks Borneo needs a good zoo so local people can see the animals and learn about them. He also said that there is too much forest being converted to palm oil. We were very surprised to learn that in 2008 there were 222 guests to the park, and in 2009 there were 488 guests. We expected this park to be a more popular destination.

Next we visited with FFI, Flora and Fauna International. A major project they are working on is HCV assessments for palm oil plantations. HCV areas are high in conservation value, and there are many factors that can lead to this classification. A few examples are:
• endangered species living in the area,
• land that has cultural significance for indigenous people,
• riparian areas

The reason for assessing HCV areas is that it is a requirement of the RSPO in order for a plantation to be a member of RSPO and to be certified as sustainable. FFI has many specialists that make up their HCV assessment team (bat specialist, bird, mammal, reptile and amphibian, etc.). An impressive part of this program is that the palm oil plantations do not pay for the assessments; they are funded by FFI and other NGOs so there is no question about validity or bias/influence.


The FFI Team

We met with a man named Fajri from Gemawan, an NGO that helps communities manage the local forests sustainably. They are working with twelve different villages. Of the many projects they are working on, one of the most unique is the collection of kopi luwak. If you have seen the movie “The Bucket List” this might ring a bell. This involves collecting coffee beans that are eaten then defecated by wild palm civets. This specialty coffee fetches very high prices and gives local people an incentive to protect the civets. (Yes, people pay a lot to drink this!) Of the twelve villages they are working with, conversion of forests to palm oil plantations has not been a concern near any of those villages thus far.

We visited a medical clinic that gives a large discount to patients who are not loggers. Also, if they are unable to pay with money then patients or their families can trade handicrafts for medical services. The photo below is of some crafts that were traded at the clinic.



A highlight of our time in this area was a hike and overnight stay in Gunung Palung National Park. The hike was steep but beautiful, and we slept on the upper levels of a giant complex tree house. While we slept a wild bearded pig came into the camp and ate all of the coffee, then splashed around in the nearby creek. The camping precautions we take to avoid conflict with wildlife in the U.S. could definitely apply to other parts of the world. (Not sure how to keep primates out of your supplies though, we’ll have to follow up on that question.)