Over the past century, wild orangutan populations in Southeast Asia are estimated to have decreased by nearly 92%. Te main threat to their future survival is the loss of habitat from road development and agricultural expansion to illegal timber harvesting, mining and human encroach- ment on the last two islands where they survive – Borneo and Sumatra.
Te Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP) was established by UNEP 10 years ago involving a consortium of partners with a mandate to lift the threat of imminent extinction to great apes through its unique partnerships of range states, conservation organizations, donor governments, and inter-governmental agencies.
Tis GRASP report, Orangutans and the Economics of Sustainable Forest Management in Sumatra, offers a detailed analysis of the market forces driving orangutans to extinction and presents trans- formative economic arguments to catalyze a different development path.
Sustainably managing the more than 8,640 km2 of Sumatran orangutan habitat left is vital to conserving the extraordinary variety of forest and other ecosystem services needed for long-term human well-being. Te preliminary economic data included in this report suggests that the poten- tial derived from these services far outweighs current land conversion revenue for agriculture and other current uses.
Te report comes in advance of the Rio+20 meeting in June 2012 where smart policies and creative economic instruments are at the centre of one of the two major themes – a Green Economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication.
REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), being developed to support the UN climate convention, is one such instrument that echoes to the challenges facing countries, communities and species such as the orangutan.
Indonesia, with support from nations such as Norway, is already piloting REDD+ projects. Tis new report indicates that scaling up and embedding such policies within local and national econo- mies offers multiple environmental, social and economic benefits that include a more hopeful future for the country’s great apes.
2011 is the International Year of the Forests: Tis new GRASP report illuminates how land-use management in the forests and peatlands of Sumatra can be dramatically improved. In doing so, it can serve as a foundation for assisting communities and species across the range of the great apes in Africa and Asia.
Achim Steiner UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director