The Bornean and Sumatran orangutans are extremely endangered. But we can still save them.
Marc Ancrenaz tells us what he's doing with his organization Hutan to protect this species.
Marc Ancrenaz tells us what he's doing with his organization Hutan to protect this species.
Category
🐳
AnimalsTranscript
00:00We regularly see these horrible images of animals being beheaded or killed.
00:08It's a reality, it's still happening.
00:23The orang-utans of Borneo and Sumatra are in critical danger of extinction,
00:26which means that their population is declining very fast.
00:30There are two main reasons.
00:32The first one is related to deforestation.
00:34When the forest is destroyed, it is replaced by other fossil fuels,
00:38whether agricultural or mining.
00:40The second reason, which is less often mentioned, is hunting.
00:43The orang-utan is a species that reproduces very slowly,
00:46on average every 8 years.
00:48So it's a species that can't stand any hunting pressure.
00:51We don't have a proper orang-utan hunt,
00:54we just have isolated cases of local communities,
00:58isolated cases of poachers,
01:00who kill an animal once in a while.
01:02But that's the problem.
01:04Once in a while is enough to lead some populations to extinction.
01:16First of all, people need to know that the orang-utan is a protected species.
01:19So there is a lot of awareness that is being put in place
01:22to inform society that we are not allowed to kill orang-utans.
01:26The other thing is that as the orang-utan is able to adapt,
01:29if we can imagine and set up landscapes
01:32where we still have forest corridors and pieces of forest
01:35inside agricultural areas,
01:36it will allow these animals to use these new spaces.
01:39If hunting is juggled,
01:41I don't see why this species couldn't survive in these new environments.
01:45Today, in Borneo, no one knows exactly how many animals are left.
01:49What we do know, however, is that their decline continues.
01:52If we don't change the practices of land exploitation,
01:55I think we may have lost half of the current workforce
01:58by the time we are 20 years old.
02:00However, to think that the orang-utan will disappear from the planet
02:03by the time we are 10 years old, that's not true.
02:05Orang-utans are our closest living cousins at the moment.
02:08They are great monkeys.
02:10If only for this reason,
02:12it seems to me that it is really essential to try to protect them.
02:15If the great monkeys were to disappear,
02:18what would be the next species that would disappear?
02:22It could be ours.