27 Nov
Anyone interested in the slaughter of our cousins, the orangutans of Kalimantan and Sumatra, because oil palm plantation managers view them as "pests" will find that the UK Observer newspaper is giving great prominence to the issue.
Read it here
27 Oct
I very rarely copy and paste anything straight from another publication, preferring to provide links to my references and sources. However, the article below, taken from the front page of yesterday’s Guardian Online does not need much by way of commentary, that is, apart from one line: the project appears to be hampered “by the byzantine Indonesian system.”
A UK conservationist plans to create four new islands in northern Sumatra for sick and injured orangutans currently in cages. Orangutans who are unable to be reintroduced to the natural habitat would be destined for the new islands.
A British conservationist is leading an audacious plan to create a chain of man-made islands in northern Sumatra that would liberate the Indonesian island’s population of caged orangutans.
Dr Ian Singleton aims to create four islands of grass, shrubs and trees for sick and injured orangutans – those who are unable to be reintroduced to the natural habitat – to roam, freeing them from the 3x4m cages in which they currently reside.
Singleton is currently in the process of securing land for the islands. The ideal location would be near the coast with a consistent supply of fresh water via a stream or river.
Diggers, operated by local contractors, will then carve up the land to create moats, thereby encircling the land with water. The earth removed by the digging will be used to landscape the islands to make them ape-friendly.
Orangutans, which can’t swim, will be reluctant to leave the islands due to the water, although Singleton plans to erect an electric fence to ensure the creatures don’t drown.
“Depending on the site, it shouldn’t take us too long to create the islands, as long as the moats don’t leak,” Singleton told the Guardian from northern Sumatra.
“The biggest challenge is finding the right land that has the right security and a water supply that isn’t full of effluent. Finding a clean stream in Sumatra can be difficult as there’s lots of pollution, but we have the option of creating a bio-filtration system to purify the water.”
Singleton and his team have released more than 150 orangutans into the wild over the past decade, but currently have 50 further apes in medical quarantine.
A handful of orangutans have been earmarked for immediate transportation to the island, including twins that made headlines earlier this year due to both of their parents being blind.
Singleton has been in Sumatra since 2001, following stints at zoos in Jersey and Edinburgh. He leads the Orangutan Conservation Programme in the country and is funded by a Swiss NGO, PanEco.
While the immediate aim is to protect the captive orangutans, Singleton hopes the project will inform local people about the threat to the animal’s survival via an education centre and guided walks.
There are only an estimated 6,000 orangutans left in Sumatra, due to deforestation and conflict with humans.
“These orangutans are refugees from forests that don’t exist any more,” he says. “You have animals like Leuser who has been blinded by an air rifle and you don’t want him living for 45 years in a small rusty cage. I want people in Medan (capital of the north Sumatra province) to see how these orangutans have been shot or had their arms chopped off or got hepatitis B.”
“There needs to be a change in behaviour, otherwise the project is a waste. It’s all very nice getting westerners here, but we need to reach the people who are chopping down the trees here and shooting the orangutans because they’re in their habitat.”
“Lots of middle class people, even policemen, steal orangutans and have them as a status symbol. The irony is that the people who are meant to uphold the law here are the ones with orangutans in cages.”
Singleton says that he is close to acquiring a 20 ha (49.4 acre) plot of land to create the islands, but claims he has been hindered by the byzantine Indonesian system.
“I fluctuate between cautiously optimistic [and] very pessimistic,” he says. “The business lobby is so powerful here and vote buying so prevalent, that it’s hard to change anything. One minute the government will say that it wants to protect the forest and then they will grant a permit to clear 15,000 hectares of forest. Very few people are prosecuted for keeping an orangutan as a pet.”
Singleton is working with the Australian Orangutan Project to raise funds for the island development.
29 Jul
I’ve subscribed to the Jakarta Post for c.24 years and long praised it for its balance and general support for ‘underdogs’. ‘Balance’ is, of course, subjective, but I’ve rarely had cause to question its editorial integrity – until now.
It’s not yesterday’s full page ‘advertorial’ from Sinar Mas self-praising their so-called corporate social responsibility (CSR) that is pissing me off, nor is the fact that that nearly half of today’s main section is taken up with ‘consolidated financial statements’; these all subsidise the cover price.
No, it’s what is published today which is leading me to seriously question my subscription. There’s an ‘Opinion’ article on page 7 of the Post entitled ‘Balancing sustainability with economic development‘. This is a reprint of an article by Ian Lifshitz, the Sustainability & Public Outreach Manager of Asia Pulp and Paper (part of Sinar Mas) first published a year ago.
On the front page of the Post’s Business section today we learn that the Gramedia Group (publishers of the Post and the hitherto trustworthy Kompas) is joining Sinar Mas to build Indonesia’s largest convention centre which “might cause traffic jams.”
So, how independent is the Post?
Readers of the many Gramedia publications, which include books sold in its country-wide chain of stores, now need to be told that the pulp used for its paper edition comes from sustainable sources, rather than from a company which readily, yet perhaps unwittingly, admits that not all of its supplies of wood pulp for its paper mills comes from sustainable sources..
Sinar Mas is Indonesia’s largest palm oil and pulp group. Through its Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) division, it holds 1.3% of Indonesia’s land mass.
Pause here to consider that fact as written by Aida Greenbury, APP’s major apologist earlier this year.
Consider too, that she admits that “in 2011, we can say that ….. 52 per cent of APP’s pulpwood supplies currently meet mandatory Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) standards set by the Indonesian government with multi-stakeholder consultations.“
And the other 48% presumably does not.
So… what is the source of the paper which I read every morning?
5 Jul
1 May
It was a rare outing for me, but worth it for the few hours I spent on the slopes of Gunung Salak yesterday. Although I didn't make it to the top – that wasn't the point for me – others did.
The value for me was in the time I let them walk on, when I sat under a natural shelter for the light rain and listened.
As my heart rate sank to its regular rhythm, I was able to tune into my surroundings. I admired the intricacies of the ferns, and other primaeval plants which were here before we came and will outlast all future generations of humanity. As much as we try, we can't destroy everything.
I listened to the soft drips off the foliage I sat beneath; a bird here trilled, another there answered, somewhere yonder a wood pigeon woo'd. Maybe it wasn't a pigeon, and I certainly didn't know what the others were; Dave would have done, but it didn't matter to me. There was the rhythm of a life almost beyond my knowing.
From dust to dust we come and go, but whilst we are here it is salutory to be reminded that there are matters beyond our control, that we are part of an infinity of life forms.
………………………………………………………………………….
Getting back into Jakarta was yet another journey from hell; it took us five hours when it should have been a shade under two.
As Dan Pearson says, "I would find it impossible to live in the city without engaging with something living and green and ever-changing in this hostile setting." So I gaze at this picture of his garden in south London.
It is my current computer 'background' because I need concrete evidence that there is life in a concrete jungle. If I turn behind me to the left I can look out the french windows at my front yard, another mass of green with a cat or three – and laundry if it's a sunny day. If I turn to look at the three other walls, there is my gallery of landscape paintings to remind me of other places in Indonesia where I've felt at peace,
I'm reminded of the story of a husband who told his wife to never open a particular desk drawer. Ever curious as to why, one day when he was at work, she pried it open and found it empty.
Later she asked him why he wouldn't let her open it and he told her, "I just wanted a place of my own."
So, if City Hall can't stick to its own spatial plan and give us some greenery, then it's up to us to do piece together some peace wherever we can.
7 Jan
How stupid can we humans be?
Regarding the tsunami which hit the Mentawai islands off the coast of West Sumatra last November, and based on my stay on Siberut island nearly 20 years ago, I conjectured that most of the 400+ deaths …. were of coastal dwellers, poor immigrants from the mainland of West Sumatra. The Mentawai indigenous forest dwellers have developed their 'lifestyle' over 4,000 years living inland in the uphill forests where they have achieved a level of harmony with their environment.
A couple of weeks ago, the Sunday Post had a fascinating two page spread about Mentawai folklore. One tale conveyed from generation to another in [a] hamlet – located in the heart of a forest with plenty of big trees – advises people to head to a banana plantation, considered safer than the hardwood trees, when an earthquake struck.
Although a hundred years ago Dutch Protestant missionaries tried to move the Mentawi out of the forest hinterlands, presumably to boost converts to their congregations, it was not until the 1970s that the villagers were coerced into moving to coastal areas during the government’s welfare supervision project for isolated communities.
That might have been the supposedly benign intent, but it also opened the forests to logging by companies owned by the likes of Tommy Suharto.*
Whilst the survivors of the tsunami now cope with benign neglect, elsewhere in Indonesia six siblings have died through a lack of proper nutrition due to their family's acute poverty, an income of about Rp.200,000 ($21) a week to feed af family of nine. Due to the ever-increasing price of rice, they were forced to eat tiwul, cassava mixed with palm sugar, which can produce toxins such as cyanide,
The now thankfully deceased dictator Suharto set in motion a policy to encourage Indonesians to eat rice. This benefitted his cohorts who, through vast landgrabs and their links with agribusiness companies which embrace fertiliser production and sterile genetically modified food crops, removed farmers from their land. The real tragedy is that this process means that local knowledge of the land, with its varied topography and climatic conditions, which enabled sustainable farming, is dying out. (I've previously written extensively about this topic here.)
Indonesians love chillis because rice is rather a bland tasting staple food. However, a 500% rise in the cost of chillis due to crop failures (and hoarding by wholesalers?) has boosted the inflation rate so that it's not just those living below the official poverty line who are grumbling.
At least the current food crisis has brought forward the long suppressed notion of not only having a diversification of staple foods but also, as Arum Atmawikarta from the National Planning Development Board says, “We should let people eat foods produced locally. Rice is high maintenance; it requires good irrigation and fertilizer, yet it is vulnerable to climate change.”
SBY's solution, incidentally, is to encourage folk to grow chillis in their gardens.
A limited solution, maybe, but at least he acknowledges that his government doesn't have all the answers.
The country's macro-economy is said to be doing well but all I see is nothing of value.
Stiil, at least climate change will bring one benefit to Indonesia: western countries such as the UK will be able to have their own palm oil plantations.
I'm getting bored with having to continually return to this topic, but I'm sure I will because it's going to take much longer than what's left of my life span for the human race en masse to recognise that messing around with Mother Nature is wrong: she will always beat us.
The BBC agrees with me.
* Native Planet is dedicated to helping the Mentawai preserve their culture and human rights, and to giving them a choice to decide which aspects (if any) of modern society they want to embrace.
15 Oct
Today is Blog Action Day 2010 and the topic you'll read about on hundreds of blogs worldwide is water.
Why?
Very simply because clean water is essential for our survival, but dangerously scarce. Nearly one billion people in the world today don't have access to clean water and 42,000 people (including about 31,500 children) die each week from water-borne diseases. And the issue doesn't stop there – water availability impacts a wide variety of issues from the environment to women's rights and from technology to fashion.
Although Indonesia is a predominantly a maritime nation, inland its citizens regularly suffer from flooding and droughts, thanks in a big part to deforestation and rapid urbanisation.
Water supply in Jakarta
Barely 12% of the city's population has access to treated and supposedly potable water.
In 2001, the Jakarta Water Supply Regulation Body (JWSRB) was established with members directly appointed by the Governor for a term of office of 3 years "selected through an open and accountable selection process". Through a 'Governor Regulation' it is supposed to "ensure a reasonable balance between the interest of consumer and water services providers in DKI Jakarta Province."
Three companies, PAM Jaya, PAM Lyonnaise Jaya and PT Aetra, are responsible for meeting the city's needs, but you can't really blame them for not succeeding in their mandated task, even though it's a human rights issue; as much as words dribble from the mouths of experts in the form of discussions and academic documents, the infrastructure is sadly lacking.
And where it exists, it isn't maintained because the bureaucrats only budget to patch up botched jobs.
A statement issued by Winarno, the director of PT Bina Marga Area II overseeing road construction, that the collapse of Jl. R.E. Martadinata connecting Tanjung Priok and Ancol, North Jakarta, was caused by land subsidence resulting from recent dredging of the canal running parallel to the road, confirms that the construction of the newly completed road and dredging activities in the area failed to satisfy standards of prudence, accuracy and thoroughness.
I've written at length many times over the years about Jakarta's water supply so I need not bore you with the reasons why even here in Jakartass Towers we have a bore hole and jet pump to meet our daily water needs.
The following are some relevant links: my posts are in purple and the others are news items, mainly from the last month.
Where Jakarta's water comes from
Note: Recent geological 'evidence' suggests that Jakarta's water does not emanate from Bogor, as outlined in my post above, but from Depok, a township some 40 kilometres closer to the city centre.
In 2006, the then State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar expressed concern over a report showing that Jakartans living in slums have to allocate a larger portion of their income for clean water than people in high-income areas in the capital.
He said that uncontrolled development in Jakarta and its upstream areas were the main cause of poor supply and quality of water forcing residents to spend more on clean water.
Jakarta has long experienced a water crisis since it has no control over supply of raw water which comes mostly from its upstream areas in Bogor, Depok, Bekasi and Tangerang.
Jakarta’s tap water supply is 4,000 liters per second, which is less than the demand in 2010 based on an assumed population growth of 0.3 percent per year. The Jakarta Statistics Agency recently announced that the population of the city was growing on average at a rate of 1.3 percent per year.
The city's water companies supply water to only half (actually less) of Jakarta residents, while millions of others still rely on groundwater. However, due to the poor quality of water, residents use it only for bathing or washing clothes. They have to buy water sold in jerry cans for cooking or drinking.
Jakarta is sinking
Water crisis looms as groundwater dries up
Commercial buildings 'likely rely on groundwater'
Firdaus Ali, a board member of the Jakarta Water Supply Regulatory Body, said it would be difficult for a commercial building to rely entirely on tap water.
“Thirteen rivers passing through Jakarta are heavily polluted… and could not supply enough clean water for the growing population and development in the city.”
Firdaus said that almost all commercial buildings used groundwater not only because they lacked required resources for the city supply but because the city’s tap water piping system was inadequate.
A recent study found that since 2002 Muara Baru in North Jakarta has sunk 116 centimeters, West Cengkareng in West Jakarta has sunk 65 centimeters, Kelapa Gading in North Jakarta 47 centimeters and the Thamrin area in Central Jakarta 15 centimeters.
Herry Andreas, the researcher from the Bandung Institute of Technology who conducted the study, said excessive use of groundwater was behind 17.5 percent of land subsidence cases.
Floods
Danger of dams collapsing
40% of Jakarta below sea level
Jakarta's disappearing coastline
Flood waters choke underpasses
Jakarta is doomed
Jakartass BBC Interview re 2007 floods (available as ringtone!)
Weather
Heavy rain causes Jakarta jam
Freak weather in Jakarta
All over the world
Angkor Wat
Fatal floods hit Vietnam (video)
Vicious rains kill hundreds in Asia
Rivers
Human impact on world's rivers 'threatens water security of 5 billion'
UK's Environment Agency admitted that only five of 6,114 rivers in England and Wales were considered pristine last year.
Toxic spill reaches branch of Danube (video)
What we can do
Firstly, all those of us who can need to change our lifestyles.
Please add further suggestions in the comments
Finally, join millions worldwide in helping to build a movement of people across the world calling on UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon to accelerate the UN's work to supply clean, safe drinking water to the world's poorest populations.
Start by signing this petition.
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