AP Photo/Mark Baker
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Poor Sumatran orangutans. They have been the focus of conservationists for years, a battle between wildlife and habitat preservationists and large paper and palm oil companies who use, and destroy, the land that orangutans call home. So a natural celebration when some were successfully re-introduced into the wild.
Captive breeding is a controversial approach to species conservation, with many who believe it does not work. But proponents of captive breeding point to success stories such as the one led by the Sumatran Orangutan Reintroduction Center, which has been able to boost the critically endangered orangutan's population in and around the Bukit Tigapuluh forest.
The problem following successful reintroduction, however, is habitat maintenance. With no protected sanctuary, even the new orangutan population is now being threatened. Asia Pulp & Paper, one of the largest paper companies in the world, was granted license this summer to proceed with a logging operation that will destroy much of the Bukit Tigapuluh forest area?despite a 2008 government agreement to protect Sumatra's remaining (and endangered) forest areas and the species that inhabit them. The logging operation will threaten orangutans as well as up to a quarter of the remaining (also critically endangered) Sumatran tigers.
So the controversy over captive breeding continues, and conservationists debate between devoting resources for breeding endangered species to save them, or to protecting their wild habitats as a more preemptive, and effective, step. In the meantime, easy steps you can take to help, or at least not continue harming, orangutan habitat? Avoid palm oil, and reduce the amount of paper used in your home, office, and school. When you do use paper, buy recycled. Seriously. Make it a necessity. Find other ways to act, and/or?how 'bout adopting one!
Tune in to Focus Earth and learn more about captive breeding and the animals in peril that conservationists are trying to save.
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