“Hoping to unravel the mysteries of human origin, anthropologist Louis Leakey sent three young women to Africa and Asia to study our closest relatives: It was chimpanzees for Jane Goodall, mountain gorillas for Dian Fossey and the elusive, solitary orangutans for Birute Mary Galdikas.
Nearly four decades later, 62-year-old Galdikas, the least famous of his “angels,” is the only one still at it. And the red apes she studies in Indonesia are on the verge of extinction because forests are being clear-cut and burned to make”There are only an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 orangutans left in the wild, 90 percent of them in Indonesia, said Serge Wich, a scientist at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa. Most live in small, scattered populations that cannot take the onslaught on the forests much longer.
Trees are being cut at a rate of 300 football fields every hour. And massive land-clearing fires have turned the country into one of the top emitters of carbon.
Tanjung Puting, which has 1,600 square miles, clings precariously to the southern tip of Borneo island. Its 6,000 orangutans — one of the two largest populations on the planet, together with the nearby Sebangau National Park — are less vulnerable to diseases and fires.
That has allowed them, to a degree, to live and evolve as they have for millions of years……..”I am not an alarmist,” says Galdikas, speaking calmly but deliberately, her brow slightly furrowed. “But I would say, if nothing is done, orangutan populations outside of national parks have less than 10 years left.”
More from from AP here.
Comments:
Having often had to face families of aggressive, prowling monkeys on the way home from school, I’m firmly on the side of man when he goes mano a chimpo for survival. But there’s no reason to despoil the sacred heritage of nature when survival is not the issue. Land usage – part of the commons – is something that can be subject to government intervention, in my opinion.
I know this sounds anti-libertarian. It isn’t really, because dogmatic libertarianism in these areas ends up destroying its own foundation.
When land is ravaged by massive unrestricted development and speculation-driven usage (think of the vast over-cultivation of soy in Argentina that’s led to the depletion of its soil), that has to encroach on the liberty…indeed survival… of everyone on the planet.
Again, the problem is size. Libertarianism simply doesn’t work for a one-world society.
The answer to that is not to go collectivist. It’s to get rid of the idea of a one-world society. We want as many worlds as possible.
The socialists like to say, a different world is possible.
I like to say, a different world is impossible.
Because there’s no such thing as a world. Once you start thinking of a world you want to change, you’ll end up with the same problems – only somewhere else.