KOTA KINABALU: A new landmark study based in Sabah’s east coast has shown that orang-utans in the Kinabatangan have no choice but to use oil palm plantations to travel from one forest patch to another.
“These results have long-term implications for the oil palm industry as well for those working in conservation as we have to look at a larger landscape level rather than concentrate on only forested areas,” said Dr Marc Ancrenaz, the lead author of the results of the study published in Oryx.
This study was carried out by the grassroots, research based non-governmental organisation, HUTAN – Kinabatangan Orang-utan Conservation Programme (KOCP) together with the Sabah Wildlife Department beginning in 2008 with aerial surveys, followed by years of ground surveys and interviews with oil palm workers to investigate why the population of orang-utans within the forested areas on the Kinabatangan was dropping.
“Where were these missing orang-utans? We knew they could not have just disappeared from the small forested areas of the lower Kinabatangan, so we started to look outside the forested areas and what we found, truly shocked us,” shared Ancrenaz who is also the scientific director of HUTAN – KOCP.
First the researchers found orang-utan nests within the oil palm landscape within small patches of trees, even single trees within what could be described as a sea of oil palms.
“Even though some of us have been studying orang-utans for the past 16 years, we were still shocked to find these nests especially in single trees within the oil palm plantations but our biggest surprise was when we found orang-utans making their nest within the oil palm plant itself, this really broke our hearts,” shared Mohd Daisah bin Kapar who is part of the orang-utan team of HUTAN – KOCP.
The continual loss of non protected secondary forest on private lands which are legally still being converted for oil palm plantations has ultimately resulted in the orang-utans using even the oil palm plants to nest for the night as they travel through this landscape to find other forested areas.
“Let me be very clear, orang-utans are not adapting to the oil palm plantations. They are however using it to find other forested areas which means that the palm oil industry now has a very important role to play to sustain the long-term survival of orang-utan populations living in Kinabatangan and other agricultural lands in Sabah,” stressed Ancrenaz.
The study also ascertained that the orang-utans only used the oil palm plants to nest in when it had no access to native trees and they usually did not go too far into the plantations with 90 percent being detected within 100 meters of the forest edge, although it did find some individuals had roamed much further into the plantations.
“While travelling through the oil palm plantations, orang-utans will also supplement their diet by eating ripe fruits collected from the oil palm plant, however everyone must understand that this does not mean that orang-utans can survive in oil palm plantations, it’s like people surviving on a carrot or an olive diet only,” said Ancrenaz.
Having spent 16 years studying orang-utans in the forest of the Kinabatangan, HUTAN – KOCP studies show that wild orang-utans need a high level of diversity in their diet with over 300 species of plants being recorded as being consumed by orang-utans.
“We now know that orang-utans are present in the mature oil palm plantations found in Sabah and since the orang-utan is a protected species under Sabah’s law, oil palm plantations have a legal responsibility to protect these animals and ensure their safe passage – it is illegal to kill, hurt or harass an orang-utan,” stated Datuk Dr Laurentius Ambu, the director of Sabah Wildlife Department.
This means that oil palm landscapes must be adapted to the needs of the orang-utan if we want to secure its long-term survival in Kinabatangan and to sustain tourism industry in the Kinabatangan.
“In particular, the land-use planning needs to be modified in order to reconnect isolated patches of forest found in Lower Kinabatangan. If this is not achieved, then Sabahans have to face the real possibility that the orang-utan population in the Kinabatangan is ultimately going to keep decreasing until they go extinct here,” said Ancrenaz.
Only the palm oil industry can ensure a functional connectivity between the currently isolated forest patches that are inhabited by orang-utans. The future of the orang-utan Kinabatangan population depends on this.
HUTAN – KOCP also shared a short video showing how distressed an orang-utan can get as it moves from the forest to the oil palm plantations to get to another forest patch. The YouTube video can be seen at: http://bit.ly/HUTANKOCP1
The study was published in the peer review journal Oryx and entitled, “Of Pongo, palms and perceptions: a multidisciplinary assessment of Bornean orang-utans Pongo pygmaeus in an oil palm context” by Marc Ancrenaz, Felicity Oram, Laurentius Ambu, Isabelle Lackman, Eddie Ahmad, Hamisah Elahan, Harjinder Kler, Nicola K. Abram and Erik Meijaard. It is freely available at: 10.1017/S0030605313001270