Orangutans in Ragunan Zoo The Jakarta Post, Friday, January 30, 2009
The Jakarta zoo’s long-held, uncaring attitude towards these orangutans is nothing less than a national scandal. Orangutans, the most iconic of Indonesian animals, have been left to a 90-year-old lady to care for with money from her own pension while the zoo squanders vast amounts of money restoring stone statues of animals at the front gate Despite repeated attempts over the past 12 months to persuade the zoo director and curator to remedy this disgraceful situation, neither has shown any interest. The Forestry Ministry look upon these captive (though largely caught in the wild) orangutans much the same way as they look upon those in the rapidly disappearing forests they keep on selling; orangutans are nothing more than an inconvenience getting in the way of making serious money. That the Jakarta zoo chooses to neglect orangutans makes one wonder how the rest of the animals are treated. Has anyone ever wondered how the Forestry Ministry can be trusted to be responsible for wildlife when the ministry itself single-handedly is responsible for selling off the forest which is the primary reason why these orangutans are in the zoo in the first place? Is it not about time responsibility for protecting wildlife is transferred to the Environment Ministry? On the Forestry Ministry’s watch, by their own admission at least 75,000 orangutans have been killed in the past 25 years. At this rate, left to them, soon there will only be a few orangutans in the wild, which of course may well be what the Forestry Ministry wants. The question is, will the people of Indonesia stand by and let this happen? Watch this space. Sean Whyte Chief Executive Nature Alert Jakarta Source: THE JAKARTA POST URL: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/01/30/letter-orangutans-ragunan-zoo.html Berbagi foto Flickr dengan teman di dalam Messenger. Jelajahi Yahoo! Messenger yang serba baru sekarang! http://id.messenger.yahoo.com
