Sumatra: Critical Habitat for Elephants and Orangutan Sliced by a New Road! Action Needed!
Sumatra: Critical Habitat for Elephants and Orangutan Sliced by a New Road! Action Needed!
The Backgound: Gunung Leuser National Park covers 7,927 km2 in northern Sumatra. The national park, within the Barisan mountain range, is named after Mount Leuser (3,119 m), Bukit Lawang and its orangutan sanctuary is located here. The three parks of Gunung Leuser, Bukit Barisan Selatan and Kerinci Seblat form a World Heritage Site (UNESCO), the "Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra."
85 percent of the world's remaining Orangutan live within the Leuser Ecosystem, while Gunung Leuser National Park is billed as the largest wilderness area left within Southeast Asia. Critically endangered Sumatran elephant, tiger, rhinoceros, and siamang live here, as does the Sumatran serow, sambar deer and leopard.
In 2011, the Sumatran elephant was listed as critically endangered. Surveys indicate that their population has fallen 35% in the past two decades from about 2,652 to 1,724. This loss is largely due to Sumatra's losing 70% of its lowland forests, due mostly to a boom in the international trade in palm oil. In fact, palm oil plantations now span as far as the eye can see throughout much of Sumatra. This loss of habitat has hugely increased the prevalence of human/elephant conflict and accelerated the decline of both elephants and orangutan.
The huge impact of the new paved road: this road runs 36 kilometers (22 miles) between the districts of Karo and Langkat in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province, and until recently was a mere dirt track. 4.1-km of this road runs through Gunung Leuser National Park. UNESCO had specifically asked that the road not be paved, yet it was recently completed.
The Leuser Ecosystem is the last place on Earth where critically endangered rhinos, tigers, elephants and orangutans still coexist in the wild — but which has also been eaten away at in recent years by human encroachment for oil palm cultivation and illegal logging (see attached article).
According to NGO Forest, Nature and Environment of Aceh, more than 450,000 hectares (1.1 million acres) of the Leuser Ecosystem have been deforested, leaving 1.8 million hectares (4.4 million acres) of intact rainforest.
Recent volcanic activity on the island resulted in the government relocation of houses and plantations into the 51,000-hectare (126,000-acre) park, which was enabled mostly due to the upgraded road. Reports indicate that the number of houses dotting the road prior to paving was 31, and now it swelled to 296 and it hasn't stopped.
While the goal was initially to assist displaced persons from the volcanic activities, 1,200 hectares have been cleared in only 2 years - this is far more than is necessary for the limited number of households.
It has been observed that outsiders are stealing the land under the disguise of being evacuees. This criminal activity is based purely upon greed, and the government appears to be turning a blind eye. The government should have seen this coming when they decided to build this road against the wishes of UNESCO, local environmentalists and scientists.
The world does not need more palm oil, at the expense of Orangutans. This must stop.
Muhammad Yusrizal Adi Syaputra, a law lecturer at the Medan Area University in Medan, the North Sumatra capital, carried out an analysis of the road project and its impacts. He said there was a potential for a decline of 28-36% in bird and mammal populations within a 2.6-km (1.6-mi) radius of the road, and a 25-38% decline within a 17-km (10.5-mi) radius. [from the attached article].
Please read for greater detail:
https://news.mongabay.com/2021/01/karo-langkat-leuser-national-park-unesco-world-heritage-road-deforestation-encroachment/
