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Komodo dragons are the largest lizard that survives. Unfortunately, as they are found only on a series of islands amongst the Indonesia archipelago, sea level rise can quickly rob them of prime habitat.
As a result of this, they have been moved from vulnerable to endangered.
Indonesia is a archipelago of islands. Once connected to the Asian mainland, animals were able to make their way along the peninsular. When sea levels rose in the ancient past they were marooned on the islands.
Once they were found on a few islands including Bali and Java. They are now only found Sumatra. Sumatra is thought to have 400 tigers in 2010. This is down from as many as 1000 back in 1978.
San diago zoo estimate the number remaining in the wild at 400-600, but I cannot find any reason for this higher band.
It is possible that the tiger population has increased a bit, but in certainly has not doubled.
This proposal would mean that Indonesia could cut down all its rainforest and replace them with Palm Oil, and would have engaged in zero deforestation.
This has to be condemned globally, There are myriad problems with this. The destruction of the rainforest would release billions of tonnes of carbon into the air. Palm oil, will be incapable of reabsorbing all this carbon. Furthermore, palm oil plantations support just a handful of species of wildlife, so this would mean the end of the orangutan Sumatran elephant, tiger leopard and rhino.
Thankfully, there are many voices within Indonesia which are already condemning this move.
At the moment, this idea is the thought of various extreme academics (and much of the government). If it were to find acceptance, we could see the wholesale destruction of the forests of Indonesia, an area of deforestation that would have a huge effect on the worlds attempts to mitigate global warming. Arguments that palm oil trees absorb carbon as well, are absurd, as they absorb a tiny proportion of the carbon that would be emitted.
Hopefully, this will remain a crackpot academic idea, and a governmental daydream and never be put into place. We must be vigilant that it isnt.
The Tapanuli Orangutan lives on Sumatra but are thought to be more closely related to Bornean Orangutans. Numbering around 800 members, they had a far wider ranging habitat until recently. They are now restricted to about 1000 square km – about 2.5% of their former range.
What is harder, is that these Orangutans are not naturally mountainous animals, but have been driven there by the hunting that has so decimated their numbers.
Continue reading “The Tapanuli Orangutan is still threatened with extinction, despite only recently being discovered”This encompasses an area about the size of South Carolina, and is made up of about 75% forest with the rest peat.
Much wildlife live in these forests including orangutans, so this move is good for both carbon emissions and biodiversity.
The company in question, which has no rights to do any logging, is now suing the longtime inhabitants and owners of land it wants to clear, for trespass.
This is obviously quite peculiar, and a case that should be laughed out of court. The community alleges the company has encroached on community land, has withheld key documents about the certification process, and failed to obtain free, prior and informed consent of affected communities during the certification process.
This should be very simple, if they have permission and they got it legally without dishonesty they will be able to prove it. All of the evidence would suggest that that is not going to be possible, and therefore they should be laughed out of court, unfortunately that is not likely to happen.
The country of Indonesia consists of many islands. Due to their relative size, these islands have led to many subspecies of animals adapting.
In the past tigers existed on at least three of these islands. These animals once lived on Java and Bali, but now there is only a small population in Sumatra.
In Java this leaves the the largest predator population consisting of the leopard – this is why it is so concerning that these leopards are being poached.
In a judgement handed down in 2017, a court ruled that the Indonesian government must unveil their maps showing what land use has been decided where.
The government is still fighting.
It is odd that they are still fighting. In recent years there have been multiple problems where plantations have seemingly been given permission in areas that are also set aside for nature.
Continue reading “Indonesian government is still fighting to hide bad behaviour”I wrote the other day, about the ability of brewing palm oil, rather than creating huge estates to grow it. Perhaps these two issues could be combined to solve both problems
Well a few months ago, Indonesia changed its regulations which would allow large areas of protected land to be cleared for food production.
Continue reading “Indonesia has recently changed its rules, designating large areas once protected forests for food production”Indonesia is pressing ahead with its desire to build a dam in the Sumatran rainforest. Now when the Dam is filled and floods this vast area of rainforest, all the carbon currently stored in the trees will be released back into the air- either as carbon or as meeting due to the breakdown of the wood under water. Calculations were made suggesting that this damn could take decades or even centuries to reach carbon neutral based on the amount of Carbon released when it is filled.