By Ananda Teresia<\/p>\n
JAKARTA, June 10 (Reuters) – Deadly floods and landslides in Indonesia’s Sumatra last year have wiped out at least 7% of the total population of the \u200ccritically endangered Tapanuli orangutan, a new report released on Wednesday showed.<\/p>\n
The cyclone-induced floods and \u200clandslides killed at least 1,200 people and damaged around 300,000 homes, with environmental groups blaming the extent of the \u200bdamage on the rapid deforestation of Sumatra island.<\/p>\n
At least 58 Tapanuli orangutans, which are endemic to an area around north Sumatra’s Batang Toru forest, were killed in the floods, the report said, citing a survey of the western block of the forest that is home to a majority of the \u200ctotal population of 800 primates.<\/p>\n
The report, \u2060a joint study by Brunei-based Borneo Futures, World Weather Attribution and Liverpool John Moores University, did not survey the other parts of the forest, which \u2060means the death toll could have been higher.<\/p>\n
The findings were derived from analysing satellite images of the damage to the West Block of Batang Toru and historical records of the orangutan population there.<\/p>\n
Human-induced climate \u200bchange \u200bhas likely increased the intensity and frequency of extreme \u200brainfall around Malacca Strait, putting Tapanuli \u200corangutan’s habitat at greater risk, the study said.<\/p>\n
Erik Meijaard from Borneo Futures, who was the lead author of the study, said the heavy rain soaked the soil so much that large parts of hillsides in the primary forests collapsed in fast-moving landslides.<\/p>\n
“If you get caught as an orangutan… if anything comes down at great speeds, survival chances are going to be very minimal, so \u200cit became a real concern,” he said.<\/p>\n
“This level of \u200bloss is substantial for a species with such a \u200bsmall total population. When combined with ongoing \u200bpressures such as habitat degradation and human-wildlife conflict, it further increases the \u200curgency of implementing and adequately resourcing a \u200bcoordinated species action plan,” Meijaard \u200badded.<\/p>\n
Panut Hadisiswoyo, another researcher, urged the Indonesian government to work together with NGOs and researchers to prevent the further decline of orangutan population.<\/p>\n
“We can minimise the poaching or hunting \u200band then the number probably \u200ccan be stabilised,” he said, adding that all parties must pay attention to the \u200bpoor use of land, which also contributes to the declining population.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Ananda \u200bTeresia; editing by Gibran Peshimam and David Stanway)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ananda Teresia JAKARTA, June 10 (Reuters) – Deadly floods and landslides in Indonesia’s Sumatra last year have…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":859057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[184152,350477,22475,50,200692,350474,350476,103,350475],"class_list":["post-859056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-batang-toru","tag-borneo-futures","tag-liverpool-john-moores-university","tag-news","tag-sumatra","tag-tapanuli-orangutan","tag-total-population","tag-world","tag-world-weather-attribution"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116729579270750258","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=859056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/859057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}