Proboscis Monkey Blog

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Sunday 5 march 2006

PALM OIL enemy number one
PALM OIL enemy number one of Borneo and Indonesian tropical rainforest.

This is the header of an article in the Sunday Borneo Post today. Yesterday I mentioned the enormous palm oil plantations here in Sabah Borneo. In this local newspaper it indicated that Indonesia will soon take the lead and be the world’s number one in producing palm oil for the booming demand in margarine, lipstick, ice-cream, shampoo, chocolate, car/motor oil etc. The plantations are devouring the rainforest with our dear Proboscis Monkeys and other endangered animals such as the Orang-utang, Gibbons, Borneo Elephant, the Rhino Hornbill (their own national symbol) and even tigers. All pretty soon sent to extinction. Mr. Fitrian Ardiansyah from conservation group WWF stated: Indonesia is losing its rainforest at a rate of approximately four football fields per minute. Governments are only looking at the profits.
This sector earned 4 billion dollars exporting palm oil in 2004. Another bad effect is that these companies just plunder the forests. The valuable tropical trees are cut down and then quickly collected by helicopters. The devastated areas are left as wasteland and further plantation operations of the palm oil trees are often halted. For example: in West Kalimantan province at the Indonesian Part of Borneo authorities have authorised 2.5 million hectares to be cleared in the past five years but only one million has been actually planted.
The market awareness on the environmental issues is much more intense in Europe than in China. Positive news comes from the World Bank and some private banks, they refuse to finance palm-oil projects detrimental to primary forests with high ecological value!
We hope you can help us and bring this problem and this blog under the eyes of your friends and politicians in your country.  Make people aware of these problems as we like to do with this blog and photos. Borneo and Indonesia are (were) beautiful, very attractive and interesting for tourist travellers. But for how long? If all wild-life has gone, what is the result? Guess what. Yesterday Malaysia Minister of Tourism Datuk Mansor declared 2007 as “ Visit Malaysia Year”.  Estimated tourists 20.1 million. Revenue 11 billion Euros. Let’s hope they understand that many tourists (and the next generations)  will come for the natural, original environment, rainforest, underwater world, birds, primates like the Orang-utang and of course our Proboscis Monkey and they will not be keen on a Malaysia spoilt by oil palm plantations!
 

THE JAN PROBOSCIS MONKEY BLOG
is written now ‘LIVE’ in Borneo Malaysia
by Jan van der Meer
founder http://www.global-dvc.org/ and
Photographer and DVD-producer
of the Proboscis Monkey in Borneo
other info on Proboscis Monkey in Dutch and more
photographs and first edited videoclips at:
http://www.orang-belanda.hyves.nl/

Proboscis Monkey in logo Rainforest Lodge but not one there.
Date: 4 march 2006

On their homepage the owners of the luxury Borneo Rainforest Lodge at Danum Valley use ‘our’ Proboscis Monkey as a logo. As if one could see them here. Forget it. Our guide explained: about 6 years ago after deportation (with physically big problems for sure) they all left this part of the dense forest, searching for their life-supporting trees and leaves elsewhere. We only saw some Orang-utangs which consume less specific food. Many people visiting this lodge will not see one animal. You only hear the beautiful constant jungle sounds of frogs, cicadas, some birds and in the morning the beautiful song of some gibbons. If you are very lucky you can hear and see their flying national symbol the big Rhino Hornbill bird. Not one Borneo Rainforest Staff member could acknowledge and promise me to remove the Proboscis Monkey from their homepage….they better put him as a logo in a coffin instead of a circle.

THE JAN PROBOSCIS MONKEY BLOG
is written now ‘LIVE’ in Borneo Malaysia
by Jan van der Meer
founder http://www.global-dvc.org/ and
Photographer and DVD-producer
of the Proboscis Monkey in Borneo
other info on Proboscis Monkey in Dutch and more
photographs and first edited videoclips at:
http://www.orang-belanda.hyves.nl/

Date: 3 march 2006
Place: Borneo Rainforest Lodge Danum Valley.

Today we are visiting Borneo Rainforest to see what is left of it and how we can put a stop to declining population of our Proboscis Monkey also called here the Orang Belanda. We are also attracted to this place by the Proboscis Logo on their homepage. (So are they actually also there? Will we see them?). After a period of heavy rainfall during the last couple of  weeks of February, the main tar-roads and bridges were partly destroyed. Roads are being reconstructed. So we had to take an alternative muddy road. From the small airport in Lahad Datu to this fully booked Rainforest Lodge took us about three hours in a four wheel-drive through the oil palm plantations. Some other guests came by bus from Kota Kinabalu which took them seven hours. A very depressing trip. All you see left and right of the road is palm oil trees. The jungle is gone. No birds, no monkeys, no butterflies, nothing else but palm oil trees, everywhere you look. All planted by Malaysian and Indonesian human hands. It made us very sad to see with our own eyes the unbelievable destruction of the Sabah jungle.
Every piece of the ancient first and second category jungle has been removed for the benefit of profit money for Malaysian and Indonesian companies. To clear the rainforest (still going on) all wildlife species had to move or famish. Many of these poor animals got burned down with the forest or died from starvation missing their habitat with special daily diets. Our beloved vegetarian the Proboscis Monkey eats mainly leaves of one tree. Only in swamp areas and lagoons they can find leaves of the trees which the exclusively live on. It is their major diet. That is why they could never survive elsewhere or in Zoos. A 1997 attempt to do so with about 100 Proboscis Monkeys failed. (Read the KSBK report). Not a single one of he deported Proboscis survived in zoos in Surabaya and Toronto Zoo. Some call all this a primate genocide.
THE JAN PROBOSCIS MONKEY BLOG
is written now ‘LIVE’ in Borneo Malaysia
by Jan van der Meer
founder http://www.global-dvc.org/ and
Photographer and DVD-producer
of the Proboscis Monkey in Borneo
other info on Proboscis Monkey in Dutch and more
photographs and first edited videoclips at:
http://www.orang-belanda.hyves.nl/

Jan van der Meer is a wildlife photographer travelling now in Borneo with his wife. He is shooting stunning images like this one!

Ph. copyright: Jan van der Meer 2006
www.orang-belanda.hyves.nl