SAY NO TO PALM OIL

Suffering Species

There are thousands of Bornean and Sumatran species under threat due to palm oil plantations. Their dense, bio-diverse habitat is being destroyed at an alarming rate to make way for these large-scale plantations, leading to the endangerment of their species.

The animals are not only losing their habitat, but the roads constructed for the plantation workers expose the forest to poachers and animal smugglers.
These roads allow the poachers and smugglers to access the forest and capture the exotic wildlife within. These animals are often sold on the illegal pet trade market, used in the entertainment business, slaughtered in order to make medicines, killed for their fur, skin or ivory, or, in the case of Sunbears; put in small cages and milked for their bile (fluid in liver).

Orangutans, along with many other endangered South-East Asian animal species, can now only be found living in fragmented pockets of remaining rainforest. This is not only due to habitat destruction, but also these sickening acts of cruelty and murder.

Below are just a few of the many wildlife species under threat due to palm oil.
There is also examples of just four of the many magnificent tropical flower species threatened by palm oil production.

Sumatran & Bornean Orangutan

Proboscis Monkey

Pygmy Elephant

Asian Rhinoceros

Sumatran Tiger

Sunbear

Gibbon

Bay Cat

Clouded Leopard

Spectral Tarsier

Bornean Flat-headed Frog

Rhinoceros Hornbill (bird)

Anoa	Fishing Cat - Sumatra

Lar Gibbon (White-handed Gibbon)

Dhole (Red dog)

Malayan Tapir

Bornean Tree Shrew

Bornean Bristlehead

Flat-headed Cat

Refflesia flower

Phalaenopsis Gigantea orchid

Titan Arum flower

Bornean Pitcher plant

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Orang-u-facts

Did you know...

~ There are two surviving species of orangutan: The endangered Bornean Orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) and the critically endangered Sumatran Orangutan (Pongo abelii).

~ Large male orangutans can weigh up to 110kg! But most orangutans weigh between 33kg and 82kg.

~ Every 5 orangutans per square kilometre of forest helps sustain: 5 species of Hornbill, 50 species of fruit tree, 15 species of Lianas, and many other species!

~ Orangutan babies stay with their mothers for the first 6 - 8 years of their life.

~ 65 - 90% of an orangutan's diet is fruit, however, they eat at least 350 different food items, including: leaves, shoots, bark, vines, fungi, orchids, ants, termites, insects, honey and bird eggs.

~ Calls made by flanged males (dominant males) can be heard up to a kilometre away. These calls are referred to as 'long calls'.

~ The average orangutan has the intelligence of a 6-year-old human child.

~ Fossils have shown that orangutans in Southern China, in the early to middle Pleistocene age, were 40% larger than modern orangutans.

~ These intelligent apes make their own tools made from sticks, bark and rocks, which they use to extract insects from tree hollows and remove yummy seeds from fruits and pods. Orangutans also weave together branches and foliage to make themselves sleeping nests each night.

~ The Orangutan is the only member of the grate ape family outside of Africa.

~ These human-like creatures are the largest tree-dwelling mammals on the planet, with longer arms than any other great ape.

~ Orangutans, like humans, are vulnerable to hepatitis A, B & C, herpes, HIV and TBC. They are also susceptible to boredom induced stress and therefore need regular mental stimulation, which they would not receive if locked away in a confined area.

~ Orangutans tend to live in swampy forest areas, close to rivers, where the average annual rainfall is 3000mm.

~ Orangutans each have their own unique fingerprint, just like we do!

~ It costs approximately $3,500(US) to home one orphaned orangutan each year at the Nyaru Menteng orangutan centre.

~ Biochemical evidence, including protein and DNA studies, indicates that orangutan split off from hominids (the now-extinct human-like predecessor family, known only from fossils) and the African apes up to five million years ago. Their ancestors lived in open woodland habitat, similar to that found in Southern China in the Pliocene period, with the first recorded form of the modern species of orangutan appearing at the beginning of the Pleistocene period.