Source : Brunei FM,  27 Jan '10
By : Fitri Shahminan
  

BRUNEI has been described as one of the most ideal countries for endangered wildlife species like orangutans to be brought into the Heart of Borneo’s (HoB) project area as it is still mainly covered by primary and secondary rainforests where major deforestation do not occur.

Hitesh Mehta, an ecotourism figure, said this in his presentation at the Asean Tourism Conference yesterday. In his slide presentation, it was shown that most of the orangutans, one of the endangered species of wildlife of Borneo and the world, were concentrated in most part of Kalimantan, Sabah and Sarawak, but remained outside the protected area of the Heart of Borneo project.

“Over 50-60 per cent of the orangutans are not in the protected area, so there are lot of challenges,” Mehta said.

It was in those areas that people carry out palm oil plantations, the burning of forest, and the killings of orangutans for their value in the black market, he added.

“One thing that Brunei could do, just like Kenya, Uganda and a couple of other places had done is that you (Brunei) set up sanctuaries. Special sanctuaries which are very well administered and exclusive for orangutans,” he said.

He added, “Brunei has the largest forest cover in the world, better than Malaysia and Indonesia. Over 70 per cent, if I’m not mistaken, so it is an advantage to HoB and Brunei itself.”

“What you (Brunei) do is that all these orangutans that have been abandoned, you bring them to the sanctuary, get them ready (get them healthy), and you put (release) them back into the wild,” he added.

Mehta went on to say that some of the species might adapt well to the new environment. “Of course one needs to study historically, whether the orangutans were in those forest or not. But if they were it could be a great way to reintroduce some orangutans into the Borneo ‘thing’ (HoB),” Mehta explained.

He said that as human beings could not force the orangutans to adapt to new environment, it was important that the forest, where the orangutans could possibly be introduced, were studied beforehand, to ensure that there were foods for the species to last long and remained in the same area. He added that the relevant authorities under the project should also help the orangutans to breed in the new areas by maintaining the environment.

The eco-tourism enthusiast said that the HoB project was a fantastic idea if Asean countries could help each other to make it a success. “It is going to put them (Asean) on top of the world as a group that has gotten together and created such a large protected area (forest),” he said.

Mehta suggested to Asean that the ideal idea at present should be to focus on HoB but similarly in due course work on how to protect some of the areas where densely populated by the orangutans.