Indonesia goes ape for orangutans

Under new legislation, Indonesia will stabilise orangutan populations and habitat by 2017, return orangutans in captivity to the wild by 2015 and promote sustainable management of the forests, USAID said.

They said a 2004 survey found that deforestation had led to the deaths of 3,000 orangutans per year since the 1970s. Indonesia is currently home to nearly 62,000 of the popular primates.

"Polar bears represent a problem of global warming," said Erik Meijaard, regional coordinator for the Orangutan Conservation Services Programme.

"But orangutans stand for forest protection and climate change mitigation."

By sustainably managing the forests under the Orangutan Action Plan, as many as 9,800 orangutans, or one in five of the species of this ape that live on Borneo, the island that is shared by Indonesia and Malaysia, he said.