VOA常速英语:Orangutans Become Refugees From Deforestation, Poaching(翻译)

These once captive mother orangutans are raising their children in the hills of the Leuser Ecosystem – the most biodiverse forest in Asia.

Here in the Gunung Leuser National Park, refugees of rapacious deforestation are reintroduced into a semi-wild existence.

Increasing numbers of baby orangutans in Indonesia are growing up as orphans – their mothers killed by poachers.

Panut Hadisiswoyo leads patrols against illegal poaching, a trade he says only exists because deforestation is hemming the animals into shrinking enclaves.

“People want to keep the orangutan as pet you know, so [the] pet trade is increasing because there is access that is triggered by the deforestation and then because of that traders want to sell orangutans to overseas including to Malaysia, to Thailand.”

The poachers operate largely in the 2.6 million hectare Leuser Ecosystem -home to some 6,700 orangutans, as well as rhinos, elephants, tigers and leopards.

More than 1.3 million hectares of forest was lost in Northern Sumatra between 2001 and 2014, much inside Leuser according to Global Forest Watch.

Perhaps the biggest culprit is illegal plantations of palm oil, a boom crop used in most snacks and cosmetics.

Peatland is drained and burned for clearance, destroying habitats and sparking the world’s worst fires.

“When these companies go into these areas they’ll chop all the major trees down, they’ll bulldoze it, they’ll burn it and they’ll kill every living thing even down to ants and mosses and lichens,not just orangutans, but most of the orangutans are killed in that process too.”

People like Ian Singleton, founder of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program, are left to deal with victims.

“I always refer to these as the lucky survivors of that apocalyptic wave of destruction, but they’re also refugees.”

Aceh’s semi-autonomous government now wants to open up vast tracks of Leuser – almost half according to conservation groups - for legal cultivation through a proposed spatial plan.

For those working tirelessly to protect the animals, that would be an abject disaster.

David Boyle and Laura Villadiego, for VOA News, in SUMATRA.