As Indonesia's forests burn, a desperate race to save endangered orangutans, Pg14

Key Highlights:

• Indonesian authorities and conservation workers relocated eight orangutans to a safe location after wildfires destroyed their habitats on Borneo.
• The relocation involved three mother-child pairs and two adolescent male orangutans moved to Batu Nyambu protected forest.
• Indonesia is experiencing its most intense wildfires in 11 years, aggravated by the El Niño weather pattern, with blazes expected to continue until November.
• Fires burned over 202,000 hectares of land between January and July, with independent estimates reaching nearly 896,000 hectares by August.
• The fires have caused a health crisis, leading to 175,000 cases of respiratory illness in Indonesia and widespread haze affecting neighboring countries like Singapore and Malaysia.

Detailed Insights:

• The rescued orangutans were moved from several locations between August and September by the Indonesian government and the wildlife foundation Yayasan Inisiasi Alam Rehabilitasi Indonesia (YIARI).
• The relocation process was arduous, involving car, boat, and foot travel, with orangutans carried in cages suspended from bamboo poles.
• The wildfires are primarily affecting the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, critical habitats for orangutans.
• A female Bornean orangutan, nicknamed Novita, was found with burns in the Katune forest in Central Kalimantan province and taken to a rehabilitation center in Nyaru Menteng.
• Not all rescued animals survive; a male orangutan named Sampurna died after being found on a palm oil plantation in West Kalimantan.
• Since August, the West Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Agency and YIARI have rescued 46 orangutans, while the Forestry Ministry reported over 270 wild animals rescued in Kalimantan.
• Orangutans are classified as critically endangered great apes, found exclusively in the wild on Borneo and Sumatra, with populations declining due to deforestation, wildfires, and poaching.
• The Nusantara Atlas project independently monitors fires using satellite imagery, providing alternative data on the scale of destruction.
• The transboundary haze has led to school closures in Malaysia and Singapore, and even reached the Philippines, with an emergency declared in Sarawak, Malaysia.

Key Concepts Involved:

• El Niño: A climate pattern describing unusual warming of surface waters in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, impacting global weather.
• Critically Endangered Species: The highest risk category assigned by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for species facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild.
• Transboundary Haze Pollution: Air pollution, primarily from forest and peatland fires, that crosses national borders, affecting air quality and health in multiple countries.