The destruction of rainforests in Southeast Asia and increasingly in Africa to make way for palm oil cultivation is a "direct threat" to the survival of great apes such as the orangutan, environmentalists warned recently. They said tropical forests were tumbling at a rapid rate, with palm plantations a key driver, despite efforts by the industry's Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) to encourage sustainable cultivation.
"Orangutan and ape habitats are being destroyed," said Doug Cress, from the UN Environment Programme's great ape protection campaign.
"The destruction of rainforest in Southeast Asia and increasingly now in Africa is a direct threat to the great apes." In Southeast Asia alone, up to one million hectares of forest -- nearly the size of Jamaica -- is lost annually to agricultural expansion like palm oil, said Adam Harrison, agriculture policy specialist with the WWF.
"(Land clearing for plantations) has been high. Some of them are in high-quality forests which will have an impact on climate change," he said.
"The orangutans will become extinct within a few decades. In Borneo Island we are already seeing that there are only a handful of rhinos left. It is not a viable population and it will go extinct," Harrison added.
The problem is most acute in leading palm oil producers Malaysia and Indonesia, which account for 85 percent of world production, conference participants said.AFP

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-in-school/palm-oil-farming-poses-threat-to-apes/article6634213.ece