Losing Ground : Cal State Fullerton Conference on Orangutans to Focus on Stemming the Disappearance of the Apes and Their Habitat

Sacrificed to a worldwide demand for mahogany to fashion into desks and dining tables, lost to a need for land to feed a growing population, the rain forests of Borneo and Sumatra are dwindling fast. And as the trees fall, so too goes the only habitat of the orangutan.

Today, half a world away from where the species is making its last stand, scientists, zoo administrators, conservationists and government officials will meet at Cal State Fullerton to assess the accelerating threats facing orangutans and forge a strategy to help them survive.

“The ultimate problem, like it is for so many species on this planet, is habitat destruction,” said Birute Galdikas, co-founder of the L.A.-based Orangutan Foundation International, who has spent the last 23 years studying orangutans in the forests of Borneo. “Without the trees they simply cannot survive.”

Uncertainties abound over just how many orangutans remain in the wild, but experts believe that up to half the population has been lost over the last decade, and the shaggy red apes could be extinct soon after the turn of the century if current deforestation practices continue.

Named for an Indonesian phrase meaning “man of the forest,” orangutans are the most solitary of the great apes, ranging widely as they travel through the forest canopy. As development of their once-lush island habitat continues, the highly intelligent animals--among the closest living relatives to humans--are forced to survive in smaller and more isolated pockets of protected land.

Two large islands in the Indonesian archipelago, Borneo and Sumatra, were still heavily covered with forests when Galdikas began her independent studies in 1971. Since then, an estimated 80% of the orangutan’s habitat has been cleared through commercial logging and agriculture. The orangutan population is estimated today at 20,000 to 50,000.

Organizers hope this weekend’s conference will go beyond traditional academic presentations to plans for protecting the endangered primate.

“Usually at these kinds of sessions, you go, you read your paper and you go home,” said Lori Sheeran, faculty adviser for the conference. “Here, we want something concrete.”

In the past, academic conferences have had “a minimal impact on conservation of species,” said Ulysses Seal, a conservation biologist. “This reflects a longstanding division between the academic and the conservation communities.” That division, he said, is slowly dissolving, as the Fullerton conference illustrates.

Titled “Orangutans: The Neglected Ape,” the three-day meeting was organized by Norm Rosen, a graduate student in anthropology at Cal State Fullerton who learned in the course of his research two years ago that there had not been a major academic conference on the animal since a 1979 meeting in the Netherlands.

“It’s been so many years since conservationists and field people and zoo people have gotten together to discuss the problems facing orangutans,” Rosen said. He approached the faculty of the university’s anthropology department and decided to organize the conference as his master’s project.

A number of individuals and organizations have worked together to bring the conference to Fullerton, including the school’s Anthropology Student Assn., the Zoological Society of San Diego and Zoo Atlanta.

Even with a renewed commitment from the Indonesian government, deforestation and illegal hunting--for food and for the pet trade--continue. Much of the logging is selective, but often the trees left standing by loggers are quickly felled to make room for agriculture.

In addition, too little is known about the eating habits and movements of the animals to create an effective management plan, said Mark Leighton, a Harvard professor.

“There’s a strong need for better surveys of remaining forested areas in Borneo and in some cases a redesign of the reserve system,” Leighton said. Also, he said, “It has to be approached as a comprehensive problem, not just orangutans.”

Borneo and Sumatra are home to a number of equally endangered forest species, many of them found nowhere else: proboscis monkeys, clouded leopards, Sumatran tigers and rhinoceroses.

The success of Indonesian conservation efforts will depend largely on international financial support for park management and basic research, Seal said.

Nearly 60 professionals will make presentations at the conference, and about 200 more will attend.