Protection and restoration of peat areas for orangutans

Authors:
Doug Cress, Johannes Refisch, Julien Simery and Serge Wich

Book:
Proceedings of the 15th International Peat Congress

Venue:
Kuching

Keywords:
great-apes-survival-partnership, palm-plantations, peatlands, pulp-plantations

Documentfile:
ipc16p728a441cress.refisch.etal_.pdf

Summary:

Large areas of peat swamps in Southeast Asia have been converted through agro-industrial development to palm or pulp plantations over the last 25 years, and today only about 34% of the original peatlands remain under natural forest cover. Lowland humid tropical peat swamp forests are important habitat for Orangutan – which are found only on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra – and other endangered species. Recently, vast forest areas have been affected by fires and the Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP) estimates that 28.4% of those fires in Borneo occurred within Orangutan habitat. As critical habitat for Orangutan, the peat forests in Indonesia and Malaysia…