Indonesia’s population has grown from 10 million people at the start of the 20th century to over 240 million in 2014. This loss of habitat is the result of economic pressures, man’s greed and ignorance and natural disasters. Now even their habitat on the remaining two islands is threatened. Many different species of plants and animals have yet to be discovered there. The treasures of this forest are hard to estimate since they are so precious and numerous. This forest is crossed with large rivers and has the greatest number of species of trees, birds and animals per acre of almost anyplace in the world. Their home is in beautiful, lush rainforest, and shared by many other endangered species, such as tigers, elephants and rhinos. Today they survive only on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. Once this species roamed over thousands of miles across the rainforests of Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, governmental mandates, meant to protect the land and the animals, disappear faster than do the trees. Recent headlines reported how one palm oil firm hunted down orangutans while expanding their cash crop production. Each palm plantation that destroys thousands of hectares in pursuit of massive profits also takes with it the lives of many orangutans. As shocking as the rapid loss of rainforests has been over these past few decades, nothing compares to the amount of land being bulldozed by palm oil plantations in the 21st century. Orangutans have lost well over 80% of their habitat in the last 20 years, and an estimated one-third of the wild population died during the fires of 1997-98. The main threats in today to the survival of orangutans: Economic crisis combined with natural disasters and human abuse of the forest are pushing one of humankind’s closest cousins to extinction. Never before has their very existence been threatened so severely.
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