Indonesian Orangutan Habitat Wiped Out for Airport & Brothel

As if orangutans didn’t already have it hard enough in Indonesia, where their very existence is being threatened by palm oil production, now they’re losing land in a national park to commercial developments – including a brothel.

That’s right, this endangered species is being pushed out of one of the few remaining homes it has so that Indonesian men can contract STDs from strange women. Hurray for the onward march of human progress!

From Yahoo News (AFP):

Almost 600 of the long-haired apes have disappeared from Kutai National Park, East Kalimantan province, over the past seven years of unchecked construction, the Centre for Orangutan Protection (COP) said in a statement.

“The number of orangutans in the area, which was 600 individuals in 2004, has fallen to only 30 to 60 individuals at present,” Hardi Baktiantoro from the Centre for Orangutan Protection (COP) told AFP.

“The Kutai National Park has been changing into a city, complete with an airport, gas stations, marketplace… a bus terminal and prostitution complex,” COP habitat campaign manager Yon Thayrun said in a press release.

The root of the problem, according to Thayrun, is that officials are giving away land spaces to people to win their votes in the local administration elections. What it comes down to, as usual, are two of mankind’s biggest weaknesses: greed and the desire for power.

The more I hear about things like this, the more I believe that the world would be far better off without us.

Link [Yahoo News]
Photo credit: MoonBattery.com

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