JAKARTA, INDONESIA (BNO NEWS) -- Environmentalists have expressed grave concern as Indonesia's tiger population in the Sumatran jungle has been reduced to only 400, Greenpeace activists said on Friday. The Sumatran tiger faces imminent extinction.
Illegal logging and plantations have been signaled as the main problem facing the tigers. According to the government of Indonesia, each year approximately 1 million hectares (2.4 million acres) of forest is being cleared. The devastating rate is likely to soon drive the Sumatran tiger into extinction unless urgent action is taken.
Forests around Sumatra's Tesso Nilo are being converted into acacia plantation by PT. Arara Abadi (a subsidiary of Asia Pulp and Paper-APP), Greenpeace Southeast Asia told the Antara news agency, adding that the last remaining forest areas where the tiger lives continues to be destroyed.
The environmental group has urged the Indonesian government to urgently review all existing concessions and increase measures to protect the forests, especially the carbon-rich peatlands.
As the natural habitat of the tigers are being destroyed, the animal is being forced out of their areas and are often seen in villages in search of food or shelter. This has increased tensions among tigers and locals.
On Thursday, Indonesian President Susilo Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono expressed his commitment to save Indonesia's remaining forests but Greenpeace Southeast Asia forest campaigner Rusmadya Maharuddin emphasized that the commitment needs to materialize into concrete action.
Increasing population and the subsequent need for agricultural plantation such as rice paddies previously drove Indonesia's other two tiger sub-species into complete extinction. In the 1930s, the Bali tiger became extinct due to hunting and deforestation and in the 1970s the Javan tiger suffered the same fate, leaving the Sumatran tiger as the sole tiger sub-species in the country.
Saturday, October 1st, 2011
Source: WireUpdate.
Link: http://wireupdate.com/news/sumatran-tiger-on-the-brink-of-extinction-greenpeace-warns.html.
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