São Tomé birds threatened by palm oil

From BirdLife:

Fact finding expedition to São Tomé & Principe puts biodiversity hotspot on the map

Mon, Feb 4, 2013

SPEA maps palm oil company’s effect on local biodiversity

São Tomé and Príncipe, an island nation located in the Gulf of Guinea, off the western equatorial coast of Central Africa, is probably one of the last unknown biodiversity hotspots in Africa. The country’s forests are home to 28 species of endemic birds, an extraordinary number considering the country’s size (the Galapagos, which is eight times bigger, has 22).

Habitat destruction, together with the absence of any census or monitoring schemes, are the country’s biggest threats. In 2010 the São Tomé and Príncipe Government signed a contract with Agripalma (a joint venture between the company Socfinco and the São Tomé Government), loaning a 5,000 hectare concession to plant oil palm. According to Agripalma, this size would be necessary in order to secure the profitability of this venture. Unfortunately, and according to SPEA’s (Portuguese Society for the Study of Birds, BirdLife in Portugal) previous visits, these 5,000 hectares include rich secondary forest zones located in the surroundings or directly within the Obó Natural Park. This Park covers one third of the island and is home to some of the most endangered birds of the world, such as the critically endangered Dwarf Olive Ibis Bostrychia bocagei, the São Tomé Fiscal Lanius newtoni and the São Tomé Grosbeak Neospiza concolor.

If we are serious about preserving these iconic species while allowing a sustainable country’s development, we must act and we must do it now.

Following an assessment done in 2012, a joint mission this month led by SPEA and funded by RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds), will arrive in São Tomé. Counting on the support of local ABS (Associação de Biólogos São Tomenses), SPEA’s biologist Nuno Barros will spend two months mapping all the areas currently affected by the Agripalma palm oil company. The results of these surveys will be made available to both Agripalma and the São Tomé and Príncipe government in order to inform further decision-making.

But SPEA’s objectives are not only focusing on the terrestrial species. With the support of BirdLife’s Global Seabird Programme, and counting on the vital sponsorship offered by Bom-Bom Island Resort, SPEA will lead BirdLife’s first expedition to the Tinhosas Islands.

This tiny archipelago, located 12 miles south-west of Principe Island, hosts more than 300,000 breeding seabirds, including Brown Booby Sula leucogaster, Sooty Tern Sterna fuscata, Brown Noddy Anous stollidus, Black Noddy Anous minutus and the White-tailed Tropicbird Phaethon lepturus. Some other species, such as the Bridled Tern Sterna anaethetus and Madeiran Storm-petrel Oceanodroma castro, could also be breeding there, but so far has not been confirmed.

“We are very excited about this field-trip” says SPEA’s biologist Nuno Barros. “São Tomé and Principe is clearly one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, yet there is so much to be done in terms of data collection, monitoring and management, we really hope this will be the first of a series of projects, there is a lot of work waiting for us out there!”

Would you like to help SPEA and the Global Seabird Programme to carry out further research in both the tropical forests and the unknown seabird colonies of São Tomé and Principe? Please get in touch with Ivan Ramirez, European Marine Coordinator, BirdLife Europe on email: ivan.ramirez@birdlife.org.

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Indonesian rockers support orangutans

From mongabay.com:

Featured video: plight of orangutans highlighted with new rock song

January 17, 2012

An Indonesian rock band, Navicula, is highlighting the plight of orangutans in their native country through a new song entitled, aptly, “Orangutan.” The band has created a music video for the song, including footage of a documentary, Green: The Film that follows a starving female orangutan named Green. The band “dedicated the song to encourage people to do more in orangutan conservation, to protect this endangered species.”

The orangutan is imperiled in Indonesia largely due to habitat loss for palm oil plantations and logging for pulp and paper plantations, but also hunting and killing the great apes as agricultural pests are additional problems. In fact, a recent study in PLoS One found that conflict between orangutans and humans proved worst in areas that have been converted for timber, wood-pulp, or palm oil. It concluded that orangutans are currently being killed at a rate faster than they can reproduce, suggesting orangutans could go extinct outside protected areas.

Along this line, recent news in Indonesia has focused on plantations allowing workers to kill orangutans. In one instance a Malaysian palm oil plantation company operating East Kalimantan was found to have been paying a bounty of $110 to workers for each orangutan they killed. Since the news broke, two major plantation companies, PT SMART and APP, have signed a zero-tolerance pledge for killing orangutans in their plantations.

Palm oil companies offering rewards for killing orangutans: here.

Wild orangutans that have come into contact with eco-tourists over a period of years show an immediate stress response but no signs of chronic stress, unlike other species in which permanent alterations in stress responses have been documented, new research from an Indiana University anthropologist has found: here.

Rebel hero who has ‘betrayed’ the last of Aceh’s orang-utans. Governor has dismayed supporters by allowing the destruction of a Sumatran forest where the apes live: here.

Sumatran orangutans have undergone a substantial recent population decline, according to a new genetic study, but the same research revealed the existence of critical corridors for dispersal migrations that, if protected, can help maintain genetic diversity and aid in the species’ conservation: here.

Jakarta, Indonesia – In the space of a week the National Geographic Society (NGS) has publicly broken ties with Asian Pulp and Paper (APP) and the Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) has called for an investigation after a Greenpeace report revealed the company was illegally logging protected tree species: here.

Orangutan caught in snare as ‘sustainable’ palm oil company trashes forest: here.

October 2012. The orangutans in Sumatra are in danger of becoming extinct. Anthropologists from the University of Zurich have proved that the Sumatran orangutan has suffered a drastic decrease in population recently: here.

Indonesia: Unchallenged crimes of “rotten apple” palm oil company: here.

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Prince Charles accused of destroying environment

This video from ITN TV in Britain says about itself:

Prince Charles accidentally revealed what he really thought about the press when he posed for pictures in the Swiss Alps with his two sons William and Harry. Not realising he could be heard he described reporters as “those bloody people” and a BBC journalist Nicholas Witchell as “awful”.

From British daily The Independent:

How Prince’s food is destroying rainforests

Duchy Original biscuits, soup and pies contain oil responsible for deforestation

By Martin Hickman, Consumer affairs correspondent

Saturday, 2 May 2009

Prince Charles, who is touring the world campaigning to save the rainforests, is selling products containing an ingredient blamed for wrecking them.

Palm oil is present in five of products in his Duchy Originals range of organic groceries sold in British shops.

In the past year, Prince Charles has flown to the Amazon and Indonesia to lecture politicians, businesses and the public about the need to save rainforests, whose rapid destruction kills rare animals and hastens climate change.

WWF to grade palm oil buyers: here.

British supermarkets accused over destruction of Amazon rainforest: here.

Environmental campaigners Greenpeace have revealed some of Britain’s biggest brands are complicit in the illegal destruction of vast swathes of the Amazon rainforest: here.

ENVIRONMENTALISTS warned on Tuesday that scores of communities in Malaysia and Indonesia are being uprooted by rapidly expanding palm-oil plantations as corporations compete to meet demand for biofuels: here.

Orangutan guerrillas fight palm oil in Borneo: here.

Indonesian orangutans, tigers and elephants threatened by new logging scheme: here.

Telegraph: Prince Charles forced to rethink plans for Poundbury because of pollution fears: here.

Prince Charles’s meddling in planning ‘unconstitutional’, says architect Richard Rogers: here.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has accused Prince Charles of using his position to exert “undue influence” to sway planning decisions: here.

Prince William has been criticised over the amount of taxpayers’ money it will cost in extra police protection during his RAF training: here.

Animal welfare groups are accusing Britain’s Prince Harry of animal cruelty after he continued to play in a polo game after his horse was allegedly wounded by spikes on the royal’s riding spurs: here.

Uganda scraps plan to cut rainforest for palm oil

Reuters reports:

Uganda scraps plan to cut rainforest for palm oil

26 May 2007 10:46:49 GMT

By Tim Cocks

KAMPALA, May 26 – Uganda’s government has scrapped plans to convert thousands of hectares of rainforest on an island in Lake Victoria into a palm oil plantation, the environment minister said on Saturday.

President Yoweri Museveni has faced intense opposition, including violent protests, over proposals to give private firms the right to bulldoze protected forests to create farms.

The government said it could not license Kenyan company Bidco to plant palm in what is now a protected forest on Bugala island.

Days earlier, Uganda also suspended a separate proposal to give a chunk of mainland forest reserve to a sugar grower.

“They have got to look for alternative land,” Environment Minister Maria Mutagamba told Reuters.

Mutagamba said the National Forest Authority had blocked the license.

Former NFA boss Olav Bjella quit last year over the issue, after coming under government pressure.

In April, three people were killed in a protest against government plans to give 7,100 hectares of Mabira Forest, a nature reserve since 1932, to Mehta, a private a sugar producer.

Like Mabira, Bugala island is home to rare species of plants, monkeys and birds that conservationists say are of high value. …

Bidco has already planted 4,000 hectares on Bugala, mostly on land from which non-protected rainforest was bulldozed, but it needs 2,500 hectares more.

A private letter from Mutagamba to the cabinet in January shows Bidco was concerned the project would “jeopardise the loans they were processing with … financing agencies due to … negative publicity.”

Palm oil crops have been hailed as a new biofuel to help trim the world’s dependence on fossil fuels and fight carbon dioxide emissions blamed for global warming.

But environmental groups say big palm producers such as Malaysia and Indonesia are clearing millions of hectares of carbon-storing rainforest to make way for their plantations.