TEMPO.CO, Jakarta- The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a press release on Friday, July 31, 2015, large scale forest conversion in Borneo island contributed to the extinction of orangutans.

According to a report issued by UNEP and Liverpool John Moores University in collaboration with the Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP), a large-scale conversion of forests of Borneo to the development of oil palm plantations will the endangered orangutans.

“Massive conversion of Borneo's forests for agricultural development - primarily oil palm - will leave the endangered orangutans fragmented and facing extinction in a number of areas,” a recent UNEP report stated.

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner urged adoption of programmes that measure the natural capital of a region and offer payment for ecosystem services to mitigate these threats.

"Now, it is time to utilize these approaches and divert from an unsustainable pathway to development," he wrote in the report's foreword. "It is clear that a future without sustainable development will be a future with a different climate and, eventually, without orangutans, one of our closest relatives."

A recent UN report on climate change impacts on the land and the future of orangutans of Borneo states, land conversion policy in Kalimantan are unsustainable not only have an impact on orangutans live in the forest but also the entire human population.

Deforestation in Borneo, according to the report, is among the highest in the world for more than two decades. The report also stated that 56 percent of tropical lowland forest protected is estimated to be lost between the period of 1985 and 2001.

If deforestation in Southeast Asia continues, according to the report, 75 percent of the primary forest will be lost by 2030.

According to data from Forest Watch Indonesia (FWI), deforestation in Indonesia has declined from two million hectares per year in the period 1980-1990's to around 1.5 million hectares per year during 2000-2009 and approximately 1.1 million hectares in the period 2009-2013.

ANTARA | NZM