25/7/06 (The Jakarta Post, Jakarta)  - The conversion of jungles into plantations is becoming the biggest threat to the survival of orangutans in Kalimantan, while illegal logging will likely remain the most significant threat to the big apes in Sumatra, an environmentalist says.

Large-scale forest conversion in Kalimantan has just begun to increase in this decade, said Carel P. van Schaik of the Borneo Orangutan Survival (BOS) Foundation.

"In the '90s, there were a lot of forest fires in Kalimantan, instead of forests being converted into oil palm plantations," he said in Jakarta recently.

In Sumatra, he said, the massive conversion of forests into oil palm plantations during the 1990s caused a more than 50 percent decline in the orangutan population.

"It was the biggest habitat destruction for the last 15 years," said van Schaik, who also teaches at the University of Zurich.

BOS executive director Aldrianto Priadjati confirmed the decrease in the orangutan population in Kalimantan and Sumatra, the big apes' original habitat.

"According to data released by International Workshop on Population and Habitat Viability Analysis in 2004, there are 57,797 orangutans left in Kalimantan and 7,501 in Sumatra," he said.

Aldrianto said the population could plunge to zero over the next decade or two, as predicted by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, if steps were not taken to mitigate the threats.

According to a World Bank report, oil palm plantations are the major reason forest has been destroyed at the rate of two million hectares each year for the last decade.

Until recently, the government had planned to clear 1.8 million hectares for oil palm plantations along Indonesia's border with Malaysia on Borneo. Research showed, however, that only 10 percent of the land was suitable for oil palms. The rest was either too high or too steep.

Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono said in early May that the government would clear only 180,000 hectares.

BOS hopes there will not be any further forest conversion into oil palm plantations.

"It's not that we are opposed to the use of palm oil as a new alternative biofuel. I agree that the project may bring more job opportunities and development to this country," said Aldrianto. "However, the government should allow plantations of the oil palm to be planted on existing unused land instead of clearing more forests."

Clearing more land, he added, would impair the forest's functions of absorbing water, producing clean air and providing homes for a wide variety of plants and animals.

The Forestry Ministry's director of biodiversity conservation, Adi Susmianto, said the government always weighs the social, economic and environmental aspects of its programs.

"The oil palm plantation project will be good for the country's economy, but the question is whether it will also be good for our society and environment," he said.

Adi said that he opposed any project that would hamper conservation.