Orangutan adalah satu-satunya haiwan
terancam yang hanya terdapat di Malaysia dan Sumatera. Orangutan
satu-satunya haiwan yang memiliki DNA yang paling hampir dengan
manusia, iaitu 97 peratus paling hampir dengan manusia. Orangutan
satu-satunya haiwan di dunia ini dipanggil dalam Bahasa Melayu, orang
Inggeris tetap panggil Orangutan bukan Forest Man.
Tapi pemuliharaan Orangutan serta
banyak lagi binatang unik dan kepupusan di Malaysia menghadapi jalan
yang amat sukar.
Panda vs. orangutans: With native
species at risk, Malaysia's panda bear project a boondoggle
mongabay.com
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun
Razak's plan to spend nearly $16 million (50 million Malaysian
ringgits) to lease two baby pandas from China for ten years is a
waste of money and resources at a time when its own native species
are suffering from a range of threats, warned a leading Malaysian
conservationist in an open letter.
Cynthia Ong, Executive Director of Land
Empowerment Animals People (LEAP), said that the Malaysian leader
should focus on allocating scarce wildlife funds for tangible
conservation projects within Malaysia, not showcasing a foreign
species in a zoo.
"Your actions with projek panda
deeply confused, upset and angered me and many of my colleagues who
are working tirelessly to protect the endangered species of Sabah and
Malaysia. We go through soul-destroying fund application processes to
receive (or not) what little funds your government allocates to
manage and protect this natural capital fundamental to the economic,
ecological, social and cultural health of the state," she
writes.
"I have dedicated my life to
fund-raising and have raised perhaps RM50,000,000 over the last 20
years for many causes (mostly environmental) - most have come from
international sources. The need on the ground has been great and the
national sources, both public and private, have been pitiful. In one
fell swoop, you spent a chunk of funds equal to what I've spent half
my life to raise."
Ong proposes that Najib set aside
matching fund for conservation efforts in Sabah, a state in Malaysian
Borneo that is battling to save endangered orangutans, elephants,
Sumatran rhinos, and sun bears from habitat loss and degradation. The
fund would be administered by the Sabah State government in
collaboration with NGOs.
"Improve your and your
administration's relationship with Sabah by matching one-to-one the
funds that you are putting into projek panda and putting it into a
Sabah Endangered Species Fund," she writes.
"I ask you to consider my request
and show government leadership, at the same time modeling
philanthropic leadership for the private sector."
Malaysia is home to a number of
charismatic endangered mammals, including the clouded leopard, the
Malay tapir, the Bornean orangutan, the pygmy elephant, the Sumatran
rhino, the Malayan tiger, the Siamang, the otter civet, various
gibbon species, and the proboscis monkey. Logging, poaching, and
conversion of habitat for rubber, timber, and oil palm plantations
are among the major threats to wildlife in Malaysia.
The current conflict between Sabah and
the federal government stems partly from the way revenue from energy
deposits off the Sabah is distributed. Under Malaysian law,
sub-surface mineral rights belong to the federal government, so it,
instead of Sabah, collects the lion-share of the revenue from oil and
gas reserves.
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