Abstract
Human-orangutan conflict and hunting are thought to pose a serious threat to orangutan existence in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo. No data existed prior to the present study to substantiate these threats. We investigated the rates, spatial distribution and causes of conflict and hunting through an interview-based survey in the orangutan's range in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Between April 2008 and September 2009, we interviewed 6983 respondents in 687 villages to obtain socio-economic information, assess knowledge of local wildlife in general and orangutan encounters specifically, and to query respondents about their knowledge on orangutan conflicts and killing, and relevant laws. This survey revealed estimated killing rates of between 750 and 1800 animals killed in the last year, and between 1950 and 3100 animals killed per year on average within the lifetime of the survey respondents. These killing rates are higher than previously thought and are high enough to pose a serious threat to the continued existence of orangutans in Kalimantan. Importantly, the study contributes to our understanding of the spatial variation in threats, and the underlying causes of those threats, which can be used to facilitate the development of targeted conservation management.
Highlights
Effective wildlife and nature conservation requires balancing human development with the impacts this has on wildlife populations and their habitats [1]
We aimed to answer the following research questions: (1) What are the demographic characteristics of the sampled human population?; (2) When and where have orangutans been sighted?; (3) What is the level of reported agricultural conflict with orangutans and how is this related to social and ecological variables?; (4) What is the level of reported killing of orangutans and how is this related to social and ecological variables?; (5) What is the nature of knowledge of Indonesian and customary law among survey respondents, and how is this related to reported killing?; and (6) What are the overall estimated killing rates, based on the survey data?
Interviewer bias was controlled by training and the possibility of interviewers inventing data was taken into account
Summary
Effective wildlife and nature conservation requires balancing human development with the impacts this has on wildlife populations and their habitats [1]. The impacts are most severe where development is fuelled by exploitation of natural resources such as forests [2,3]. Such situations are characteristic for many rapidly developing emerging economies in tropical Asia, Africa, and South America. In the forested parts of these regions, the conversion frontier from natural ecosystems into more intensively managed agro- and silvicultural lands is rapidly shifting; forests with few people and much wildlife are being replaced by humandominated landscapes where few forest species survive. Even though it is commonly acknowledged in conservation that human-wildlife conflict can result in killing of animals, the relative scale of conflict and killing, as well as the underlying reasons for killings and the factors that influence them, are not well understood [7]
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