First Bornean Orangutan Caring Scholarships Awarded
18 May 2012, Ketapang, West Kalimantan. Ketapang is a quiet coastal city in West Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. During the evening of 18 May, two high school seniors were honored by OURF and Yayasan Palung as the first recipients of the Orangutan Caring Scholarship (OCS) in Borneo at a dinner ceremony in a local Ketapang restaurant. OURF President Dr. Gary Shapiro hosted the awards dinner along with Mariamah Achmad and staff from Yayasan Palung.
SOCP Angered by Betrayal of Justice by Aceh Judges
9 April 2012 - Medan, Sumatra - PRESS STATEMENT by the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP) a joint programme of Yayasan Ekosistem Lestari and the PanEco Foundation.
Having studied the outcome of the Judge’s ruling at the National Administrative Court in Banda Aceh, the staff of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP) hereby express our anger at the court’s lack of a ruling on the case challenging the legality of a plantation permit in Aceh’s Tripa peat swamp forests, given to the palm oil company PT Kallista Alam by the former Governor of Aceh province in contravention of National Spatial Planning Law (No. 26/2007). The case had run for 5 months before the judges simply decided that they were not qualified to judge it, thus attempting to brush the case under the carpet. This decision would be laughable, were it not such a tragic betrayal of the Indonesian public, the environment, and the very principles of justice.
MECU2 Starting Up in Sumatra
April 7, 2012 - Medan, Sumatra. FOLLOWING a period of assessment and planning, OURF gave the green light to begin the second year of the Mobile Education and Conservation Unit (MECU2) program, a field education and community enhancement initiative that endeavors to reduce conflict between villagers and orangutans. The first year program (MECU1) allowed the Orang Utan Republik Education Initiative Indonesia (OUREII) in Jakarta to purchase a 4-wheel drive truck (with US Fish &Wildlife assistance) and to oversee the activities of the Orangutan Caring Club of N. Sumatra (CPOI-Sumut) in assessing 16 villages in and around Gunung Leuser National Park in N. Sumatra. The Park is home to hundreds of wild and ex-captive orangutans. MECU1 also enabled the field team to conduct education programs about orangutans, other wildlife, environment, and ways to improve the livelihood of the villagers.
Former Aceh chief denies orang-utans died in burn
6 April 2012- Banda Aceh. The man who signed the permit allowing 1600 hectares of carbon-rich peat forest and orang-utan habitat to be razed and turned into a palm oil plantation agrees his decision was ''morally wrong''. However, Irwandi Yusuf, the former governor of Aceh who is seeking a second term in Monday's election, said he had done it as a wake-up call to the international community over its failing climate change policies.
Aceh Judge slammed over Indonesian court’s inability to make a just ruling over simple legal case.
3 April 2012- Banda Aceh, INDONESIA. Today the Council of Judges of the Banda Aceh National Administrative Court announced it was the inappropriate body to make a ruling on the challenge mounted by the Aceh branch of WALHI / Friends of the Earth Indonesia against legality of an oil palm concession permit granted by the former Governor of Aceh to PT Kallista Alam in the protected Tripa peat swamps.
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