By volunteers, for volunteers. Focused on wildlife conservation.
Oceans2Earth Foundation represents our ideal for people to live in a sustainable world where we all take responsibility for our actions and actively take measures to improve the natural way of life for all of earth’s inhabitants.
Oceans2Earth strives to assist with local solutions to global problems.
O2E was founded in Melbourne, Australia in 2010 for the purpose of providing resources and financial assistance to animal welfare and conservation projects including elephant sanctuary land in Kenya, cat and dog rescue in Africa and community recycled product projects in Asia and Africa.
The O2E Foundation aims to facilitate people’s awareness of the impacts of animal tourism, trade and human intervention on the welfare, sustainability and general health of wildlife populations.
Wow! What a stunning sight. The sunset in the distance, the interesting black sand and all those beautiful turtles. There are so many of them. It's an incredible scenic picture to behold.
Our world is an amazing place. Images and memories like this one above need to a cherished and remembered. It won't always be like this. Yep - sorry but I'm putting a downer on the tranquility settling into your mind as you watch this picturesque moment.
Ready?
Woo there.....what's this? Family day? Picnic?
This is Costa Rica. Current Day.
Turtle egg poaching is a family affair.
A coming together to "harvest" the eggs and sell them off.
The rainforest is being felled for Palm Oil and other crops at an overwhelming rate with the remaining forest being degraded by drought and forest fires. Extinction of orangutans in the wild is likely in the next 10 years for Sumatran Orangutans and soon after for Bornean Orangutans.
Orangtuans are 97% genetically identical to humans. Orangutans are highly intelligent animals. Their intelligence is comparable to that of a five or six year old child. The blatant hunting and torture of these animals is absolutely abhorrent. Companies incentivise plantation owners and workers for productivity. Removing the "nusiance" orangutans is an ongoing and unobstructed activity. Government and corporate corruption know no bounds when the almighty dollar is at stake.
And what drives these shameful actions? Us.
We eat food and use products every day made from palm oil and its derivitives. The majority are unknowing - trusting that the world's corporations are "doing the right thing" by us. Some folks even subscribe to the "survival of the fittest" mentality. It's better us than them. I can't even continue with this thought; it gets me so frustrated and annoyed at the short-sightedness in the world.
Protecting the orangutan also protects the surrounding ecosystem and myriad of endangered and exotic species. Saving the orangutan saves the forest.
So sadly, the fight to save the orangutans goes on.
On 15th April 2012 we posted this video by Carlos Quiles. Saving Leuser, Tripa.
Recently, Australian Orangtuan Project Victorian State Representative Amber Partington visited Tripa. Here we share her story and her plea. Yes it's an Australian perspective but the message is global.
"On June 6th, I recently visited Sumatra, in particular an area called Tripa Peat Swamp Forest. Words cannot describe the devastion of what Jess and I witnessed.
Tripa Peat Swamp Forest
Three weeks prior, forest stood right where I am standing in this photo. Canals have gone in draining swamp, killing trees. Large hardwood trees, logged and sold. Rest of forest burnt. Palm Oil plantations planted where forest once stood. Local people kicked off land, threatened with their lives if they talk. All protected land under Indonesian law. MAJOR corruption = MAJOR problem.
As Australia (and other parts of the world) does NOT import Certified Sustainable Palm Oil (CSPO), [this has a direct effect], forest is destroyed, local people displaced and many animal lives lost. [Goodman Fielder is one of Australia's largest companies and the largest importer of Palm Oil. Their products including Meadow Lea margarine includes Palm Oil.]
Therefore we are asking Goodman Fielder to make a public commitment to use Certified Sustainable Palm Oil in their products by 2015.
It would mean the world to me if you could add your name to this important issue. Every name that is added builds momentum around the campaign. And hopefully, more likely for us to get the change we want to see. (Blog note: Hey! It worked for KFC changing to canola oil - we can do it!)
After you've signed the petition please also take a moment to share it with others."
Amber Partington Victorian State
Representative orangutan.org.au| facebook.com/australianorangutanproject |
twitter.com/ausorangutan
For you to appreciate these amazing great apes even more, here's a couple of videos.
1 - Shawn Thompson is a writer passionate about orangutans. His book The imtimate Ape is a must read. In preparation for his second book, Shawn heads back to the orangs. There's some funny bits in this and whilst it is a bit warm and fuzzy, it's a tear jerker for me!
2 - Ami (Borneo tour guide) and Jana join forces for this cute song celebrating not only orangs but the primates of Borneo. Stunning video footage shows those fun loving macques dive bombing into the river and gibbons leaping great distances, and a gorgeous orangutan stealing pen and paper and using them!
This video clearly demonstrates how much humans are encroaching upon wildlife habitat and how encounters are more and more common. The chorus repeats a bit but by the end of the 4 minutes I was singing along.
These videos and more can be found on our youtube channel right here
If these tasters haven't got you sold on these amazing creatures, perhaps a ONCE IN A LIFETIME TRIP will do it.
ONLY TWO SPOTS LEFT ON THE
LEIF COCKS SUMATRA TOUR
5th - 14th November 2012
See orangutans up close and personal the way they should be seen - in the jungles of Sumatra, and make a personal difference by directly contributing to the organisations helping to save the red ape from extinction.
Under the auspices of eco tourism group, Orangutan Odysseys, raising funds for the Australiam Orangutan Project, who in turn support the local NGO, the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme, you will be guided through jungles, on an exclusive expedition led by two men who know orangutans and this location like few others in the whole wide world; Leif Cocks, one of Australia's foremost authorities on orangutans and the other guide, the most respected orangutan rescuer in Indonesia.
Just when it seemed safe to take a deep breath in Southeast
Asia, the smoky haze that envelops the region each year is wafting up from
Indonesian forests again.
Increasingly, though, experts aren’t just blaming
Indonesians, who in the past have been accused of recklessly burning forest
land on the islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan to make way for palm oil
plantations – a practice that produces the smoke that then drifts northward
over Singapore and Malaysia. Indonesian authorities have typically said they
are doing their best to police the problem, which is hard to do given the
country’s vast size and limited enforcement resources.
The question is whether other actors are fanning the flames,
says Anthony Tan, executive director of the Centre for Environment, Technology
& Development, Malaysia (CETDEM).
“The haze comes from Sumatra and Kalimanthan. Which
companies own the estates? Malaysian and Singaporean as well as local
plantation owners,” he said. As a result, “Malaysian and Singaporean companies
in Indonesia also have to bear the responsibility of open burning, of slashing
and burning, that is happening within their estate territories.”
Moreover, he added, “it is the respective governments’
responsibility to take them to task. Just because they operate in a foreign
country, they can’t wash their hands and say it does not affect us” when it
actually does.
The issue is flaring up again because the smoke, which tends
to appear at least once a year, is intensifying again.
According to Malaysia’s Department of Environment, satellite
images show the number of “hotspots” producing smoke in Sumatra increased to
122 on June 13 from 67 the day before. The image also showed haze drifting from
Riau in central Sumatra en route towards the west coast of peninsular Malaysia.
Satellite images released by the Asean Specialized Meteorological Centre on
June 18 June showed hotspots in Sumatra had risen further to 310 from 163 the
previous day.
The sun rises through a thick haze over the skyline of Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia on June 17.
Malaysia’s DOE also said that on the morning of June 15th,
air quality readings in three areas reached an unhealthy level of 131. Air
quality readings improved by Monday, June 18.
In Malaysia, at least, authorities agree that it’s not
entirely Indonesia’s fault, and they say they are doing what they can to help
alleviate the situation, including reducing burning within Malaysia’s own
borders. The DOE has imposed a temporary ban on open burning in Kuala Lumpur
and Selangor except for religious purposes and barbecues with a fine up to
RM500,000 or imprisonment of up to five years or both.
Still, “from the trend of hotspots monitored through
satellite imagery, it has always and clearly shown that most of the hotspots
originated from Indonesia and (then) the smoke plumes trespass the neighboring
countries,” a DOE official said in a written response.
That doesn’t necessarily address the issue of Malaysian
companies operating in Indonesia, though. According to Indonesia’s embassy in
Kuala Lumpur, as much as 25% of the palm oil plantations in the archipelago
nation are owned by Malaysian companies. This is largely because scarcity of
land in Malaysia has forced big plantation companies there to expand abroad.
Many of Malaysia’s biggest palm oil companies, including
Sime Darby Bhd., IOI Corp. Bhd. and Kuala Lumpur Kepong Bhd., are members of
the Roundtable On Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), which is dedicated to making
palm oil production more environmentally-friendly, and which has a zero burning
policy. Its members must be certified by RSPO as responsible producers.
Moreover, many analysts say they doubt many of the biggest companies would want
to engage in burning because it could be too detrimental to their reputations.
But last year, the London based Environmental Investigation
Agency (EIA) and its Indonesian partner Telapak said they had documentary proof
that KLK subsidiary PT Menteng Jaya Sawit Perdana was burning land. KLK denied
the accusations. In a statement, plantation director Roy Lim said “KLK has long
abandoned using fire to clear land for new planting or replanting. Our policy
and practice is zero burning for such activities.”
Whatever the case, Indonesian officials say it’s hard to
police an industry that covers so much terrain and they suspect some other
producers might be burning land, or buying land from farmers who burn the trees
themselves.
“Of course we don’t know who does it,” said Suryana
Sastradiredja, an Information, Social and Cultural Affairs Minister-Counselor
at the Indonesian embassy in Kuala Lumpur. But it’s hardly surprising some land
owners would want to set fires, he says. After all, “burning is the traditional
method – the cheapest way to open new land.”
At O2E we generally don't support breeding programs. It's such a controversial topic. We have seen projects that breed for bushmeat or commercial trade. We have also seenprograms that breed with all good intention only to find they have no resources or habitat to release into. Subsequently these animals live in captivity their entire lives, requiring constant care and attention. Some may say, 'well at least they are not extinct'. Is that good enough? To my mind, it's kind of like a living museum....or dare I say...a zoo, albeit without the kids and ice cream.
This article makes me think a little harder about the subject.
In April 2011, three young cats from the world’s most endangered species have been released into the wild in Spain from a captive breeding program at the La Olivilla breeding centre in Juan .
The Iberian lynx, once widespread across Spain and Portugal, were down to just 150 by 2005 — there were 4,000 in 1960. Scientists were forced to take drastic action and captured many from the wild population and put them in a captive breeding program.
Miguel Simon, director of the Lynx LIFE project, said:
“The situation was really dramatic: there were only two populations left in the wild. In order to preserve this species, we had to create a captive population in case the wild population became extinct.”
The Lynx LIFE team admits that radical intervention like this is a last resort. But if it works, these cats could be the first of many to roam free once again.
If the lynx went extinct it would be the first cat extinction (that we know of) since that of the saber-toothed cat at the end of the ice age.
"The cat’s decline was down to habitat loss, poisoning, road casualties, feral dogs and poaching. Its habitat loss is due mainly to infrastructure improvement, urban and resort development and tree monocultivation, which serves to break the lynx’s distribution area. It has also suffered the loss of its main food source: rabbits, which were wiped out by disease.
That breeding program has proved successful and there are now around 100 cats bred at the centre.
Concurrently, work to protect the habitat in Jaen and the Donana National Park in Andalucia,over the past decade has commenced and the wild population is now believed to be up to 300.
Dr Simon said: "The Iberian lynx is a key species in the Mediterranean ecosystem. It is a top predator, and if we preserve this species, we are preserving the whole ecosystem."
"It is our heritage, and we have to preserve it for future generations."
The Spanish Environment Ministry, Fundación CBD Hábitat and Ecologistas en Acción, supports the work of Lynx LIFE and together they have implemented a range of important projects including lynx supplementary feeding, habitat improvement, rabbit repopulations and awareness campaigns with the local human population.
The three lynx were released in early April into a protected area in Sierra Morena, a hilly, forested region, packed with shade for the cats to sleep in when the sun becomes unbearably hot — and it has plenty of rabbits.
Radio collars will help researchers monitor the released lynx
The cats received a careful pre-release check-up to ensure they are in good health then they were fitted with radio collars, allowing the conservationists to track their every move.
As the cats were released, they were a little confused at first, unsure of their new surroundings.
But after tentatively taking a few steps, they bound into the wild, ready to explore their new home.
Dr Lopez said: "Just a few years ago, everything seemed so difficult, and now we are approaching the successful conservation of the species."
A total of 15 releases have taken place this year, and if new wild populations begin to establish, more and more of the captive cats will be introduced to the wild.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
When you are looking to support an animal program, do your research. Do they have a breeding program? What happens to the captive bred population?
Information by Paul Canning and BBC News
Paul Canning is a long-standing LGBT and human rights activist and the Editor of LGBT Asylum News. He contributes to a number of other publications, including Care 2 Make A Difference.
