Stop Monkeying Around

Two events recently have drawn my attention to how man is destroying this world.

The first was an excellent short TV series "In Search of Pirates" presented by Ross Kemp. He visited three parts of the world looking for pirates: Somalia, Nigeria and the South China Sea. There was one common theme behind the piracy: poverty. But when you look into the cause of the poverty, things get a it bit worrying.

Nigeria is (or was) rich with oil. The oil companies build wells - many of them in the middle of rivers in the Niger Delta. When they reach the end of their viability, they are sealed and abandoned. But they leak and pollute.

The oil companies claim they seal the wells properly. Bandit boats arrive and unseal the wells to steal whatever oil they can. And, say the oil companies, do not reseal them properly. The level of pollution is way above what we have ever experienced in the UK, but nothing is done about it, it seems. As people living in the shanty towns on the edge of the river depend on the river, they are greatly affected. No, this is not piracy, but it is claimed the resultant poverty has driven people to piracy.

There is more information here

The second is not really new to me. I attended a presentation that was supposed to be about something else, but turned out to be about the fast falling Orangutan population. There is a lot to this story. Several organisations are fighting to maintain the species.

Orangutans learn how to be an orangutan from their mother. It is an seven to eight-year course during which the animal learns a detailed map of his part of the forest. Food is scarce in the forest, so searching for food, identifying which is bad and which is good and when it is ripe are all parts of the course. As is learning how to move among the trees, deciding whether a branch is strong enough to take its weight and how to build a nest in the forest canopy. Orangutans live in the treetops, not on the ground.

Adult females play a huge part in the maintenance of the species. And as they only have one child with them at at time, they do not reproduce more frequently than once every 8 years it means that usually 3 is the maximum number of children a female has in her life. That cannot be extended.

Now here's the rub. The rainforests, which have taken thousands of years to mature are being illegally cut down. But alleged corruption in the government turns a blind eye. This is the habitat -no, the home - of an orangutan. He/she knows every inch of that area. You can't just move an orangutan along to another area. Where young orangutans are concerned, loggers know the mother will fight to the death - and she often does. Loggers kill young mothers without a second thought. These leaves orphaned youngsters with no-one to show them how to be orangutans. This is where the humans take over. Despite their best efforts, humans cannot fully replace an orangutan mother. They can't swing through the trees for one thing. The objective is to rehabilitate the young orangutans to becoming wild animals and help save the species. But it is not easy.

The reason for deforestation is make huge palm oil plantations. Thousands upon thousands of acres of rainforest have been destroyed and the destruction continues. The picture shows a palm oil plantation. Selling the logs helps offset the first six years before the fruit is harvestable. Thereafter the palm oil provides a great income for the immoral bosses. Palm oil is in a wide variety of things we buy from the supermarket. We almost certainly buy palm oil in one form or another every week, which is why there is so much demand. It is difficult for consumers to know when they are buying palm oil, because the labelling legislation lets it be listed under the more generic "vegetable oils". The palm plantations do not have to be where the rainforests are. Nevertheless, western supermarkets are starting to ban products containing palm oil. It can't be done overnight, but it is a step in the right direction.

It is not just the orangutans that suffer by destruction of the rainforests. There are many thousands of species of flora and fauna in the rainforests. The forests also 'trap' the heavy rainfall and slow down its release to the streams and rivers. They therefore prevent flooding and all the problems that might bring.

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The common factor is the greed of a small number of people spoiling parts of the planet - God's wonderful creation - for the rest of the population. To line their pockets, they are causing much misery.

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." - Ephesians 6:12