Indonesia

The Sumatran Orangutan (Pongo abelii) is critically endangered due to habitat destruction for pulp, paper and oil palm plantations, illegal hunting and trade. It is estimated that only 6,000 Sumatran Orangutans remain on the island where 85 percent of the forest has been lost. National parks are their last remaining refuges, but these parks are under constant threat from illegal logging which now comprises 70 percent of Indonesian logging activity. Illegal logging is also driving violent conflicts between forest dependent communities and logging companies. Conservation of Indonesian forests is the key to resolving the ongoing conflicts as well as preventing the Sumatran Orangutan from being the first of the great apes to go extinct.

Madagascar

Following a political coup in Madagascar in the spring of 2009, war profiteers took advantage of the political instability and embarked on illegal logging campaigns, felling rosewood and ebony trees for illegal export and threatening any villagers or forest rangers who opposed them. In the crossfire were 11 species of endangered lemurs that inhabit the pillaged forests, creatures found nowhere else on earth.  A lemur poaching racket emerged amongst the political turmoil and the endangered lemurs began to turn up on menus in port town restaurants. Tourism is a major industry in Madagascar, comprising 8.3 percent of total employment and 10.4 percent of GDP.  In 2008, tourism brought in US$ 393 million, and 25,000 jobs, but political instability is expected to seriously diminish tourism through 2010. Protecting Madagascar’s unique wildlife, its people and its economy will require sustained human investment in forest conservation activities.