The Palm Oil Industry and What It's Doing to Orangutans
Kate Webster
Year 10 Social Studies Environmental Issues assignment
The Palm Oil Industry and what it’s doing to orang-utans.
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
Hypothesis: Humans are not aware of the palm oil plantations and the orangutans
Introduction
Once upon a time orangutans roamed all of Asia’s tropical rainforests, with over 500,000 orangutans spread over 162 million hectares. Today, only around 20,000 orangutans are left, mostly due to 80% of their forest home being destroyed.
One of the main reasons that the rainforests in Sumatra (Indonesia) and Borneo (Malaysia) are decreasing rapidly is because of palm oil plantations. Millions of hectares are lost each year due to this industry, so in this environmental issues research assignment, I will be looking at the palm oil plantations and what impact they have to the orangutan population, and to see if we are actually doing anything about this.
My three focus questions are: 1. How do the orang-utans’ suffer for palm oil plantations? 2. Why do we continue to destroy the orang-utans’ environment with palm oil plantations? 3. Are there any alternatives to using palm oil, and if there is, are we doing anything about it? Focus Question one
How do the orang-utans’ suffer for palm oil plantations?
Once roaming the whole of Asia, the orangutan population has now been reduced to Borneo, in Malaysia, and Sumatra. These two countries produce 80% of the world’s palm oil!
There are two types of orangutans. Pongo pygmaeus (Bornean) which is endangered and has around 15,000 orangutans, and Pongo abelii (Sumatran) which is critically endangered and has fewer than 3,500 orangutans left. This is because their habitat is being destroyed and they have nowhere to live or to find food, so they die.
This map shows the rainforest in Borneo, and as you can see since the 1950s, the rainforest has declined a lot.
This is largely because of palm oil. Indonesia alone converts 3,400
Year 10 Social Studies Environmental Issues assignment
The Palm Oil Industry and what it’s doing to orang-utans.
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
Hypothesis: Humans are not aware of the palm oil plantations and the orangutans
Introduction
Once upon a time orangutans roamed all of Asia’s tropical rainforests, with over 500,000 orangutans spread over 162 million hectares. Today, only around 20,000 orangutans are left, mostly due to 80% of their forest home being destroyed.
One of the main reasons that the rainforests in Sumatra (Indonesia) and Borneo (Malaysia) are decreasing rapidly is because of palm oil plantations. Millions of hectares are lost each year due to this industry, so in this environmental issues research assignment, I will be looking at the palm oil plantations and what impact they have to the orangutan population, and to see if we are actually doing anything about this.
My three focus questions are: 1. How do the orang-utans’ suffer for palm oil plantations? 2. Why do we continue to destroy the orang-utans’ environment with palm oil plantations? 3. Are there any alternatives to using palm oil, and if there is, are we doing anything about it? Focus Question one
How do the orang-utans’ suffer for palm oil plantations?
Once roaming the whole of Asia, the orangutan population has now been reduced to Borneo, in Malaysia, and Sumatra. These two countries produce 80% of the world’s palm oil!
There are two types of orangutans. Pongo pygmaeus (Bornean) which is endangered and has around 15,000 orangutans, and Pongo abelii (Sumatran) which is critically endangered and has fewer than 3,500 orangutans left. This is because their habitat is being destroyed and they have nowhere to live or to find food, so they die.
This map shows the rainforest in Borneo, and as you can see since the 1950s, the rainforest has declined a lot.
This is largely because of palm oil. Indonesia alone converts 3,400