Erik Meijaard, a Dutch biologist who has been researching orangutans for thirty years, is no longer welcome in Indonesian nature parks. That reports The Jakarta Post Thursday. After the International Orangutan Day, Meijaard criticized statements by Siti Nurbaya, the Indonesian Minister of Forestry and Environment. He is now being punished for his action: park managers are asked to deny Mayjaard and four other detractors access.
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The minister praised the Indonesian president’s nature policy in mid-August, saying that the great ape is “far from extinct”. The population of the orangutan would even grow, she says. In an opinion piece earlier this month in The Jakarta Post Meijaard and colleagues refute her statement by pointing to scientific studies. These show that monkey numbers have been declining for decades. But citing research by the Indonesian ministry itself, which confirms their claims, was of no avail: the minister has warned the managers of nature parks about the researchers in letters. They would “discredit Indonesia.”
Against de Volkskrant the 55-year-old biologist says he is concerned. He sees that Indonesian scientists, NGOs and companies are increasingly withdrawing “for fear of repercussions”. For that reason, Meijaard has been working in Brunei, a neighboring country of Indonesia, since 2017. “In Indonesia you can no longer say that the orangutan is threatened with extinction, if you claim long enough that everything is going well, the public will believe it.”
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