Our Vanishing Relative

In the 1960s, it was believed that no more than about 4000 orangutans remained in the wild. Consequently, IUCN - The World Conservation Union - declared the ape an endangered species, demanding its world-wide protection. Nevertheless, the orangutan today faces extinction because it is dependent on a rainforest habitat that is rapidly being demolished due to human greed, and a growing human population. The author was among the first to make a detailed study of the ape in the wild, emerging as an authority on orangutan conservation. In the late 1980s he became so alarmed by local rumours of the rapid decline of wild orangutans that he initiated the study leading to this book. Meijaard conducted the ambitious, island-spanning surveys in Borneo and Sumatra to reveal the ape's whereabouts. This is the story of their findings. It is a comprehensive study of the ape's distribution and status based on a wealth of first-hand field data, and a frank, disturbing account of a mixture of good intentions, ignorance and greed, spelling doom for our Asian relative. Nevertheless, the authors emphasize that the orangutan can survive. A realistic plan to save the ape, and with it thousands of unique wild animals and plants, does exist. It is the authors' hope that the book, so urgent and eloquent in its description of the deadly net of problems descending over our helpless relative, will awaken attention and empathy in order to safeguard the future of the orangutan.