Advertisement

Orang-utan rescue in full swing

Stephen Van Mil in Borneo. Picture: supplied

It's a species battling to survive the next few decades but people around the world are fighting to preserve its future.

A Perth branch of the Orangutan Foundation International Australia was launched this month with the aim of raising awareness of the arboreal primates' plight.

Spearheaded by Perth-born filmmaker and veterinarian Stephen Van Mil, who produced the award-winning documentary The Last Trimate on the endangered species, the group is also trying to raise money to buy land in Borneo to ensure orang-utans have a protected habitat well into the future.

"Indonesia tears down 300 football fields of rainforest every hour," Mr Van Mil said.

In January, OFIA finalised the purchase of 3000ha of virgin rainforest in central Borneo - an area estimated to house 200 orang-utans.

"The whole region is rife with palm oil plantations and illegal mining operations," Mr Van Mil said. "The available land is quite fragile, but if we can snaffle up chunks of it, we can create corridors."

Orang-utans are threatened by mass-scale deforestation from the palm oil industry and OFIA is pushing for legislation to require products using palm oil in Australia be labelled.

The organisation estimated about one in 10 supermarket products contained palm oil or palm oil derivatives but it was often labelled "vegetable oil", Mr Van Mil said.

The Perth branch is planning to screen The Last Trimate, narrated by Mel Gibson, in November.