Posted on 15:35 December 20th, 2016
A community based working
group of Acehnese Women for Orangutan Protection (AWOP) was established
for the first time ever in Aceh. The establishment of this working group, whose
members were all women, was one of the results of a one day workshop in
Blangpidie, Aceh Barat Daya district of Aceh province in Sumatra on Monday (19 December
2016).
The theme of this workshop
was “Prevent Orangutan Capture in Aceh West coast,” with 3 resource people. The
first resource person was the head of forestry and estate crop department of
Aceh Barat Daya, Muhammad Amin, whose topic was, “The Urgency of Protecting Orangutan
for Balance of Nature.” The second resource person was Epi Supenda from the
Aceh Wildlife Authority (BKSDA) with the theme, “Prevention of human-orangutan
conflicts.” And the third speaker was a lecturer of the state-owned Teuku Umar
University, Zuhriat who talked about “The
Importance of Forest to Ensure Water Supply
for Agricuture."
The presentations from the
three resource persons were followed by a question and answer session and
discussion group. From the discussion it was decided, among other things, to
establish an all women working group for orangutan protection who would patrol
forest edges in the west coast of Aceh to prevent orangutan capture. The working
group members consist of all women participants of the workshop. They are;
1)Nur Mawar, 2)Salmiati, 3)Arfiana, 4)Rusmalaili, 5)Novita Dewi, 6)Erna,
7)Suryani, 8)Lia Mirda Yani, 9)Yusmira, 10)Mardiana, 11)Safriani, 12)Ranti, 13)
Yusma, dan 14)Yuli. 31 participants attended the workshop consisted of 14 females, and 17 males.
Another conclusion of
the workshop was that the women’s group will carry out regular monitoring along
the forest edges of Leuser Ecosystem in the Aceh west coast: including in the
districts of Nagan Raya; Aceh Barat Daya; Aceh Selatan; Aceh Singkil; Kota
Subulussalam; Aceh Barat.
Although the AWOP is a volunteer
group, the Scorpion Wildlife Trade Monitoring Group will support their
operation in patrolling activities.
“This is a community
based volunteer group, but Scorpion Foundation would support them in their
activities,” Sayed Nazran Ahmad , Scorpion representative in Aceh, stated.
“We love to have the
orangutans remain in the forest, therefore, we will strive to prevent orangutan
capture. We prefer to prevent orangutan from going out of the forest, because
handling the orangutan after one or two years in captivity would be much more
difficult and costly, as it will take much of conservation fund which is
limited everywhere,” Nazran added.
The Scorpion Wildlife
Trade Monitoring Group works to prevent wildlife crimes, including crimes
against orangutans, while the Scorpion gets support from
some international organisations including Orangutan Foundation (U.K.), The
Orangutan Project/TOP (Australia), and Global Greengrant Fund (USA).
Photographs of the workshop in Blangpidie, Aceh Barat Daya.
(Photo: Scorpion)
