The report is based on field investigations, interviews and transaction records analyzed by the Rainforest Action Network (RAN). It shows that local brokers are buying palm fruit from oil palms planted illegally inside the nationally protected Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve in Indonesia's Aceh province. These brokers, the report says, are then supplying the fruit to processing mills located immediately next to areas of illegal encroachment in the Leuser Ecosystem, of which the wildlife reserve is a part.
An oil palm plantation in Rawa Singking Wildlife Reserve, an ostensibly protected area.
Junaidi Hanafiah / Mongabay Indonesia
RAN reports that these mills then supply the processed palm oil to global traders, namely Singapore-listed Golden Agri-Resources (GAR) and Indonesia's Musim Mas Group. These companies, in turn, sell palm oil, directly or indirectly, to a who's who of household consumer brands, including Nestlé, Unilever, Mondelēz International, General Mills, Kellogg's, Mars and The Hershey Company, according to RAN. All of these palm oil traders and brands have adopted policies committing them to "No Deforestation, No Peatlands, No Exploitation" (NDPE) in the sourcing of their raw ingredients. By contrast, the mills where the Rawa Singkil-sourced palm fruit is processed lack the necessary procedures to trace the provenance of the crop, RAN says.
RAN's investigation also calls out global banks, including Japan's Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Dutch bank ABN Amro and Singapore's OCBC, for continuing to finance major palm oil traders, particularly GAR.
"The authors of this report are demanding that companies caught contributing to this destruction stop buying palm oil sourced from the rogue mills identified here, or financing the culprits processing and shipping illegal palm oil to the global market, until transparent and verifiable monitoring, traceability and compliance systems are established to ensure they are only sourcing truly responsible palm oil," said RAN.
Forest area that has been cleared to make way for oil palm cultivation in Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve.
Junaidi Hanafiah / Mongabay Indonesia
In the report, RAN said GAR had confirmed that six of its supplying mills were located near Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve, and that five had not established traceability to the farm or plantation where the palm fruit they source is grown.
The report said GAR had set new targets for its mills to achieve traceability to the plantation by the end of 2020. "While the company denied deforestation by referring to the findings of field investigations in 2017 and 2018 outside the Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve in the Singkil-Bengkung region, it did not comment on non-compliant suppliers within the nationally protected area or confirm its intention to instigate the results of RAN's investigation," the report added.
RAN said Musim Mas had confirmed that nine of its supplying mills were located near the wildlife reserve and that it had set the end of 2020 as the deadline for tracing the provenance of all its palm oil sourced from the region. The company also says it plans to increase its direct engagement with smallholder farmers seeking secure land titles and support for improvements in agricultural practices. Musim Mas confirmed that it would verify the findings of RAN's investigate and communicate to supplying mills that it would not accept palm oil products grown in Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve.
Many of the consumer brands named in the RAN report told Reuters that they would verify the findings while keeping their commitment to sustainable practices in palm oil production and supply chain management.
Encroachment and forest clearing for a plantation in Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve.
Junaidi Hanafiah / Mongabay Indonesia
A map showing the location of Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve on the island of Sumatra.
Google Earth
Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve, on the northwestern coast of the island of Sumatra, is home to the densest population of critically endangered Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii) in the Leuser Ecosystem.
More than 75,000 hectares (185,300 acres) of peat forests remain in the Singkil peatland, and are afforded the highest levels of protection under Indonesian law in Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve. Since the reserve was established in 1998, local conservationists have raised concerns about changes to its boundaries to accommodate palm oil development. The size of the protected area has declined from 102,400 hectares to 80,000 hectares (253,000 acres to 197,700 acres).
In the past 10 years, more than 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) of critical lowland forest habitat within Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve has been cleared, largely for new oil palm plantations. A wide network of roads and drainage canals have been built to allow the deep peat soil to be drained and planted with oil palms.
Reposted with permission from our media associate Mongabay.
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Eye-Catching Designs Made from Recycled Plastic Bottles
The company sells a range of eco-friendly items like leggings, rash guards, and board shorts that are made using recycled post-consumer plastic bottles. There are currently 16 causes represented by distinct marine-life patterns, from whale shark research and invasive lionfish removal to sockeye salmon monitoring and abalone restoration.
One such organization is Get Inspired, a nonprofit that specializes in ocean restoration and environmental education. Get Inspired founder, marine biologist Nancy Caruso, says supporting on-the-ground efforts is one thing that sets Waterlust apart, like their apparel line that supports Get Inspired abalone restoration programs.
"All of us [conservation partners] are doing something," Caruso said. "We're not putting up exhibits and talking about it — although that is important — we're in the field."
Waterlust not only helps its conservation partners financially so they can continue their important work. It also helps them get the word out about what they're doing, whether that's through social media spotlights, photo and video projects, or the informative note card that comes with each piece of apparel.
"They're doing their part for sure, pushing the information out across all of their channels, and I think that's what makes them so interesting," Caruso said.
And then there are the clothes, which speak for themselves.
Advocate Apparel to Start Conversations About Conservation
Waterlust's concept of "advocate apparel" encourages people to see getting dressed every day as an opportunity to not only express their individuality and style, but also to advance the conversation around marine science. By infusing science into clothing, people can visually represent species and ecosystems in need of advocacy — something that, more often than not, leads to a teaching moment.
"When people wear Waterlust gear, it's just a matter of time before somebody asks them about the bright, funky designs," said Waterlust's CEO, Patrick Rynne. "That moment is incredibly special, because it creates an intimate opportunity for the wearer to share what they've learned with another."
The idea for the company came to Rynne when he was a Ph.D. student in marine science.
"I was surrounded by incredible people that were discovering fascinating things but noticed that often their work wasn't reaching the general public in creative and engaging ways," he said. "That seemed like a missed opportunity with big implications."
Waterlust initially focused on conventional media, like film and photography, to promote ocean science, but the team quickly realized engagement on social media didn't translate to action or even knowledge sharing offscreen.
Rynne also saw the "in one ear, out the other" issue in the classroom — if students didn't repeatedly engage with the topics they learned, they'd quickly forget them.
"We decided that if we truly wanted to achieve our goal of bringing science into people's lives and have it stick, it would need to be through a process that is frequently repeated, fun, and functional," Rynne said. "That's when we thought about clothing."
Support Marine Research and Sustainability in Style
To date, Waterlust has sold tens of thousands of pieces of apparel in over 100 countries, and the interactions its products have sparked have had clear implications for furthering science communication.
For Caruso alone, it's led to opportunities to share her abalone restoration methods with communities far and wide.
"It moves my small little world of what I'm doing here in Orange County, California, across the entire globe," she said. "That's one of the beautiful things about our partnership."
Check out all of the different eco-conscious apparel options available from Waterlust to help promote ocean conservation.
Melissa Smith is an avid writer, scuba diver, backpacker, and all-around outdoor enthusiast. She graduated from the University of Florida with degrees in journalism and sustainable studies. Before joining EcoWatch, Melissa worked as the managing editor of Scuba Diving magazine and the communications manager of The Ocean Agency, a non-profit that's featured in the Emmy award-winning documentary Chasing Coral.
But there's a problem. Palm oil may not cost much to produce, but it exacts a high price on the environment. And thanks to this often-invisible ingredient's complex international supply chain, efforts to reduce that impact are proving challenging.
From Virgin Forest to Grocery Store
The story of palm oil begins with clearing tropical rainforests and peatlands for plantations of oil palm trees, which thrive on warmth, sunlight, and copious rainfall. The trees — native to West Africa — produce clusters of orange-red fruit year-round, and can be harvested every 10–14 days when mature. For the most part, oil palms don't need much help, but some farms do use herbicides and insecticides. Oil palms produce 3.8 metric tons of oil per hectare annually — eight times as much as soybeans (.5 t/ha), and almost five times the yield of canola (.8 t/ha).
Palm fruit contains oil in its flesh (palm oil), and its seed (palm kernel oil). At diesel-powered mills, fruit and kernels are pressed to extract oil. The next stop is often a refinery, where bleaching improves the oil's color, deodorization reduces its smell, and "fractionation" can create different oils suited for different purposes. Then, the oil is shipped all over the world.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says palm oil is the most consumed oil in the world, and its non-food uses are also increasing. India, China, Europe and Pakistan are the top importers, collectively using more than half of the global supply. In Asia, it's used in home cooking. In Europe and the U.S., most demand comes from manufacturers for everything from Oreos to toothpaste. You can find it in Silk soy milk, Secret deodorant, Nutella, Jergens lotion, instant noodles and Girl Scout cookies.
Palm Oil and Environmental Devastation
Malaysian and Indonesian plantations make up about 85 percent of the industry, with Guatemala, Benin and Thailand among the other top producers. Areas with low wages and abundant labor often welcome palm plantations — despite the industry's history of slavery, child labor, and land-theft — because of their potential to lift workers out of poverty.
Around the world, the business of palm oil harms the environment. During conventional cultivation, forests are cleared for plantations, bringing biodiversity loss, human-wildlife conflict, and habitat destruction affecting many species, notably the orangutan. A recent International Union for Conservation of Nature report notes that 50% of all deforestation on Borneo between 2005 and 2015 was driven by palm oil development.
This deforestation also contributes to climate change; the conversion of forests to palm oil plantations releases carbon dioxide that had been absorbed by old-growth forests. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimated in 2013 that 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from tropical deforestation.
These impacts have proven hard to combat, in part because palm oil is rarely the end commodity. Richard Zimmerman, executive director of New York-based non-profit Orangutan Outreach, calls it a "pervasive yet hidden" problem. Given all the chemicals, sugars, fats, and allergens shoppers are already trying to avoid, he said, "Palm oil is low on the list, if it's even on the list."
Palm oil and its derivatives appear under a multitude of monikers, from "palm kernel oil" and "partially hydrogenated palm oil" to "sodium lauryl sulfate" and "glyceryl stearate." Other names, according to the Rainforest Action Network, include "stearic acid," anything that includes "palmitate," and "elaesis guineensis" (the oil palm's Latin name). Try finding products in your grocery store without these. Not that all these terms always mean palm oil — some are occasionally derived from other oils. But companies likely can't guarantee that, and there's no way of knowing from reading a package.
So how do we change things? One group trying to answer that question is the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), a 4,000-member-strong industry non-profit. Its approach includes offering financial incentives to stakeholders along the supply chain in return for implementing best practices.
RSPO members must demonstrate that plantation land was purchased, not stolen, and that they offer safe conditions for workers. The RSPO prohibits clearing primary (never-logged) forests and imposes requirements like: obtaining free, prior, and informed consent from locals for new plantings; analyzing and protecting fragile soils and areas of high-conservation value; and mitigating carbon impacts in place.
But right now, only about 20 percent of palm oil is RSPO-certified, and critics think the group's approach still doesn't go far enough. Greenpeace's Senior Palm Oil Campaigner Diana Ruiz said investigations show that brands shift responsibility for palm oil sourcing problems onto traders, and traders don't enforce on their end. "Once you get … all the way to the grower, there is no monitoring being done," she says — and no good way to address violations.
Beyond the produce section, palm oil can be found in almost everything in your grocery store, from from Oreos to toothpaste and beyond.
Erin Flegg
The Future of Palm Oil
Palm oil has a long supply chain, which makes reducing its use complex. "Historically, companies have not paid attention to what happens at the farm level, because [palm oil] is a secondary ingredient," said Neil Blomquist, a spokesperson for the education and advocacy group Palm Done Right.
That may be changing, as palm oil gets more publicity. Still, places where palm grows see a clear economic boom from the industry, and there's always a market for cheap consumables.
"It's a difficult industry to regulate for that reason," Blomquist said. "There's been a growing demand for palm oil, the lowest-cost oil that can be produced. So, increasing demand with an increasing population in the world is really what's driving the problems… with more and more rainforest being destroyed."
Ending the use of palm oil may not be the answer. "Going to a boycott could cause more problems," said Dan Strechay, the RSPO's US outreach and engagement representative. "Because if we don't buy palm oil — or ingredients that contain palm oil — it's not like we snap our fingers and we have additional materials to put in. Something else has to be grown to replace it, and other oil seeds may require more land."
But continuing as we are means ignoring the true costs of palm oil: to the environment and people living in palm-oil-producing areas. Said Zimmerman,"If the humans aren't doing well, the orangutans are not going to do well."
So, what do we do now? Eating fewer processed foods, buying locally, and otherwise voting with your dollars is a start. Keeping companies accountable for meeting their stated deadlines around sourcing sustainable palm oil is also key.
Ruiz says the next step is asking suppliers and traders to create more transparency around their reporting, and the public can help. "We have huge influence over these brands," she said. "The key here is to use that buying power we have as consumers and demand that companies do better."
This story originally appeared in Asparagus Magazine. It is republished here as part of EcoWatch's partnership with Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.
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The majority of the orangutans at our center are victims of the illegal pet trade. They have all suffered terrible cruelty and neglect after being taken from the wild as babies. They likely saw their mothers being killed as they fought to protect their infants. The traumatized young orphans were then sold or kept as pets by their captors, often living as part of the family until they grew too big and strong to handle. Then they were chained or cooped up in small wooden crates and soon forgotten, left to languish in misery far from the forest where they belong.
Amy's story is a typical one. She was being kept as a pet by villagers in Jambi, Sukamarau, in Central Borneo. When our rescue team found her, she was slumped in a dark wooden cage with a heavy chain around her neck. She was thin, dirty and depressed, and her brown eyes gazed blankly at Dewi, our vet, when she approached her. Poor Amy had nothing but a filthy piece of old cloth in her cage to comfort her.
Amy's rescue was the first step on her journey to a new life. After spending eight weeks in quarantine, she was given a clean bill of health by the veterinary team, and her rehabilitation could begin. At 6 years old, she was too big to go to school for baby orangutans and so entered the next stage of rehabilitation at our center—forest school. Here, among others of her own kind, Amy gradually developed the skills she would need to survive in the wild. She spent her time climbing and moving around in the trees, foraging for food and building a new nest each night to sleep in. Our monitoring team gathered data on her progress, reporting that she was a fast learner, was making excellent progress and would soon be a candidate for reintroduction into the wild.
The day of her release was a joyful one. It is so uplifting to see an orangutan return to their rightful home in the forest. It makes all the team's hard work worthwhile. At the same time, however, everyone at IAR is acutely aware that our work rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing orangutans only addresses the symptoms of the problem but not the problem itself. Habitat loss and illegal hunting are the primary causes of the decline in orangutan populations.
Rapid and relentless deforestation for industrial-scale agriculture, particularly palm oil and timber plantations, leaves orangutans without food and shelter, exposing them to hunters who kill orangutans and capture their babies to sell as pets. The apes are also in danger of coming into conflict with local people as they stray into villages and onto farmland in search of food. Fires started on an annual basis as part of land clearance operations in Indonesia are also responsible for the loss of thousands of acres of rainforest and the lives of hundreds if not thousands of orangutans.
In 2016, the Bornean orangutan joined the Sumatran orangutan on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species, an indication that the species is coming perilously close to extinction. Further evidence of the population's decline came in a report published in the journal Biology in February this year. Its authors concluded that the Bornean orangutan population had fallen by 148,000 between 1999 and 2015 and now stands at between 70,000 and 100,000 individuals. The numbers could fall by at least another 45,000 in the next 35 years, the conservationists predict. What, then, can be done to pull the orangutan back from the brink of extinction?
In addition to supporting the work of groups fighting to save the orangutan, we conscientious consumers can all ensure our choices and purchasing habits are not contributing to the orangutan's desperate plight. "Buyer beware," as the saying goes, More than 50 percent of groceries contain palm oil, from toothpaste and shampoo, to ice cream and pizza. And it's frankly impossible to know for sure from a label whether something has genuinely been ethically and sustainably produced.
None of us wants the orangutan to pay the price for our lifestyle choices, and therefore it's better, wherever possible, to shop locally and steer clear of items whose origins are unclear. It is, after all, better for the environment as a whole—and better for our own health—to consume products grown closer to home that don't leave a giant carbon footprint on the planet as they travel to reach us.
Further action we can all take to help our critically endangered cousin is to raise awareness among friends, family and colleagues of their plight. And raising the alarm about the threats facing the species couldn't be easier thanks to social media.
The name "orangutan" is derived from the Malay and Indonesian words orang meaning "person" and hutan meaning "forest." What a tragedy it would be to let this precious "person of the forest" vanish from the face of the Earth forever. But if we all have the will and determination to step up and prevent that from happening, I do believe we still can.
Alan Knight is the chief executive of International Animal Rescue, a UK-based animal welfare nonprofit. Alan was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours List in 2006 for his services to animal welfare.
This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
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The report comes a day after Mondelēz announced it has excluded 12 upstream suppliers as a result of deforestation practices. The Illinois-based snack food giant started its journey to sustainable palm oil in 2009 and committed to sourcing certified sustainable palm oil (CSPO) in 2013, according to WWF's palm oil scorecard.
Despite this commitment, Greenpeace said in its report that between 2015 and 2017, 22 of the company's palm oil suppliers destroyed more than 70,000 hectares of rainforest in Southeast Asia—an area bigger than the city of Chicago—of which 25,000 hectares was forested orangutan habitat.
Mondelēz gets much of this so-called "dirty palm oil" from Wilmar International, the world's largest palm oil trader, according to the report. More than 80 percent of Wilmar's palm oil comes from third-party suppliers. Despite adopting a "No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation" policy in 2013, Wilmar has failed to monitor its suppliers across all of their operations to determine whether they comply with its policy or are destroying forests, Greenpeace said.
"It's outrageous that despite promising to clean up its palm oil almost ten years ago, Mondelēz is still trading with forest destroyers," Kiki Taufik, the global head of Greenpeace Southeast Asia's Indonesia forests campaign, said in a press release. "Palm oil can be made without destroying forests, yet our investigation discovered that Mondelēz suppliers are still trashing forests and wrecking orangutan habitat, pushing these beautiful and intelligent creatures to the brink of extinction. They're literally dying for a cookie."
BREAKING: We're delivering a giant Forest Destruction Flavor cookie to Mondelez, the maker of Oreo, at its global H… https://t.co/da4nTWPQT4— Greenpeace USA (@Greenpeace USA)1542128079.0
Palm oil is the most common vegetable oil in the world and can be found in chocolate, baked goods, soaps, detergents and much more.
But its production, which involves clearing tropical rainforests to plant oil palm trees, is a driver of deforestation,
wildlife habitat degradation, human rights violations and climate change.
The report comes on the heels of Greenpeace and Iceland Foods' viral "no palm oil Christmas" commercial that was banned from UK televisions for being "too political."
Iceland's Banned TV Christmas Advert... Say hello to Rang-tan. #NoPalmOilChristmas www.youtube.com
Greenpeace is urging Mondelēz to cease ties with the Singaporean oil processing company.
"Mondelēz CEO, Dirk Van de Put, promised to offer consumers 'snacking made right.' But there is nothing right about palm oil that is produced by killing orangutans and fueling climate change," Taufik said in the press release. "This must be a wake up call to Mondelez and other household brands to take action and cut Wilmar off until it can prove its palm oil is clean. Ultimately, if big brands can't find enough clean palm oil to make their products then they need to start using less."
On Monday, Mondelēz emphasized its goal of 100 percent sustainability and transparency across the palm oil industry.
"Mondelēz International remains fully committed to driving change in the palm oil sector and today's actions against 12 upstream suppliers reflect that commitment," Jonathan Horrell, global director of sustainability at Mondelēz International, said in a press release. "We will continue to pursue existing and new initiatives that seek to drive effective change across palm oil-growing communities. The company understands that this complex challenge can only be solved through collaboration with all actors in the palm oil supply chain, from growers to suppliers and buyers, as well as local and national government and non-governmental organizations."
Rock Band Occupies Palm Oil Tanks With Activists Protesting Deforestation #Dropdirtypalmoil @reallucylawless… https://t.co/oEYp1cdEFW— EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)1537974431.0
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Ulet Ifansasti / Getty Images News
There's a "forgotten solution" for achieving major economic, development and climate gains—transforming the way the world feeds itself and manages its land.
At this week's UN General Assembly, members of the Food and Land Use Coalition will meet with heads of state and CEOs to raise the profile of this issue and encourage greater action. They have new research to support their case. The food and land use chapter of the New Climate Economy's Global Opportunities Report sets out how decisive action on food and land use is at the heart of the inclusive growth story of the 21st century. The report finds that more sustainable food and land use business models could be worth up to $2.3 trillion, and that they're critical to delivering a more climate-secure and resilient world.
Five areas offer the most opportunity for action:
1. Avoid deforestation and close the forest frontier.
The first-order priority is to end deforestation by closing the "forest frontier" or intact forests, to development. If the world fails to protect its remaining tropical forests, keeping global temperature rise to 1.5 or 2 degrees C (2.7-3.6 degrees F)—the level the international community has agreed is necessary to prevent the worst climate impacts—becomes almost impossible.
Increased support for protected areas, indigenous peoples' rights and better land use planning and enforcement are fundamental steps. Securing indigenous rights to land tenure makes strong economic (as well as moral) sense. Further progress on the deforestation-free supply chain movement is also urgently needed, both in terms of scaling up implementation by companies that have already made commitments, as well as in bringing new companies and markets on board.
2. Increase agricultural productivity.
There are significant gains to be made in increasing agricultural productivity and ensuring greater uptake of climate-smart agriculture. Across the world, farming practices can be made much more efficient and resilient by providing training services for farmers, strengthening smallholder cooperatives and investing in state-of-the art farming techniques. The closure of the forest frontier provides farmers with the incentive to intensify their production on existing land. Reforming global agricultural subsidies, currently worth $519 billion per year, could also lead to vastly better outcomes from the farming system. For example, incentives for cattle expansion in the Amazon could instead be reformed to support investment in forest restoration or raising livestock in harmony with forests and other ecosystems.
3. Restore forests and landscapes.
There is a major economic prize to be won in restoring degraded forests and agricultural land. By allowing degraded forests to recover to natural forest, supporting agroforestry and other strategies, restoration could lead to economic gains of $35–40 billion per year within 15 years, as well as a myriad of social and environmental benefits. There are a number of measures to spur public and private sector investment in restoration, including incentives from national governments and multilateral development banks providing "first-loss guarantees" to investors committed to restoration.
4. Reduce food loss and waste.
One-third of all food produced is lost or wasted along the food chain, costing the global economy an estimated $940 billion annually and producing about 8 percent of global emissions. If food loss and waste were a country, it would rank as the world's third-largest emitter after China and the U.S.
Saving just one-quarter of the food currently lost or wasted would be equivalent to the amount of food needed to feed 870 million people annually. It also makes good business sense: Recent research found that companies investing in food loss and waste reduction saw a median benefit-cost ratio of 14:1. Coalitions such as Champion 12.3, which brings together executives from business, government and organizations, have a critical role to play here.
5. Improve diets.
A comprehensive global effort to address the double burden of malnutrition and obesity will be critical to securing better and more inclusive growth in the 21st century. Across the world, almost a billion people suffer from inadequate diets and insecure food supplies. At the same time, current trends towards diets high in processed foods, refined sugars, fats, oils and red meat have resulted in more than 2.1 billion people becoming overweight or obese. This increase in collective body mass is strongly associated with the increased incidence worldwide of chronic non-communicable diseases, especially type II diabetes, coronary heart disease and some cancers. If current trends continue, these chronic diseases are predicted to account for two-thirds of the global burden of disease. The global economic cost of obesity alone was estimated to be around $2 trillion in 2012, roughly equivalent to the global cost of armed conflict or smoking.
Public policy and private sector action can deliver major changes here, whether through the use of economic instruments such as a "sugar tax," the issuance of public health guidelines such as the Chinese government's advice on reduced meat consumption, or through innovative private-sector approaches such as The Cool Food Pledge, the Better Buying Lab or blending mushrooms into burgers.
Better Economic Growth
Action across these five areas would lead to better and more resilient economic growth. It would also make it more likely that the world will meet the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on climate change. Despite much progress, there is still a great deal to be done—and a massive prize to be won.
Main image: A worker carries a Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii) as being prepared to be released into the wild at Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme's rehabilitation center on Nov.14, 2016 in Kuta Mbelin, North Sumatra, Indonesia. The Orangutans in Indonesia have been known to be on the verge of extinction as a result of deforestation and poaching. Found mostly in South-East Asia, where they live on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, the endangered species continue to lose their habitat as a result of corporate expansion in a developing economy. Indonesia approved palm oil concessions on nearly 15 million acres of peatlands over the past years and thousands of square miles have been cleared for plantations, including the lowland areas that are the prime habitat for orangutans.
The olinguito, a carnivorous member of the raccoon family, wasn't discovered in Colombia and Ecuador until 2013. The Burrunan dolphin was found in the waters off Australia in 2011. In a new study published in the journal Ecology and Evolution, Molly Fisher and other researchers at the University of Georgia used a predictive model to conclude that 303 mammals have yet to be discovered.
Most of these unknown mammals, the researchers found, are likely in tropical regions of the world, many of which are threatened with habitat destruction. This makes discovering them a race against time before they go extinct. "If a species goes extinct before we discover it, how can we know what went wrong? If we lose a species without knowing it existed, we lose a lot of information," said Fisher.
Fisher said that she chose to study mammals because they are the most charismatic of terrestrial species, and therefore more likely to be protected. But less glamorous creatures, like plants and arthropods, are disappearing at even faster rates than mammals, which is worrying to scientists.
"We're concerned about why extinction rates are on the rise," said Fisher. "We're losing a lot of biodiversity, most of which exists in our remaining forests in places like the Amazon." Some researchers now talk about "biological annihilation," citing cascading extinctions, dwindling population sizes, and range shrinkages among vertebrate species.
Fisher and her team employed scientific modeling to measure discovery and extinction rates. Without direct interaction, however, it's impossible to know whether a species has disappeared completely or just hasn't been seen in a while. This occurred recently with the Guadalupe fur seal, a species found in California and Mexico that was rediscovered after years of suspected extinction.
The model used by the University of Georgia researchers is similar to one used to predict the remaining unknown number of plant species in 2011. It was constructed by counting the total number of species discovered and described by scientists from 1760 through 2010 by five year increments. "The model utilizes a statistical technique called 'maximum likelihood,' which allows scientists to approximate the total number of species that are likely to have existed in order to produce the number of descriptions actually recorded by taxonomists, scientists who classify new species," said Fisher.
As the number of such scientists has increased, so has the number of classifications accounted for in the model. The researchers also noted "taxonomic efficiency" or how good scientists are at discovering new species. Like the Tapanuli orangutan, many species once thought to be identical are, upon closer inspection, found to be genetically distinct. Dr. Michael Krützen from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Zurich was part of the team that helped discover the Tapanuli using genomic analyses from orangutan samples. He said that Tapanuli orangutans differ significantly, most notably in tooth and skull shape, from those outside the region, because their populations had been disconnected for at least 20,000 years. But with so few of them left, it's easy to see why the species wasn't discovered until recently.
Fisher and her team approximate that 5,860 mammal species currently exist. She was surprised to find that Europe and Asia had a significant number of undiscovered mammals. The model showed that 10 percent of species in this part of the world have yet to be discovered, possibly because many are located in lightly populated Siberian regions.
7 Amazing New Fish Species Discovered in 2017 https://t.co/bgbUq28XEM @wwwfoecouk @GreenpeaceUK— EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)1514888706.0
Reposted with permission from our media associate SIERRA magazine.