Illegal logging ‘will ruin habitat of orang-utans’

The King of the Swingers could soon find himself with nowhere to swing. Orang-utan homes may be wiped off the face of the earth within 10 years, as illegal logging demolishes rainforests in south-east Asia 30 per cent faster than previously feared, the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) revealed yesterday.

“The rate of decline of the forests is the most alarming we have seen yet anywhere in the world,” said Christian Nellemann, who helped write the UN reportLast Stand of the Orang-utan. “Suitable forest habitat may be gone in as little as a decade.”

independent