00:00We regularly see these horrible images of animals being beheaded or killed.
00:08It's a reality, it's still happening.
00:23The orang-utans of Borneo and Sumatra are in critical danger of extinction,
00:26which means that their population is declining very fast.
00:30There are two main reasons.
00:32The first one is related to deforestation.
00:34When the forest is destroyed, it is replaced by other fossil fuels,
00:38whether agricultural or mining.
00:40The second reason, which is less often mentioned, is hunting.
00:43The orang-utan is a species that reproduces very slowly,
00:46on average every 8 years.
00:48So it's a species that can't stand any hunting pressure.
00:51We don't have a proper orang-utan hunt,
00:54we just have isolated cases of local communities,
00:58isolated cases of poachers,
01:00who kill an animal once in a while.
01:02But that's the problem.
01:04Once in a while is enough to lead some populations to extinction.
01:16First of all, people need to know that the orang-utan is a protected species.
01:19So there is a lot of awareness that is being put in place
01:22to inform society that we are not allowed to kill orang-utans.
01:26The other thing is that as the orang-utan is able to adapt,
01:29if we can imagine and set up landscapes
01:32where we still have forest corridors and pieces of forest
01:35inside agricultural areas,
01:36it will allow these animals to use these new spaces.
01:39If hunting is juggled,
01:41I don't see why this species couldn't survive in these new environments.
01:45Today, in Borneo, no one knows exactly how many animals are left.
01:49What we do know, however, is that their decline continues.
01:52If we don't change the practices of land exploitation,
01:55I think we may have lost half of the current workforce
01:58by the time we are 20 years old.
02:00However, to think that the orang-utan will disappear from the planet
02:03by the time we are 10 years old, that's not true.
02:05Orang-utans are our closest living cousins at the moment.
02:08They are great monkeys.
02:10If only for this reason,
02:12it seems to me that it is really essential to try to protect them.
02:15If the great monkeys were to disappear,
02:18what would be the next species that would disappear?
02:22It could be ours.
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