Land battle for Sumatra's apes

TRIPA - Perched halfway up a tree on the Seumayan River, a young orang-utan lounges on a branch, eating fruit.

In the distance, smoke rises from an illegal fire, one of dozens lit to wipe out the virgin rainforest and replace it with oil palm plantations.

It's burning season on Indonesia's Sumatra island, where vast tracts of vegetation are being torched to meet the soaring global demand for palm oil.

The pace is especially frenzied in the peat swamp forests of the Tripa region, one of the final refuges of the critically endangered orang-utan - and a company owned by one of Britain's most venerable trading groups is among those leading the destructive charge.

Prized for its productiveness and versatility, palm oil is used in everything from lipstick and detergent to chocolate, crisps and biofuels.

Indonesia and Malaysia are the world's biggest palm oil producers - but they also shelter the last remaining orang-utans, found only on Sumatra and Borneo islands in the same lowland forests that are being razed to make way for massive plantations.

In Indonesia, one of the largest palm oil companies is Astra Agro Lestari, a subsidiary of Astra International, a Jakarta-based conglomerate which is itself part of Jardine Matheson, a 177-year-old group that made a fortune from the Chinese opium trade and is still controlled by a Scottish family, the Keswicks, descendants of the original founders.

Conservation groups are targeting British supermarkets to alert consumers to the effects of the palm oil explosion.

But the Independent can reveal that Jardines, registered in Bermuda and listed on the London Stock Exchange, is implicated in ripping out the final vestiges of orang-utan habitat.

Environmentalists are dismayed by the activities of Astra Agro, one of the main companies operating in Tripa.

They point out that Tripa belongs to the nominally protected Leuser Eco-System, renowned for its exceptional biodiversity, and claim that the plantation businesses are contravening a logging moratorium as well as engaging in illegal practices including burning land.

Orang-utans are vanishing at an alarming rate in Borneo but in Sumatra their situation is even more precarious.

The Sumatran orang-utan - more intelligent and sociable than its Borneo cousin and with a unique culture of tool use - is likely to be the first great ape species to go extinct.

There are believed to be just 6600 left, mostly living in unprotected areas of Aceh province.

Their lowland forests remained relatively undisturbed during the long-running separatist war in Aceh, but since a peace agreement was signed in 2005, it has been open season.

The primates are now splintered across 11 pockets of jungle, with only three populations considered viable. Another three, including Tripa, are borderline viable.

Elsewhere, the orang-utans - which use sticks to extract insects from trees and seeds from fruit - are effectively extinct.

As their territory shrinks, along with their food supplies, the apes are increasingly coming into conflict with humans.

Farmers shoot those caught raiding crops; babies are captured and sold as pets.

Adults discovered in oil palm plantations may be hacked to death with machetes.

Astra Agro says it plans to develop only half of its 13,000ha in Tripa because of conservation concerns, and denies any illegal activity.

JARDINE MATHESON

* Founded by two Scottish traders in Canton, China in 1832, it was the first British trading company to smash the East India Company's Asian monopoly.

* Founder William Jardine was known as "the iron-headed old rat" for his toughness and asperity.

* The company's fortunes were founded on smuggling huge quantities of opium into China, creating millions of addicts.

* When the Chinese fought back, Jardine persuaded the British government to launch the First Opium War against China.

* Astra Agro, a subsidiary of the company, claims that "concern for the environment" is "an integral part of all the company's activities".

- INDEPENDENT