Honorary Professor Panda Paws, Chair of Pongo Pongo Studies and Promotion at Munguin’s University of Antarctica, meets one of our closest cousins.
(Currently in hiding from Palm Oil plantation owners, she agreed to be interviewed only if her identity remained secret. She will be referred to as Hope.)
PP – Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed for Munguin’s New Republic. Your species is rather popular there.
Hope – A pleasure and thank you for your efforts in promoting our plight and to Tris for including us in his blog on a Sunday.
PP – Things are bad for you lot at the moment. You’ve halved in numbers over the last twenty years, you must be worried?
Hope- Well yes. We’ve been around for over 3 million years. We were the first Great Apes to evolve. But our habitat is being lost at an incredible rate due to palm oil plantations being built on our forest homes. And it’s having an effect on all the species that depend on the forest. I’m afraid to say it’s all humans’ fault. Our much younger cousins are wreaking havoc.
PP – Ironically palm oil is really bad for our health.
Hope – I know. I mean, what sentient species does something so harmful to itself?
PP- Well we are the species that voted for Theresa May and Donald Trump!
Hope – Touché!
PP – Or “touchy”, as Trump might say *
PP – Some of us want to help you guys, what can we do?
Hope – We discussed this at our last gathorang. We are grateful for MNR readers’ support and ask that they tell others about our plight and about the harm caused by palm oil. If things continue as they are we won’t be around much longer to be life-affirming for folk weary of MSM’s Unionist bias and need cheering up. Lesley (name changed) our librarian thinks a concerted campaign telling folk to avoid palm oil for their health and ours would help.
PP – Is she a better librarian than Conan?
Hope – LOL, I’ll leave that for others to decide.
PP – What are your views on sustainable palm oil?
Hope – Well I’m cynical about corporate claims. Obviously, pick sustainable over non-sustainable but given the public health risks, might be best to avoid where possible. However, obviously the stuff is cheap, so like corn syrup, it is used in highly processed foods. And I know some of your guys are suffering from benefit freezes and sanctions but for those you can avoid it, please do. And if you do have any spare pennies, there are organisations who are trying to save us. Unfortunately many of our young become orphaned when their mums are killed or die of hunger. Although in the wild, we are solitary that’s because we need large territories to ensure there is enough food to go around. When food is freely available we’ll happily mix with each other.
PP – As seen in the rescue centres. The youngsters go to forest school to learn the skills their mums would have taught them.
Hope –Absolutely, and we are so grateful to the Homo Sapiens who run these centres and also those who fund them.
PP – So what’s your hope for the future, Hope?
Hope – That humans, the youngest of the Great Apes, realise the damage they are doing to the planet and to other species and we can all share the planet and live in harmony.
PP – Thanks for your time and good luck for the future.
For those who want to find out more about orangutans, Channel 4’s Secret Life of the Zoo series is following two sisters and their children including a new baby at Chester Zoo. If you watch on Catch Up you don’t need a TV licence though you will have to register. For those with a TV licence, or who can visit someone who does (perhaps an elderly relative) Red Ape, part of the “Natural World” series is on BBC2 at 9pm on Thursday 10th May.
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*Hail to the Chief plays
“Fake news, fake news. Everyone knows red-faced Great Apes can’t talk, at least not intelligently anyway. MAGA, MAGA, MAGA”
