If world leaders can’t be trusted to protect the environment, it’s no wonder people are taking matters into their own hands

Analysis: With untrustworthy individuals too often in charge of the planet’s most valuable resources, Josh Gabbatiss asks what ordinary people can do to save the world

An Indonesian government report claiming orangutan numbers had increased was described as ‘impossible’ by scientists (HUTAN-KOCP)

Along with polar bears and elephants, orangutans are the poster children of global wildlife decline. In photos their sad, adorable, and very human faces gaze out at us from the splintered wreckage of a forest cut down to make way for palm oil plantations.

So it caused some surprise when the Indonesian government recently announced these animals are in fact bouncing back – their populations increasing by 10 per cent within the space of just two years across Indonesia’s forested islands.

It certainly surprised wildlife scientist Erik Meijaard, who together with a small team of colleagues has written a letter explaining categorically why they think the Indonesian authorities are wrong. They say a rosy picture has been painted based on unrepresentative data and wild assumptions – the orangutan numbers reported by the government were “biologically impossible”.