POLICY
JAKARTA (FORESTHINTS.NEWS) - An opinion article published in The Jakarta Post (Sep 15) by Erik Meijaard and Julie Sherman titled "Orangutan conservation needs agreement on data and trends" has raised several concerns to which the FORESTHINTS.NEWS editorial team needs to respond, as follows:
Indonesian Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya made a complete set of statements in the context of World Orangutan Day which was subsequently included in a news article published in FORESTHINTS.NEWS (Aug 19) under the title “World Orangutan Day: Indonesia leading the way in orangutan protection”. However, the authors of the opinion article in The Jakarta Post (Sep 15) fail to properly cite the original source properly containing the comprehensive statements by Minister Nurbaya that they refer to. As such, the authors of the opinion piece are not transparent with the public concerning the original source of the statements by the Minister they refer to.
In addition to not mentioning the source of Minister Nurbaya's complete statements that they refer to, the authors of the opinion article only pick parts of the minister's statements and, in doing so, jump from one paragraph to another in order to build their argument and comments. As a result, these arguments and comments miss the context of Minister Nurbaya's complete set of statements.
One example of this loss of context is the authors assertion that “Where we differ with the minister is on her statement that ‘ground-based evidence confirms that Sumatran, Tapanuli and Bornean orangutans are far from extinction and will instead continue to have growing populations’”. This statement they refer to is in the first paragraph of the article containing the minister's full set of statements. However, the specific example of the ground-based evidence subsequently mentioned by Minister Nurbaya in the article is completely overlooked by the authors of the opinion article, such that they totally ignore the background to Minister Nurbaya's statements in their arguments and comments.
The authors also use the following quote, ‘we must keep sight of the real ground-based and time-series evidence and not be fooled.’ This forms part of the seventh paragraph which is not fully quoted by them. Furthermore, in addition to not quoting in full the entire seventh paragraph, the authors of the opinion article ignore the substance of the six previous paragraphs in the FORESTHINTS.NEWS article.
The authors of the opinion article go on to claim that “The minister further notes that 'predictions or projections-based' approaches are unreliable". There is in fact no such statement from Minister Nurbaya that 'predictions or projection-based approaches are unreliable' in the FORESTHINTS.NEWS article. Moreover, the authors ignore the prior seven paragraphs of the news article in making their argument and comments on the 'prediction or projections-based approaches'.
The authors of the opinion article also fail to convey the context in which Minister Nurbaya delivered her statements. The Minister was quoted elaborating on three types of negative campaigns aimed at fund-raising and generating benefits for the organizations concerned. Such campaigns, according to Minister Nurbaya, use ‘unproductive and unconstructive campaign approaches’, thus prompting the Minister to ignore them for years. This important point was also omitted by the authors of the opinion article.
The above concerns are conveyed as part of our efforts to respond to the several inquiries we received after the opinion article appeared in The Jakarta Post.
RELATED STORIES
POLICY
JAKARTA (FORESTHINTS.NEWS) - An opinion article published in The Jakarta Post (Sep 15) by Erik Meijaard and Julie Sherman titled "Orangutan conservation needs agreement on data and trends" has raised several concerns to which the FORESTHINTS.NEWS editorial team needs to respond, as follows:
Indonesian Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya made a complete set of statements in the context of World Orangutan Day which was subsequently included in a news article published in FORESTHINTS.NEWS (Aug 19) under the title “World Orangutan Day: Indonesia leading the way in orangutan protection”. However, the authors of the opinion article in The Jakarta Post (Sep 15) fail to properly cite the original source properly containing the comprehensive statements by Minister Nurbaya that they refer to. As such, the authors of the opinion piece are not transparent with the public concerning the original source of the statements by the Minister they refer to.
In addition to not mentioning the source of Minister Nurbaya's complete statements that they refer to, the authors of the opinion article only pick parts of the minister's statements and, in doing so, jump from one paragraph to another in order to build their argument and comments. As a result, these arguments and comments miss the context of Minister Nurbaya's complete set of statements.
One example of this loss of context is the authors assertion that “Where we differ with the minister is on her statement that ‘ground-based evidence confirms that Sumatran, Tapanuli and Bornean orangutans are far from extinction and will instead continue to have growing populations’”. This statement they refer to is in the first paragraph of the article containing the minister's full set of statements. However, the specific example of the ground-based evidence subsequently mentioned by Minister Nurbaya in the article is completely overlooked by the authors of the opinion article, such that they totally ignore the background to Minister Nurbaya's statements in their arguments and comments.
The authors also use the following quote, ‘we must keep sight of the real ground-based and time-series evidence and not be fooled.’ This forms part of the seventh paragraph which is not fully quoted by them. Furthermore, in addition to not quoting in full the entire seventh paragraph, the authors of the opinion article ignore the substance of the six previous paragraphs in the FORESTHINTS.NEWS article.
The authors of the opinion article go on to claim that “The minister further notes that 'predictions or projections-based' approaches are unreliable". There is in fact no such statement from Minister Nurbaya that 'predictions or projection-based approaches are unreliable' in the FORESTHINTS.NEWS article. Moreover, the authors ignore the prior seven paragraphs of the news article in making their argument and comments on the 'prediction or projections-based approaches'.
The authors of the opinion article also fail to convey the context in which Minister Nurbaya delivered her statements. The Minister was quoted elaborating on three types of negative campaigns aimed at fund-raising and generating benefits for the organizations concerned. Such campaigns, according to Minister Nurbaya, use ‘unproductive and unconstructive campaign approaches’, thus prompting the Minister to ignore them for years. This important point was also omitted by the authors of the opinion article.
The above concerns are conveyed as part of our efforts to respond to the several inquiries we received after the opinion article appeared in The Jakarta Post.
RELATED STORIES
