>>INSERT TEXT EXCERPT. Currently, three species of orangutans are known: the Bornean Orangutan, the Sumatran Orangutan and the Tapanuli Orangutan<<.

find more information on orangutans for kids and teachers here
join OranguKids
Orangutan Land Trust provides a range of solutions to protect orangutans
learn more about our solutions here
And find out how you can help save orangutans in the wild
Orangutans are (critically) endangered, with current populations estimated to be >>INSERT TEXT<<. Three main human activities threaten – roughly equally – the remaining wild orangutan are deforestation, poaching and wildfires.
+
+
+
Over the decades, the Bornean and Sumatran rainforests have steadily degraded and perished, resulting in the serious loss of orangutan habitat. Around the 1960s and the 1970s, these tropical rainforests were logged during the plywood boom (see image right) and many were then converted into paper&pulp plantations and transmigration areas during the 1980s and 1990s. Since the turn of the century, the remaining rainforests are further threatened by the oil palm cultivation boom. Currently, timber extraction and agribusiness – both legal and illegal – are the main causes of deforestation and orangutan habitat loss.
Historically, both forest exploitation (for timber) as well as forest conversion (for coffee, paper & pulp, rubber, tea, etc) have been the main causes of orangutan habitat loss in Borneo and Sumatra. For instance, the habitat of the Bornean Orangutan was mainly replaced by grassland/shrubland or oil palm – both commercial and smallholder plantations – between 2001-2016 (see the image above). But in Sumatra, home of the Sumatran orangutan and the Tapanuli orangutan, their habitat was mostly replaced by commercial and smallholder paper & pulp and oil palm plantations.
>>MAIN TEXT<< Today, poaching orangutans for bushmeat and the pet trade are the main illegal contributors for the decline of orangutan populations throughout Borneo and Sumatra.
bushmeat remains to be a serious issue >>MORE<<.
The pet trade is >>MORE<<.
MAIN TEXT<<
86% of peat forest that burned in 1997 in Kalimantan was replaced by scrub&fern in 2015. 74% of burning in 2015 was on those same degraded lands. The key to fire prevention is by restoring flammable deforested peatlands back to fire-proof system they once were #haze #fire pic.twitter.com/1II8KRpsFd
— David Gaveau (@GaveauD) August 10, 2019
Climate change …
Slash-and-burn is another important cause of wildfires. >>MORE<<
The future of the orangutan is heavily debated as ongoing habitat destruction, illegal wildlife trade and hunting cause declining populations. The vulnerability of the orangutan is best revealed in the palm oil debate. It is true that palm oil is a major threat to orangutans. Unsustainable practices such as deforestation, forest fires and habitat fragmentation put the future of viable orangutan populations at risk. The palm oil sector is especially relevant because the majority of orangutans live outside protected areas. (In fact, in Borneo alone, over 10,000 orangutans live in areas allocated for industrial oil palm.) Here orangutans live in degraded forest, isolated forest patches in a plantation landscape. But they are still there and can play an important role if we want to connect and protect orangutans in the wild.
We believe that orangutans are best protected in their natural habitat. Sadly, much of this habitat is impacted by human activity: such as oil palm and timber plantations, logging, mining and small farms, for example. Only 36% of orangutan habitat is located in protected areas, while 49% is located in timber concessions, 9% in tree plantations and 6% in oil palm estates (see image right).
That means you have to work with people living and working in orangutan habitat if you want make an impact. We condemn unsustainable practices such as deforestation, use of fire and harm of wildlife in and around plantation areas. But we support and encourage those plantation companies that save and protect forest on their land, plant trees to create wildlife corridors and manage orangutans on their plantations.
Whether we like it or not, human activities occur throughout much of the remaining orangutan habitat and exacerbate its loss and the decline of orangutan populations. That’s why we choose to work with sustainable palm oil companies that protect forest and plant buffer zones and corridors to conserve orangutans in the wild.
deforestation | poaching | wildfires | |
habitat loss | certified products | … | … |
population decline | … | responsible tourism | … |
>>How does OLT address the three main drivers: (1) Deforestation for commercial agriculture and silviculture, (2) poaching orangutans for bushmeat and the pet trade and (3) wildfires linked to climate change and slash-and-burn practices?<< what does OLT do to address orangutan habitat loss and orangutan population decline???<<
Everyone can play a part to support solutions for the survival of the orangutan. By demanding only sustainable, deforestation-free ingredients in the products we buy, we can change the way the palm oil industry operates to one that protects wildlife and their habitats.
Led by Michelle Desilets, Executive Director and Lone Droscher-Nielsen, President and Trustee, with a combined experience of over 50 years in orangutan conservation, OLT is backed by a formidable team of experts who help determine the strategy of the organisation
Michelle Desilets is the Founder and Executive Director of Orangutan Land Trust and has been working in orangutan conservation for 27 years. Michelle previously founded and directed the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation UK.
Lone Droscher-Nielsen is President and Trustee to Orangutan Land Trust. She has worked in orangutan conservation since 1993 and founded what is now the world’s largest primate rescue centre, the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Reintroduction Project in 1998. Numerous television programmes have been made showcasing her work in saving over 1000 orangutans, including Orangutan Diary and Orangutan Island. Lone is knighted in her native Denmark.
Professor David Chivers, MA, PhD, ScD, FLS, FZS, FRGS, was born in April 1944, and from Merchant Taylors’ School, Northwood, he came up to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, in 1963, to read veterinary medicine. Reading Physical Anthropology in his third year, showed him that he could combine his boyhood interest in natural history with a growing interest in our relatives, so he registered for a Ph.D. and went off to the Malay Peninsula for two years to study the ecology and behaviour of the siamang.
Thijs started as a sustainability officer at MVO – The Netherlands Oils and Fats Industry in 2014. During this time he learned from traders, refiners, manufactures, growers, NGO’s, governments and scientific experts how to go about sustainable palm oil. His best experiences were when he worked with oil palm smallholders and plantation companies in Indonesia in 2017. After he left MVO in 2019, Thijs started as a trustee and content writer for the Orangutan Land Trust.
Judith first realised her passion for sustainability when she was the Marketing and CSR Manager at a global edible oils Company. Here she developed strategies for these functions and developed training for customers on all aspects of sustainable palm oil. Judith joined OLT in 2019 to share her supply chain and policy knowledge and helps reach out to companies looking for conservation projects.
Dr Ian Singleton is Director of Conservation at PanEco Foundation and Scientific Director for the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme. He was formerly Senior orangutan keeper at Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust and Animal keeper at Royal Zoological Society of Scotland and Zoological Society of London. He studied at the University of Kent (PhD, Ecology; orangutan ranging behaviour, 1996 – 2000) and the University of Sunderland (BSc(hons), Environmental Science, 1984 – 1987).
Fitrian Ardiansyah is Indonesia Country Director at IDH – The Sustainable Trade Initiative, among others, in charge of ISLA (initiative for sustainable landscapes) and helping coordinate palm oil and pulp and paper programs in Indonesia. He is a Fellow at the International League of Conservation Writers, and a Scientific Advisor for the Orangutan Land Trust. He has helped think-tank organisations including Pelangi Indonesia and Article 33. He was undertaking doctoral research at the Crawford School, the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia.
Dr Carl Traeholt is the Southeast Asia Programme Director for Copenhagen Zoo.
John (Junaidi) Payne led a Statewide survey of orangutans in Sabah in the mid-1980s, finding that there were about 20,000 individuals. In that period when half of Sabah’s forests had not been logged and oil palm plantations occupied only 2% of Sabah’s land, it was clear that dense breeding populations of the species were linked to low, flat, moist soils, irrespective of forest condition, and the best sites for oil palm. Based on that, he believes that we should help the species adapt over the next half-century to a lowland landscape of oil palm, orang-utan food plants and regenerating forest.
Dr Serge Wich, OLT Advisory Board, is a biologist/ecologist with a keen interest in primates and tropical rain forests. His work focuses on pure and applied research. He has studied several primate species, but has been mainly focusing on orangutans and their habitat in recent years. He currently is a professor at Liverpool John Moores University in the Research Centre in Evolutionary Anthropology and Palaeoecology.
An Indonesianist for over two decades, Bart is endorsed as Quality Panel Member by the High Conservation Value Resource Network, as an independent trainer (P&C Lead Auditor and SCC) by the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil, and as Certification Coach by The Borneo Initiative.
Bart has an extensive track record covering all disciplines of certification (prosperity, people & planet) in Indonesia. He has cooperated with various for-profit and not-for-profit entities in Indonesia and Malaysia and currently supports KAYON, a start-up initiative promoting a new approach to (tropical) rainforest conservation: pirate–a–tree.