As we bring in the new year, we have been truly humbled to reflect on the incredible impact you, our supporters, have helped the Orangutan Foundation achieve in 2023.

FOR ORANGUTANS

Last year we welcomed two wild orangutan births in Lamandau Wildlife Reserve: Arul (son of Acuy) and Jojo (son of Jonson). Both are second generation offspring, with Arul being Acuy’s third infant and second son. Acuy sits at the head of three generations of orangutans born into the Reserve, with her first infant Amina now a mother to Albie. The suspected father of Arul is a wild male named Tole who was spotted spending time with Acuy in October 2022, which lines up with the eight-and-a-half-month pregnancy and birth in July.

Also in July, Jonson, who was released from our soft-release programme in 2012, gave birth to infant Jojo, marking the 111th recorded wild birth in Lamandau Wildlife Reserve since it was created! This success highlights how important protected habitats are for this species, giving them the space, safety, and resources to thrive and for the population to grow.

Endut graduated from our soft-release programme back in January when he decided to take matters into his own hands and take himself off into the forest! Our reintroduction team were preparing for his release, as he had mastered all the necessary forest skills for an independent life in the wild, so his departure occurred at an appropriate time. However, in March, BKSDA and the OF team were called out to a rescue in the north of Lamandau Wildlife Reserve and found it was Endut who strayed into an oil palm plantation. He had lost some weight but was in good health. He was then taken to Camp JL to a new area of rainforest where he was less likely to run off while the field staff monitored him. In June, he was re-released back into the wild with Ashley Leiman OBE and the Head of BKSDA present to witness the event.

One rescue this year led to a new member of the soft-release programme at Camp JL. Three-year-old Logos was rescued after being kept illegally and has since been thriving and developing his skills, from climbing to eating Ubar fruits. He even plays around with fellow campmate Mona. Logos gets more confident in the trees every day and his personality is starting to shine through.

Over the year we carried out nine orangutan rescues and releases. Most rescues occurred in community land and oil palm plantations. All the orangutans passed the medical examinations and were healthy enough to be translocated back into the wild.

Additionally, Bella the sun bear, who was rescued in November 2022 from a poacher’s trap, had some time to recover and the decision was made for her to continue her recovery in the wild, leading to her release in January 2023. Five gibbons were also rescued after being kept as illegal pets, with many displaying health issues from captivity. Moby the gibbon was the only one healthy enough to be released, Endul and Hepato are being cared for at Camp Siswoyo, Kumpai sadly passed away from an infection caused by injuries on arrival, and Boby escaped after an orangutan opened their enclosure to steal food!

FOR FORESTS

With your donations, you have helped us protect 9246 acres of rainforest habitat! A huge thank you! Tanjung Puting National Park and Lamandau Wildlife Reserve combined cover over half a million acres of prime habitat supporting close to 5,000 orangutans. Donations towards our habitat protection programme has allowed these areas to continue to be protected through forest and river patrols to deter illegal activity, including logging and mining; maintaining fire-fighting equipment at our guard posts to allow field staff to rapidly respond to forest fires; and supporting our sapling nurseries to replant and restore degraded forest.

A total of 55,500 saplings were planted over 40 hectares (or 74 football pitches worth of space)! This exceeded our ambitious target of planting out 36,000 saplings in 2023. Our seedling nursery site at Vigilant Howe Guard Post had an extension funded by Explorers Against Extinction, which doubled its seedling capacity to 28,000 seedlings. We are very grateful for the support as this helped us exceed our target. By helping the rainforest to regenerate in degraded areas, we are increasing vital orangutan forest habitat and restoring a healthy ecosystem for flora and fauna species to thrive.

Research

Staff from the Orangutan Foundation at Pondok Ambung Tropical Forest Research station together with Tanjung Putting National Park staff conducted two surveys. The findings on proboscis monkeys, endemic to Borneo, confirm they have a healthy population of 973 individuals along the Sekonyer River. The results of the survey on the tomistoma freshwater crocodile, which is classified as Vulnerable, found a healthy population on the Sekonyer River as well.

The tarsier is a small, nocturnal primate that is notoriously difficult to spot, but our staff on their regular nightly searches have been able to identify a number of individuals and these findings led to Yoga, our Research Manager, giving a presentation on tarsiers at the International Primate Society (IPS) symposium in Kuching.

Our camera traps continue to make exciting discoveries!

FOR PEOPLE

Community Engagement

In Indonesian Borneo, our team continues to build engagement and relationships with local communities with a range of outreach events to highlight the work of OF and how people can get involved.

A key focus of many of the events was enabling the participation of high school students through a series of educational and public awareness activities. They took part in the Conservation Camp; Indonesian Tree Planting Day; International Orangutan Day; and Orangutan Caring Week activities, such as a street campaign, jungle visit and trek from Camp Siswoyo to Camp Gemini, and painting conservation themed t-shirts at school visits. Orangutan Caring Week also involved an orangutan colouring competition to include kindergarten students.

By involving and connecting with the next generation through these outreach activities, it has increased the local community’s awareness of orangutans and why they and their habitat need protecting.  

From October to December, together with BKSDA we also held stakeholder meetings on human-orangutan conflict mitigation in three local villages. These workshops included visiting residents’ homes and talks to the entire village community to increase awareness. Additionally, posters of orangutans highlighted as a protected species were placed around markets, and leaflets were distributed to each village containing advice on the prohibition of keeping, capturing, and trading of orangutans; steps to handle and avoid conflicts with them; and to contact BKSDA if they saw orangutans in local areas. Residents of each village seemed enthusiastic when engaging with several questions and the team received information that residents had previously found an orangutan near their garden, and it was successfully rescued and handed over by BKSDA to be translocated into their forest habitat. It is encouraging to see local communities understand and help return orangutans back to their natural home.

Fundraising

With your generous donations, you have enabled us to exceed both our target goals for the Green Match Fund, to support our Habitat Protection and Reforestation programmes which are actively working to regenerate lost habitat and protect current rainforest habitat, and the Big Give Christmas Challenge, to support sustainable livelihood programmes. You, our supporters, are the reason we excelled our targets, and we are incredibly grateful for your generosity – thank you!

To all our donors and supporters, we thank you. You are the reason we are able to carry out our critical work protecting orangutans and their forest habitat. You are helping to provide a future for orangutans, forests, and people. We are looking forward to what 2024 has in store with a positive outlook and we cannot wait to share our news with you!