Protect forests to save orangutans

Timtom © Orangutan Foundation

With your support, our Orangutan Foundation colleagues don’t just expertly rehabilitate orphans back to the wild. Aided by Born Free adopters, our long-term partners also help stop illegal logging and keep forests safe, so vital orangutan habitat can recover.

Back in 2023, the Orangutan Foundation carried out a survey in Lamandau Wildlife Reserve, in Indonesian Borneo. Their survey revealed exciting insights into orangutan distribution, but also revealed extensive illegal deforestation. Could the logging be stopped? Would it be possible to restore the damaged habitat? And what’s happened to the orangutans since then?

Timtom © Orangutan Foundation

First, meet Timtom

Born Free has been supporting the Orangutan Foundation, through our adoption programme, since 2018. Many supporters will be familiar with the young orphan orangutan, Timtom.

Born in April 2015, Timtom was just a baby when taken from her mother in the wild and kept illegally as a pet. Thankfully, she was rescued by the Orangutan Foundation, aged just nine months, and became part of their soft-release programme in Borneo.

Protecting habitat

Alongside rehabilitating and releasing orphans back to the wild, the Orangutan Foundation also works tirelessly to protect orangutan habitat. In March 2023, researchers carried out a population survey to better understand where these remarkable primates were living and what threats they faced in each location. The findings were striking – offering much hope, but also raising significant concerns.

First the good news. The southern sector of the reserve had an average of 1.89 individual orangutans per km2. This was the highest orangutan population density of any sector of the reserve – which is what the Orangutan Foundation had discovered in their previous survey in 2016. You can find out more about this below.

Stopping illegal logging

The second discovery, however, was not such good news. The survey team uncovered a large-scale illegal logging operation, including two wooden ‘railroad tracks’ built to help extract illegally felled timber. An immediate response was needed. Alongside the Indonesian Government’s conservation agency, a joint enforcement patrol was launched to stop the logging.

As the loggers had already fled the location when the survey team first arrived, no one was apprehended, but their equipment was seized. The enforcement team, led by the conservation agency’s Forestry Police, dismantled their makeshift camps, as well as piles of ready-cut timber, and their wooden railroad tracks. They also erected notices at various access points, warning people against illegal logging.

As with any conservation effort, community engagement is vital. The patrol team brought together local villagers and village authorities to encourage conversations, foster dialogue, raise awareness, and strengthen collaborative efforts in safeguarding the orangutans and their habitat.

New guard post

Dismantling the camps and trackways worked well in the short-term to deter loggers, but longer-term plans were needed to prevent loggers from returning. A new guard post needed to be established in the area, from where routine forest monitoring patrols could be carried out.

This new guard post is now under construction and while waiting for it to be completed, Born Free supported the Orangutan Foundation in carrying out ground and aerial monitoring of the forest to prevent the return of loggers.

It has now been two years since the initial discovery of the illegal logging camp. Thankfully, monitoring patrols have not found any signs of recent logging activity. The areas where wooden railroad tracks had been used are now completely overgrown, with regenerating vegetation closing the gaps.

As you can imagine, seeing the forest regrowth has been a big relief for the Orangutan Foundation team. The forest can now continue to recover, and wildlife can live undisturbed. One question still remained, however. Why was there still a great density of orangutans in the southern section of Lamandau Wildlife Reserve?

Why so many orangutans?

Orangutan Foundation’s 2016 survey had also found a much higher density of orangutans in this southern sector, with an average of 3.74 individuals per km2. This was perhaps a result of 2015 forest fires, which had devastated Indonesia and were exacerbated by the prolonged El Niño induced drought. Had orangutans been forced into this area of the reserve to escape the fires and drought?

While this may have been the case, as the other areas recovered, the team expected the density of orangutans would decrease in the southern sector. But as you can see, although the density of orangutans has lowered since 2016, but the density of orangutans in the southern sector still remains higher than other regions.

Recent monitoring trips to the southern sector have highlighted the difficulty of accessing the forest in this part of the reserve. Considering the history of the reserve – established in 1998 from former logging concessions – it seems likely the southern sector forest was mainly spared the effects of commercial (legal) logging operations due to its remoteness.

If so, then the forest there would support a higher orangutan density, despite the more recent, localised, outbreak of illegal logging, as much of the original forest remains.

How incredibly interesting! This is why it is important to monitor and understand forest dynamics, alongside wider conservation initiatives. If the Orangutan Foundation hadn’t carried out their surveys, they wouldn’t have realised how important the remote southern sector of the reserve is for orangutans.

Once the new guard post is built, it can also be used as a base for vegetation and biodiversity surveys. This will help the team understand how much the southern sector of the reserve represents the original, unlogged lowland forests and how this helps support a higher orangutan density, something that is now rarely found in Borneo.

Born Free is proud to support such a remarkable initiative. This important work highlights why protecting and studying habitat is so important for keeping wildlife safe.