Iwin Bahak lives right next to Leuser National Park and has been working on the land for years. It’s a tough and demanding life, and he’s struggled to make ends meet for years. Poverty is widespread unfortunately and the Corona pandemic makes their society even more vulnerable. Hungry orangutans came to Iwin’s plantation and ate...
This year we took great pleasure again in drawing up the balance sheets here at the office. We are always very happy when we can issue a number of beautiful tree certificates for our customers! Due to all corona measures and working from home, people consumed less coffee and tea in most offices. This is...
Restoration efforts are paying off for orangutans at Singkil Swamp Wildlife Reserve. Singkil Swamp Wildlife Reserve is vitally important both locally and internationally. The Singkil area is home to irreplaceable breeding populations of Sumatran orangutans and other Critically Endangered species, and hundreds of thousands of people rely on the area’s natural resources to survive as well. Outside Sumatra,...
Here are our favourite good news stories from 2020. Habitat restoration As some of OIC’s restoration staff live on-site all year round, they were able to continue working during Sumatra’s COVID19 lockdowns, planting 132,856 seedlings and restoring over 228 hectares of land. A couple of weeks ago, we had a beautiful illustration of the positive...
SOS is delighted to share that their friends at Reforest Tea have just launched a deliciously spicy Reforest Chai Tea. For the rest of 2020, all profits from the sale of this tea will support SOS’s reforestation projects in Sumatra. Reforest Tea is an independent social business which supports tree planting and forest conservation work with 100%...
This photo by Darma from Nature For Change shows a Sumatran tiger footprint near a village in the Bukit Lawang area. A tiger footprint is exciting for us when we see one in a restoration site, far from people, but it’s a frightening prospect for farmers who face losing cattle or even coming face to...
Nature For Change runs patrol teams made up of Nature For Change staff, community members and the national park authority. Their tasks include making border signs for Gunung Leuser National Park, planting betel nut trees along the park border and carrying out wildlife identification to see which species are crossing from the park to neighbouring...
Singkil Swamp Wildlife Reserve is a vitally important habitat for orangutans and many other threatened species. Being a peat swamp forest, it also provides critical ecosystem services such as carbon storage and flood prevention. The photos below show six months of progress at Singkil, thanks to the hard work and dedication of the Orangutan Information...
Sumatran Orangutan Society’s newest partner, Nature For Change, is based near Bukit Lawang, on the edge of Leuser National Park, which in total covers more than one million hectares and is home to Sumatran orangutans, elephants, tigers, rhinos and thousands of other species. The buffer zone around the park belongs to the communities living in...
Large businesses operating in the U.K. will have to show that commodities in their supply chains complied with local environmental laws when being produced. News outlets reported this week that, under new government plans, British supermarkets will be banned from selling beef, soy and other key commodities sourced from illegally deforested land. Large businesses operating...
The Human Orangutan Conflict Response Unit (HOCRU) works on the frontline of orangutan protection in Sumatra. Responding to urgent calls around the clock, three HOCRU teams cover the Leuser and Batang Toru landscapes – evacuating Critically Endangered Sumatran orangutans and Tapanuli orangutans from dangerous situations and enabling their return to the wild. Rescue operations usually...
Will the COVID19 pandemic give conservationists a chance to save the world’s most endangered great ape, the Critically Endangered Tapanuli orangutan? The planned Batang Toru hydroelectric dam poses serious threats to the survival of the Critically Endangered Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) – the world’s rarest great ape, with just over 700 individuals estimated to remain. The COVID-19...
