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...
Tawny Buck, founder and creator at Wellgood Projects, visited Sumatra in February 2020 and was inspired by the amazing work being carried out by Darsima and her team at Leuser Nature School. With her partner, Francis, she put together the film below – a call to action for people who want to support the school’s continued growth...
With fewer than 14,000 Sumatran orangutans and 800 Tapanuli orangutans remaining in the wild, these species are already in a very precarious position, and if an individual orangutan was to contract Covid 19, it could devastate already critically endangered populations. Orangutans are at risk of contracting human respiratory diseases – even a common cough or...
Should we be worried about the impact of Covid-19 on orangutans? Great apes are our closest living relatives and are known to be susceptible to catching respiratory diseases from people. Leading scientists have warned that the coronavirus pandemic could therefore wipe out populations of orangutans and other great apes. While no great apes have yet...
All areas designated as forest are off-limits to plantations under Indonesian law, but permits have historically been easy to get from local officials who bypass the legal requirements and even solicit bribes. A Supreme Court ruling, delivered at the end of 2019, will make it harder for plantation companies to operate in protected forests, and...
Thanks to support from Beautiful Cups and many other orangutan fans, here are some of the things SOS has achieved this year. Protecting orangutans It’s been another busy year for the Human Orangutan Conflict Response Unit (HOCRU) teams. There are now three teams, covering North Sumatra, Aceh and Batang Toru respectively, and they have rescued and...
Nanda has been working for Orangutan Information Centre’s restoration team for almost 5 years, and is based at the Bukit Mas restoration site. Nanda grew up in a small village adjacent to the Leuser Ecosystem and witnessed deforestation in action around his home. Now, he works hard to plant trees, restore damaged and degraded rainforest...
SOS and OIC’s newest restoration site is an 890-acre piece of land which used to be an oil palm plantation. Until recently, it was referred to by its old name, PT Mutiara. SOS asked their supporters to help give it a new name to reflect the amazing community effort that went into raising the funds...
On 14th May 2019, the HOCRU team worked together with local forestry authorities to evacuate female orangutan and her baby from a local resident’s plantation in Alur Selalas village, Aceh Province. Carrying Lalas and James to safety. Photo courtesy of Orangutan Information Centre Later named Lalas (mother) and James (baby), the pair were tranquilised and...
Over recent weeks, social media networks have been full of ’10 year challenge’ photos – comparisons that show how people looked 10 years ago, and how they look now. We decided to join in by comparing photos from the Halaban restoration site. The first photo was taken in 2008, and the second in 2018. We...
OIC have shared this video thanking Beautiful Cups and their customers for all their support. This new office extension will enable their team to keep growing, helping their work and mission to protect orangutans and their forests.
