Orangutan "Habitat for Survival" Project

Please make a donation to the Orangutan "Habitat for Survival" Project.

Rainforest Rescue has formed a partnership with the Australian Orangutan Project to protect and restore rainforest habitat for the endangered Orangutan. Orangutans are only found on the islands of Borneo (divided between Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei) and Sumatra (Indonesia) and nowhere else on the planet.

Indonesia is facing one of the highest rate of tropical rainforest loss in the world and sadly, 90% of the orangutan's original habitat is gone. In the last decade alone, the deforestation rate has soared to a phenomenal two million hectare of rainforest each year. Without action now the Orangutan is expected to soon become extinct in the wild.

The Orangutan's rainforest habitat is being exploited for timber which is exported to Australia and other countries. The rainforests are then cleared to establish plantations of palm oil and rubber. Palm oil is a widely-used vegetable found in products such as soap, toothpaste, chocolate, chips and biofuel.

Many Orangutans, having lost their rainforest habitat, venture onto palm oil plantations in search of food. Unfortunately, palm oil plantations often regard them as pests and abuse or kill them. The Orangutan rescue centres are filled with abused and homeless orangutans and projects that secure habitat, rehabilitate rainforest and release these animals are vitally important for
their survival.

For the survival of the Orangutan in the wild the importance of these projects can't be underestimated. Some sources have stated that if the current rate of rainforest destruction continues it will take only a few more years to determine the fate of the Orangutan. Once the number of Orangutans and their genetic pool reaches a certain level, it will not be possible for the species to survive.

An international effort is required to save the Orangutan. We must do everything we can before its to late!


Please make a donation to the Orangutan "Habitat for Survival" Project.

Why we need to help save the Orangutan!

• If current logging trends continue, most of Indonesia's National Parks are likely to be severely damaged within the next decade.
• They are amongst the last areas to hold valuable timber in commercially viable amounts.
• The situation is now acute for both the Bornean Orangutan and Sumatran Orangutan.
• These species are classed as Endangered and Critically Endangered respectively by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), and are listed on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
• The rapid rate of removal of food trees, killing of orangutans displaced by logging and plantation development, and fragmentation of remaining intact forest constitutes a conservation emergency.
• More than one thousand orangutans are living in rescue centres in Borneo alone, with uncertain chances of ever returning to the wild.
• "Recent estimates suggest that there are 45,000 to 69,000 Bornean Orangutans and only 7,300 Sumatran Orangutans remaining in the wild.
• The Bornean orangutan is classified as Endangered by IUCN (the World Conservation Union), indicating that it has a very high risk of extinction in the wild in the near future.
• The Sumatran orangutan is classified as Critically Endangered by IUCN, indicating that it has an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild in the near future.
• Since 1900, the number of Sumatran orangutans is thought to have fallen by about 91%, with a rapidly accelerating loss towards the end of the twentieth century. (McConkey 2005).