Borneo Orangutan Survival

Wanariset began as a tropical forest research station near Balikpapan in the Indonesian Province of East Kalimantan and was developed as an orangutan rescue and rehabilitation centre.

Kevin, one of the young orangutans at Nyaru Menteng, takes a nap.

Nyaru Menteng 2°6′34″S 113°49′14″E is an orangutan rescue and rehabilitation centre 28 km from Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan. Lone Drøscher Nielsen sought the advice of Smits about the possibility of creating a new project in Central Kalimantan to deal with the swelling numbers of orphaned orangutans. Smits agreed to help and, with the financial backing of the Gibbon Foundation and BOS Indonesia, Drøscher Nielsen founded Nyaru Menteng in 1998.[10] She was able to build the facility under an agreement with the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry, and Nyaru Menteng officially opened its doors to the first dozen orangutans in 1999.

The sanctuary was designed to hold up to 100 orphaned orangutans while they go through rehabilitation. In addition to quarantine cages, medical clinic, and nursery, the sanctuary had a large area of forest in which orangutans could learn the skills needed to live in the wild.[11] Nyaru Menteng quickly became the largest primate rescue project in the world.[12][13]

Many of these orangutans are only weeks old when they arrive, and all of them are psychologically traumatized.[14] The sanctuary not only saves the mostly orphaned baby orangutans from the local farmers and illegal pet-traders, but has developed a process for their gradual re-introduction to the remaining Borneo rainforest.

As of 2009, up to 20 young orangutans arrive every month. The centre's running costs are $1.5m a year.[15] There are 170 staff: babysitters, assistants, people working in the medical department, guards and other workers.[16] Associated with the centre are:[16]

• "The Workers' Village" which accommodates workers from outside the locality;
• The Islands: Kaja, Palas I. and II., Hampapak Matei and Bangamat, all islands in the Rongan River with primitive feeding-platforms and jetties;
• The Information Centre, where local schools visit, and from where information campaigns about alternatives to the cutting are sent out all over Borneo.
• The Fruit plantation, "Nyaru Menteng Lestari", 3 ha planted with fruit-bearing trees, such as mango, pineapple and rambutan.

With helicopters, mapping and other logistical support from the world's largest mining company BHP Billiton that operates a coal mining concession in Central Kalimantan, Nyaru Menteng released 36 adult orangutans in 2007, and 25 in 2008, filmed for Orangutan Diary. A planned airlift of 48 orangutans scheduled to take place in July 2009 was cancelled as BHP Billiton intended to withdraw from the area for strategic reasons.[17] Following several years navigating land permissions to ensure the long-term security of potential release sites, Nyaru Menteng started releasing orangutans back to the forest in February 2012; to date they have released 117 orangutans in Bukit Batikap and Bukit Baka Bukit Raya National Park.[18]

Now there are 30 calls each year, according to Orangutan Jungle School which is filmed at Nyaru Mengteng.

Samboja Lestari 1°2′44″S 116°59′15″E is a reforestation project on nearly 2,000 hectares (7.7 sq mi) of deforested, degraded and burnt land in East Kalimantan. In 2001, BOS started purchasing land near Wanariset. The area it acquired had been deforested by mechanical logging, drought and severe fires and was covered in alang-alang grass (Imperata cylindrica). The aim was to restore the rainforest and provide a safe haven for rehabilitated orangutans while at the same time providing a source of income for local people. The name Samboja Lestari roughly translates as the "everlasting conservation of Samboja".[19] Reforestation and rehabilitation is the core of the project, with hundreds of indigenous species planted. By the middle of 2006 over 740 different tree species had been planted;[20] by 2009 there were 1200 species of trees, 137 species of birds and nine species of primates.[21]

The Orangutan Reintroduction Project at Wanariset was moved to Samboja Lestari. "Forest Schools" were established, areas that provide natural, educational playgrounds for the orangutans in which to learn forest skills. Here the orangutans roam freely but under supervision and are returned to sleeping cages for the night. "Orangutan islands" were created where the orangutans and other wildlife that cannot return to the wild are nevertheless able to live in almost completely natural conditions.

Alongside the orangutan reintroduction work, BOS has promoted forms of farming that do not involve burning and destroying forests, by switching to agriculture combining rattan, sugar palms and fruits and vegetables. A community has developed that can now support itself on the land. Smits believes that to develop the orangutan population, their forest habitat must first be built; also, to achieve sustainable solutions the root social problems must be addressed by empowering local communities to take up livelihood options that is more rewarding than logging.[22]

Yellow-vented bulbul, one of the 137 species of birds now found at Samboja Lestari

In his 2009 TED talk Smits claimed there had been a substantial increase in cloud cover and 30% more rainfall due to the reforestation at Samboja Lestari.[23]

To finance the nature reserve, BOS created a system of "land-purchasing", a "Create Rainforest" initiative where donors can symbolically adopt square metres of rainforest[24] and are able to view and follow the progress of their "purchase" in the project area with Google Earth satellite images from 2002 and 2007 with additional information overlaid.[25]

The Samboja Lodge[26] was established to provide accommodation for visitors and volunteers at Samboja. Its design was based upon local architecture and its interior and exterior walls are made of recycled materials.

The SarVision[27] Satellite Natural Resources Monitoring Centre was established to monitor deforestation and illegal logging and the relentless growth of palm oil in unsuitable locations. A study commissioned by WWF Netherlands with SarVision showed that almost half of present oil palm plantations are not located on suitable land.[28] The use of satellite technology and GIS has enabled Sarvison to monitor forests down to the individual tree level, to develop accountability in the management of the forest and identify where palm oil plantations are destroying areas of forest illegally.[29]

1°59′S 114°39′E Mawas is a forest conservation, reforestation and research area in Central Kalimantan. The Mawas project is now in its development phase.[30]

The main aim of the project is to protect the fast-disappearing peat lands through collaboration with the Central and Local Governments and the local communities. The Mawas area is home to one of the last tracts of forest supporting wild orangutans. An estimated 3,000 wild orangutans are found in this area. Mawas is also important for its biodiversity and the geological conditions of Mawas make it a storage house of giga-tonnes of sequestered carbon. Over a period of 8,000 years, decaying plant matter from the swamp forests has built up 13 – 15 metre high domes of peat.

In September 2003, the provincial parliament in Central Kalimantan approved a new land use plan that designates 500,000 hectares (1,900 sq mi) in the Mawas area to be managed by BOS for conservation. BOS is currently working in an area of about 280,000 hectares (1,100 sq mi) within the ex-Mega Rice Project area.

BOS has initiated a forest conservation project with the objectives of:

• conserving peat swamp forest area including reforesting degraded areas;
• preserving the bio-diversity of the area;
• providing global greenhouse gas (GHG) benefits;
• providing access to programs such as health and education; and
• improving incomes and building capacity and economic prosperity in local communities
• assisting communities in learning technical skills including aquaculture, rice cultivation, agro-forestry and farm development
• assisting local independence and self-sustaining livelihoods.
• providing education to children on the environment and conservation, by visiting schools
• providing community awareness programs as well as co-operative conservation programs.

The area is important for research activities, with BOS operating the Tuanan Research Station in Kapaus. The Station has been established through extensive consultation with all local people and institutions and the use of local labour. Its purpose is to provide a year-round base for scientists tracking and observing the wild orangutan population. BOS is involved in patrolling and monitoring the area for illegal activities via air and land and supporting law enforcement by providing guidance and legal awareness programs to the community and government.

On 15 July 2010 at an international meeting on orangutan conservation in Bali[31] the Indonesian forestry ministry secretary general Boen Purnama announced that the Indonesian government will grant a permit to BOS to reserve thousands of hectares of forest formerly used for logging for the release of around 200 orangutans in the Kutai area in East Kalimantan.[32] The forest will need to be restored before it can be used for conservation. In response, BOS set up a company, PT Orangutan Habitat Restoration Indonesia (ROI), to restore 86,450 hectares of former timber concession area in the East Kutai district, to be the new home for rehabilitated orangutans. The then BOS chairman Togu Manurung announced the start of gradual release as April 2011 at the latest.[33]