Protect Orangutan Habitat

Land encroachment is a massive threat to the future of the orangutan. Please help us stop them before it’s too late.

In the last few years The Orangutan Project has helped protect an extra 93,900 acres of rainforest in the Bukit Tigapuluh ecosystem, creating a vitally important sanctuary for rehabilitated orangutans, and extending the entire protected landscape to more than 494,000 acres of jungle!

But whilst we’ve taken a massive step forward, we are still battling day and night with illegal land encroachers, who surround our buffer zone and will not stop while there’s jungle left to plunder.  

But we’re not stopping either.  

Will you give a regular gift today so we can continue our fight to secure the future for Critically Endangered orangutans?  I promise you we need to act fast.

Your gift will go straight to the Bukit Tigapuluh ecosystem in central Sumatra, where we and our partners continue to develop what has now become one of the most successful orangutan rehabilitation and release programs in the world.

More than 170 orangutans have now been reintroduced into protected areas of the forest and many more are working their way through jungle school right now, finally gaining the lives they deserve  in the wild.

Even better, numerous rehabilitated and released females have now given birth in this protected ecosystem. This is a wonderful outcome since these females have lost their own mothers and have overcome so much to go on and rear their own offspring in the wild.

But we urgently need to secure more forest if we’re to save the orangutan from extinction.

Because as you read these words, vital orangutan habitat throughout Sumatra is being bulldozed. Orangutans are being killed and displaced at a rate they simply cannot regenerate.

With fewer than 14,000 left in the wild, thousands killed each year and a birth rate of just one baby in nine years, the maths is gut-wrenching - Sumatran orangutans will be extinct within the next few years unless we pull out the stops right now.

And today, that’s what I’m asking you to do. Please help us secure the future of the orangutan. Your regular gift will make a significant, ongoing difference.

The fact is there is so much more we can be doing – right now.  

Your ongoing gift will help us increase the frequency of our Wildlife Protection patrols so they can penetrate deep into unprotected areas of the jungle, exposing illegal logging camps, untangling poachers snares and providing a watchful presence day and night. With a massive 9% of the jungle surrounding our protected area illegally destroyed in just one year, the extended presence our Wildlife Protectors is critical for the survival of orangutans, particularly for the young males who love to roam over vast distances.

Illegal encroachers won’t stop, but nor will we.

Land encroachers don’t waste a minute in Indonesia – they are insidious and pervasive, working around the clock to illegally clear land for palm and other agricultural development. There is big money to be made in these enterprises – and the only way we can stop them is by expanding our Wildlife Protection Units and being equipped to protect more land as it becomes available.  

And with your ongoing help, that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Our Wildlife Protection Units are a formidable force against the relentless threat of illegal land encroachers, but they also provide vital awareness and education to local communities, guiding them towards sustainable land practices and sharing a genuine respect for their unique wild heritage. Our Wildlife Protectors also play a vital, long term role in monitoring released orangutans, carefully assessing how they are adapting to their new jungle environment over many years.

No one person or organisation can save the orangutan, but together we can.

The Orangutan Project has always worked closely and collaboratively with local and international conservation groups, because we know that’s the most effective way to protect Asia’s unique wildlife – both now and well into the future.  

As an orangutan supporter, you play such a central role in this work, and as we near that tipping point where we know our programs are working but that our time is desperately short, your help becomes more important than ever. With only 14,000 Sumatran orangutans left in the wild, we urgently need to expand our program at  Bukit Tigapuluh – and we need your help to do it.

Please give a regular gift and help us win this fight.

Alongside supporting Wildlife Protection Units to protect our 170 released orangutans, your ongoing support help provide around the clock care for the orangutans currently in the Bukit Tigapuluh rehabilitation program and will support ongoing rescue operations, saving countless displaced, injured and illegally caged orangutans every year.  

Your ongoing support helps us achieve so much!

$30 a month provides all the fresh food a rescued orangutan needs for that whole month!

$60 a month supports one 24 hour patrol - imagine the lifesaving protection against poachers that provides when hundreds of us join together!

Even $12 a month helps support an orphaned orangutan,  making a vital and ongoing contribution towards her daily care, veterinary needs, and jungle school training so she can finally make it back to the wild..   

Every orangutan you help rescue makes a difference, because we know the vast majority of orangutans who make it to the Bukit Tigapuluh rescue centre go on to thrive. And this is in spite the horror they’ve almost certainly experienced beforehand.

Orphaned, displaced or kept in cages as tragically sad trophies, every orangutan in our care has a story to tell. And yet, when they’re given a second chance, they take it – quite literally with open arms. And that’s what gives me so much hope – every time we provide sanctuary to a rescued orangutan, every time we secure rainforest on their behalf, every time we protect against poachers - we’re not only pushing back extinction, we are making a profound difference to a gentle, sentient being.

When you give a regular gift today, you’ll be making a difference to hundreds of orangutans. You’ll be supporting them to be fully equipped with the skills they need to survive and you’ll be making sure the jungle they go on to explore is vast, regenerated and fully protected.

I won’t lie to you, this is not an easy task. The encroachers will always be looking for land to develop, the poachers are getting ever more audacious. Every year, we need to raise  $673,110 just to fund our Wildlife Protection Units and keep our rescue, rehabilitation and release program at Bukit Tigapuluh at its current capacity.

But I promise you, it is worth it. For every acre of jungle protected, for every orangutan who regains their dignity, safety and their freedom – it is worth it.

Please give an ongoing tax-deductible donation* and together we will save the orangutan from extinction.

* donations in Australia and the USA are tax deductible, in the UK we are registered fof Gift Aid