Area of forest to be restored in the Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve, a release site for the endangered Bornean orangutan. © Orangutan Foundation.
Children's orangutan puppet show at Kampung Konservasi (environmental centre), Central Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. © Yayorin.
In 2009/10, The Rufford Foundation provided a grant of £20,000 to the Orangutan Foundation.
This year, funding has been directed to the region of Central Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, focusing on two programmes:
1) The Orangutan Foundation’s Indonesian partner, Yayorin (Yayasan Orangutan Indonesia), has received continued operational cost funding since 2006 for an environmental centre, called Kampung Konservasi. This dynamic centre continues to encourage learning about conservation education issues and in promoting and demonstrating sustainable, alternative income-generating activities to communities who live close to areas of orangutan habitat. The Rufford Foundation support of Kampung Konservasi since it began has been crucial to this programme’s success.
2) The Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve is a significant area of protected peat swamp forest. Until recently, this forest ecosystem suffered degradation from logging, farming, fire, and oil palm encroachment. The Reserve is also one of the few orangutan release sites in Indonesia, receiving both rehabilitated and translocated orangutans.
With The Rufford Foundation’s funding the Orangutan Foundation is restoring a 20 ha area of degraded forest close to the reserve’s border. Using a process known as 'enrichment planting', over 8,000 seedlings will be planted and, in order to increase habitat and food tree richness for orangutans and other wildlife, endemic fruit trees have been selected. The plants will be supplied from surrounding village communities who have already started collecting fruit tree seedlings. Habitat restoration not only benefits the wildlife but also helps to reduce the risk of forest fires.
