We share 97 per cent of our DNA with the orang-utan and as such it is one of our closest relatives. Indigenous people recognised the resemblances and christened it ‘orang hutan’, which translates as ‘person of the forest’. However an increasing loss of natural habitat means the orang-utan is disappearing in the wild at an alarming rate.


At a glance
The destruction of rainforests creates myriad problems, including land erosion, silting river systems, and the release of carbon dioxide that has been locked into the land for millions of years. As the forest is destroyed by clear-cutting or for palm-oil development, the orang-utan, which requires a vast home range, starves to death in ever-smaller fragments of forest.

'The fire that raged through much of Borneo in 1997 and 1998 is thought to have destroyed a third of the island's orang-utan population.  Most of these fires are deliberately lit by the palm-oil plantations as a cheap way to clear land quickly.'

What is the threat?
Hunger forces many orang-utans to venture into young palm nurseries or people’s gardens to find food. Regarded as agricultural pests, they become easy targets. Some plantations offer bounties for dead orang-utans, but the animals are not shot because the workers don’t usually have guns. More often they are beaten to death with wooden planks and iron bars, butchered with machetes, or doused in petrol and set alight.  Often when a mother is killed, the baby is kept as a pet or sold on to the illegal pet trade.

What are charities doing to help?
Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF) rescues orang-utans from the pet trade and is the only organisation that actively rescues orang-utans from certain death within palm-oil plantations. The Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rehabilitation Project, run by BOSF’s Lone Droescher-Neilsen, is bursting at the seams with around 600 rescued apes; more than 200 individuals arrived last year alone. Her team helps the orang-utans learn the crucial skills they need in the wild.

More on the BOSF
The foundation is using funds not only to rescue homeless apes, but also to secure a suitable, natural site that can sustain more than 1,000 individuals and remain safe from the insidious logging. Forty-eight orang-utans (all wild) have already been released here. But yet more suitable land is urgently needed, because it is a race against time. The charity also undertakes large-scale reforestation and manages the protection of an existing forest called the Mawas Reserve, which is home to more than 3,000 wild orang-utans.

Did you know?

• When the male orang-utan is about 15 years old, he develops large cheek pads, which the female finds attractive.
• Like other great apes, orang-utans use ‘tools’, fashioning large leaves as umbrellas for when it rains and dipping sticks into wild bee nests to scoop out honey. They are even known to fish, waiting with a large stick at the water’s edge and beating the fish unconscious before picking it up to eat.
• Orang-utans spend almost all of their time in the trees, clambering between branches or using their body weight to sway between trees. They build a new nest each night, bending branches and twigs and weaving leaves high up in the trees.
• Captive orang-utans are nicknamed the ‘houdinis’ of the animal kingdom as they sometimes pick locks to escape.
• A female orang-utan cares for her child longer than any other non-human animal – up to 11 years.

What can I do to help?
You can help the project by donating to the BBC Wildlife Fund and demand that manufacturers source palm oil only from non-destructive sources.