Critically Endangered orangutans live in a part of the world where pristine forest is rapidly disappearing under human cultivation. From 1973–2010, Borneo lost 39 percent of its forests, and estimates…
Boxing orangutans at Safari World in Bangkok, Thailand. Video courtesy of PEGAS fter 146 years of operation, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey is closing its circus, citing dwindling…
“I’m a dentist by training,” says Monica Nirmala, executive director of Indonesian non-profit Alam Sehat Lestari. The name translates to “Healthy Nature Everlasting,” and the organization, known by its acronym…
On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we welcome Mongabay contributing editor Glenn Scherer to the program. Glenn is responsible for Mongabay’s “Almost Famous Animals” series, which just wrapped up…
Ever since the palm oil industry started its industrial-scale expansion in South-East Asia it has been under pressure from environmental activists and NGOs for its negative impacts. Much of that…
Continued from part III. After four days of sailing up the fast-flowing Mahakam we arrive in the village of Laham, not far from the end point of Raven’s trip. In…
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia --- The son of a local parliament chief has been named a suspect over illegal land clearing in the Singkil Swamp Wildlife Reserve, a heavily protected area…
A controversial bridge appears to be inching toward construction in northern Malaysian Borneo. For more than a year, scientists and conservationists have argued that the 350-meter (1,148-foot) Sukau bridge crossing…
Gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans -- our great ape cousins teeter on the precipice of extinction. And it’s not much of a secret that we humans have had a lot to do…
Loans and credit from the British bank HSBC have helped support the unsustainable clearing of forests for oil palm plantations in Indonesia, Greenpeace said in a report published Tuesday. The…
Five years ago, there were likely very few people outside of Indonesia who'd ever heard of a place called the Leuser ecosystem. Today, this enormous and besieged tropical rainforest on…
The fate of a forest tract in Malaysia may have shifted dramatically in just the last few months. For three years, a group of conservation NGOs in Sabah, a Malaysian…
It’s not every day that a wild animal, held captive for years, makes it home. But two Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) — an eight-year-old male called Johnny and a ten-year-old…
The third largest orangutan population in West Kalimantan in danger of losing its home, warns Erik Meijaard, an ecologist with the Borneo Futures initiative.
BUKIT LAWANG, Indonesia — About a dozen foreign tourists clamored around an orangutan and her young child. “Can I take a photo with her?” a tanktop-clad backpacker asked. “Of course,”…
Andrea Crosta of the Elephant Action League (EAL), one of the stars of the new Netflix documentary The Ivory Game, appears on the latest episode of the Mongabay Newscast. Crosta…
Try to get your head around this one. There is this beautiful natural forest area in West Kalimantan, called Sungai Putri, which roughly translates as the River of the Princess.…
Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem lost 4,097 hectares of forest cover in the first six months of 2016, according to Forest, Nature and Environment of Aceh (HAkA), an NGO. At the same…
Sarawak is making good on last year’s pledge by Chief Minister Adenan Satem to prioritize the protection of Sarawak’s tropical forests and the orangutans that inhabit them. The Malaysian state…
The effort to rescue and rehabilitate Indonesia’s captive orangutans received a boost last week when 10 of the primates were released in a national park in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part…
In 2007, Indonesia launched its Strategy and Action Plan for National Conservation of Orangutans, with the goal of stabilizing all wild populations — and their dwindling rainforest habitats — by…
he oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) is quite an appealing crop to growers, investors and consumers. It produces not just one but two types of oil, with a vast number of…
The Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) is now critically endangered according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). This change means that both species of orangutan now face an…
All organizations love media attention, and wildlife conservation groups are no different. Both the positive and negative stories promote conservation work. The more eye-catching the headline and the cuddlier the…
n estimated 1,500 orangutans now live in rescue and rehabilitation centers located across Sumatra and Borneo. As habitat loss due to deforestation and forest fires continues, these institutions are struggling…
t’s no secret: one of the biggest threats facing the world’s great ape populations is industrial agricultural, now rapidly extending throughout their native home ranges in Africa and Southeast Asia…
ive years ago, some 7,000-acres of logged forest in the Kalabakan River network of Sabah, on the island of Borneo, was slated for oil palm production. Imperial College London ecologist…
"Hell for people and paradise for orangutans,” is how Ian Singleton, director of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program (SOCP), describes intact Indonesian peat swamp forests. With their high daily temperatures…
ast week, Leonardo Dicaprio was threatened with deportation from Indonesia after he visited a Sumatran jungle and then posted critically to Instagram about the palm oil industry. Some bureaucrats and politicians accused…
Leonardo DiCaprio was threatened with deportation from Indonesia on Thursday following the Hollywood actor's visit to the embattled Leuser Ecosystem, one of Southeast Asia's last great swaths of intact rainforest. Indonesian officials accused…