“We Can Restore What Was Lost”: Saving the Orangutans of Sumatra

There’s a number of reasons for this. First, habitat loss and fragmentation due to the conversion of forest to plantations and farmland; as forest is cleared away to create farms, orangutans are pushed into smaller, more isolated patches or into croplands, which is increasingly bringing them into contact – and conflict – with people. 

Another, more insidious threat is hunting. Complex, clandestine networks of trappers, funded by international syndicates, regularly slink into Sumatra’s forests on the hunt for exotic pets, and orangutans can fetch a high price. Demand for infant orangutans remains high; to fulfil the desires of buyers abroad, hunters will usually kill orangutan mothers to capture their babies. “We continue to uncover and expose the illegal wildlife trade,” explains Binur, who adds that the majority of orangutans being trafficked abroad come from this region in Aceh. 

OIC’s Conservation Response

For those orangutans that remain, help is on the way. Here in Southeast Aceh, there are two community forest (HKm) areas that act as buffer zones for the Gunung Leuser National Park. Here, the OIC has been working for two decades alongside local communities to combat wildlife trafficking, prevent deforestation and arrest the decline in orangutan numbers. Now, with funding support from the Rimba Collective,  the OIC is rolling out a new range of strategies designed to expand conservation efforts for orangutans and protect the forests that support them:

• Forest patrols with local community teams to prevent poaching, detect snares and other threats, and monitor key areas;
• Monitoring of wild orangutans, including those isolated outside protected areas, to reduce conflict and guide rescue or relocation if needed;
• Community outreach and education, raising awareness that orangutans are legally protected and teaching farmers how to respond safely when orangutans enter their fields;
• Support for sustainable livelihoods, especially through improved productivity of crops such as cocoa and maize, so that people can prosper without clearing new forest.
• Conflict-mitigation measures for other species, such as Sumatran elephants that raid crops, to reduce losses for farmers and prevent retaliation against wildlife.

Funding from the Rimba Collective has been essential to these initiatives. It has been used to recruit, train and equip teams of rangers who now regularly patrol more than 14,000 hectares of forest. This expansion to OIC’s forest protection efforts has already yielded positive results. “From the activities we’ve implemented, especially the patrols, we’ve seen progress,” explains Binur. “In several areas or grid blocks where we’ve conducted patrols, we can see the number of snares, traps and other signs of hunting have begun to decline.”

SMART Patrols in the Forest

The forest ranger teams comprise a mix of local villagers, working in tandem with OIC supervisors and partners from the forestry department. One of these rangers is Supriyadi (known to the rest of the team as Adek, meaning ‘little brother’ in Indonesian). At 29 years old, Supriyadi is fresh faced, nature-focused and filled with enthusiasm for his work. In his role as OIC forest ranger, he conducts regular, monthly SMART patrols for 10 days at a time. 

During these patrols, Adek and his team focus on monitoring and mapping biodiversity, searching for signs of disturbance and providing a visible deterrent to encroachment from outside. Since patrols began in 2024, they have already mapped out 40% of the 12,000-hectare HKm (community forest) area. Over many miles and many months, Adek has made lifelong memories in the forest. “I remember once seeing an orangutan mother and her baby – they came right up close to us, without fear. It was a moment of—I would say almost human—connection, and one which I’ll never forget. We also sometimes hear orangutans in their nests at night – they make a kind of gentle humming sound when they go to the toilet; when we hear that noise on night patrols, we know they’re nearby!”

Support from the Rimba Collective has been invaluable to Adek and the other teams of rangers working for the OIC. As he explains, “we’ve received equipment such as backpacks, satellite phones, GPS units and cameras. And we’ve also been trained in patrol procedures, species identification, biodiversity and even wildfire management. This has really helped us to work more effectively in the field.”

Making a Difference at Ground Level

Roaming deep into the forest, Adek and his team are discovering and documenting the full extent of biodiversity supported by this ancient ecosystem. Though not always glamorous – he spent this morning sifting through piles of elephant dung and picking leeches off his colleagues’ necks – Adek sees this work as essential to conservation efforts. “We are the front line,” he says. “Whether collecting data or deterring hunters, it’s here at ground level where we can really make a difference in our fight to save the forest.”

The results of OIC’s patrols are promising. In addition to occasional orangutan sightings, the team have identified around 20 individual tigers roaming the landscape (in other HKm areas of a similar size, the average is just three). “We find fresh tiger tracks almost every month,” says Adek. Like the pugmarks, signs of progress are increasingly beginning to appear; with a 25-year funding commitment from the Rimba Collective, Adek and the OIC believe these positive changes are just the beginning.

“For me, that long timeframe is vital,” he says. “It gives us enough time to allow degraded lands to recover and to restore the wildlife that has disappeared.” When asked what the future holds for this forest, Adek is both optimistic and determined: “With consistent patrols and community involvement over a period of 25 years, I am certain we can restore much of what was lost.”

Building Trust for Long-Term Change

The OIC has been operational in Sumatra for more than two decades. Binur has been with them since the very beginning. “I began as a volunteer,” he explains, “then became a coordinator, later a manager, and now I’m the Landscape Director.” Now 42 years old, Binur has learned from experience that conservation success requires time, patience and resources. Building trust in communities can take years. Similarly, conserving wild populations of animals like orangutans, with their slow reproductive rate, is a generational commitment.

With that in mind, the OIC was especially interested in joining the Rimba Collective project portfolio; Binur and his team see the longevity of this commitment as both an indicator of integrity and a prerequisite for success. “Short projects of just one or two years rarely achieve real change, especially for community livelihoods,” says Binur. “Building trust can take years; people usually only believe it when they see it”.

“With a longer-term project like this, we can start to see changes by the third or fourth year, and over the long term we expect significant improvements both for the community and for the conservation of orangutans and their habitat.” Together with the OIC, the Rimba Collective is applying its integrated approach to conservation in Sumatra, which combines community-led forest protection with sustainable livelihood development in forest-adjacent villages. For the orangutans of Sumatra, these initiatives can be lifesaving. 

The forest clearing darkens. Storm clouds are closing in. All around, raindrops begin drumming on leathery leaves, and musky aromas—of mushrooms and other subterranean mysteries—are released from the leaf litter underfoot. It’s time for us to leave the orangutans to their nest-making, and look for shelter ourselves. 

As we walk through the downpour and out of the forest, Binur shares his vision for a brighter future, in which collaboration with communities will be the key. “I hope that through the Rimba Collective project we can achieve real change in the communities,” he explains. “Since they live side-by-side with the forest and wildlife, once their lives and livelihoods improve, they will in turn help us to protect the animals and their habitat.”