International army of women battling to save the orangutan
These adorable apes are facing extinction, but from the lab to the rainforest, a global fight is underway to ensure their survival
without further ravaging the rainforest won SDP a coveted Edison Award in 2017.
“This is nothing to do with changing the DNA or genetic engineering or cloning,” Dr Apparow said. “GenomeSelect is a naturally selected palm. We have not changed or modified the pattern. It’s very safe and, at the same time, we also aim to sell better planting materials to smallholders, to encourage them not to expand.
“We want to influence the rest of the industry players because if we don’t, the forest is going to get used up, affecting the biodiversity of the world. We need to find that balance again.”
But the balance between nature and humanity is one of the biggest challenges for environmental groups in the area.
“A major problem we see is that villages are getting larger and the forests are getting smaller and orangutans are now going into orchards,” says Ashley.
“Local people are not too happy when they find all their pineapple plants and bananas have been taken, and we probably get more rescues from communities now than oil palm plantations.”
For 75-year-old Sue Sheward, MBE, it was exactly this collision of worlds that moved her to devote her life to saving orangutans. The former Ministry of Agriculture worker from Surrey was in her early forties when she fulfilled a life-long desire to see the apes in their natural habitat.
Which is how she came to be at the cash-starved, government-run Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre in Sandakan, where she came across King, an adult male orangutan being held in a tiny cage. Staff could not release him because he kept harassing local villagers.
“I said I would build King a playpen and I was told it was a nice idea, but it would cost at least £7,000,” recalls Sue. “So, I returned home and started doing meat raffles at my local pub.
“The first week, I made £3.50, but within nine months I’d made enough money to build this playpen for King, who was about 23 at that stage and absolutely beautiful.”
When Sue returned to Sandakan with the money, the staff were so impressed, they asked if she could raise more, and Orangutan Appeal was launched. In a little over 20 years, Sue has managed to pull in an impressive £3million, paying the wages of a small dedicated team of nine and transforming the centre with state-of-the-art equipment.
Sue also carried out the first helicopter drop to rehome an orangutan into the heart of the rainforest – and that orangutan was King.
She said: “I was told he couldn’t be released because he would have to go into the middle of the forest away from any houses or villages and it would be very difficult because there were no roads.
“So I raised money for a helicopter, hired three people to trek out ahead of us and we flew him there. He was sedated in a crate and I sat and held his hand all the way.
“When we arrived, he rested for four hours before getting up and shaking himself down.
“Before he disappeared into the trees, he looked over his shoulder, right at me, and it was almost like he was saying ‘thank you’. It was so emotional. That’s when I knew this was my life now; this is what I have to do.”
ONE of the major concerns for environmentalists is that 80 per cent of wild orangutans in the Indonesian portion of Borneo live outside national parks and other protected areas. If an orangutan’s habitat isn’t protected by the government, it usually falls within vast tracts of land belonging to logging, plantation or mining companies.
The Orangutan Land Trust (OLT) focuses on supporting the preservation, restoration and protection of forests in areas where orangutans naturally exist.
OLT’s American executive director Michelle Desilets also helped create the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rehabilitation Project in the late 90s alongside a Danish woman, Lone Droscher Nielsen.
It has since become the world’s largest primate rescue project, saving more than 1,000 orangutans over the years and employing more than 200 local staff.
“There are some amazing people from all around the world doing amazing things, but the ones who don’t get any attention, despite deserving the most attention, are the Indonesian and Malaysian women looking after the orangutans in our rescue centres, day in, day out, giving them the love that they’ve lost from the loss of their own mothers. They are the unsung heroes of this story.”
As part of OLT’s mission to seek sustainable ways to ensure the survival of orangutans, Michelle devotes much of her energy to working with palm oil supply chains to deliver deforestation-free, sustainable palm oil.
“I attract a lot of trolls who think I’m in the business of killing orangutans or that I must be paid off by the palm oil industry, which shows how angry the discussion has become,” she said, “but boycotting palm oil is not the solution and alternative crops are potentially worse and more land hungry.
“Sustainably-produced palm oil is the only way to stop deforestation, and save the natural habitat of orangutans.”