Latest Borneo Orangutan Survival Stories

An official said Friday that Indonesia will reserve thousands of hectares of forest in Borneo island for about 200 captive orangutans, which will be released in a conservation drive. "A foundation has asked for a permit on about 86,000 hectares of forests in Kutai area in East Kalimantan (Borneo) to be used for orangutan conservation," forestry ministry secretary general Boen Purnama said.Conservationists have been looking for large areas to try and release the apes as vast tracts...

A U.S. environmental organization said it has discovered a new and significant population of the rarest primates on Earth -- Bornean orangutans. A Nature Conservancy field team said although the exact number of orangutans found in a nearly inaccessible part of Borneo is still undetermined, it is believed a medium density of the primates exists in the 2-million-acre forested area in the Sangkulirant mountains. This is some welcome news on a generally gloomy conservation agenda, the...

Orangutans could soon become the first great ape species to go extinct if urgent action is not taken, according to a new study. Their numbers have declined sharply in Indonesia and Malaysia since 2004. Serge Wich, a scientist at the Great Ape Trust in Iowa, said the change is due to illegal logging and the expansion of palm oil plantations.Wich said the survey found the orangutan population on Indonesia's Sumatra Island dropped almost 14 percent since 2004.  It also found populations on...