Orangutans are attending school to learn how to thrive in their natural habitat. Leading the class is Tony Gilding, the president of Borneo Orangutan Survival Australia (BOSA). This organisation plays a pivotal role championing for the safety of abandoned apes. Orangutans are only found in the lowland and tropical rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra, where they enjoy feasting on ripe fruits like figs and lychees and making nests in trees. But in recent years, their habitats have been invaded and destroyed by palm oil plantations, fires, and illegal commercial logging. “Many of the orangutans that come to us have been separated from their mothers,” Gilding says. “So we began a programme called Forest School which is teaching orangutans how to safely live in the wild.”
Approximately only 104 700 Bornean orangutans and less than 8 000 Sumatran orangutans remain. “There are three reasons why orangutans are critically endangered and that's habitat, habitat, and habitat,” Gilding says. BOSA’s parent organisation Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF) was formed in 1991 to rescue and reintroduce the species back into the wild. The process is achieved through three stages of Forest School, where orangutans are given specialised healthcare and rehabilitation and readied for release. They are taught how to build nests, climb trees and identify healthy food to eat. The first step is baby school, which cares for rescued orangutans under the age of three. “Once they graduate from this, they go to the forest school which is a playground forest for orangutans between three and six years old,” Gilding says. The next and ultimate step is the orangutan university. “This is where they live a semi-independent lifestyle while being observed and are prepared for return to the wild,” he says.
BOSF is also running multiple programmes to protect orangutan habitat. In Mawas, they help conserve over 300 000 hectares of land, home to one of the largest orangutan populations. Today over 400 orangutans have successfully been reintegrated as a result of the work by the BOSA, BOSF and Indonesian communities. “Being able to do this is a sign of hope because we know that orangutans and their habitat are so important,” Gilding says. By taking these apes through school, they are equipped with the skills to flourish on their own.
Footage and photos by Borneo Orangutan Survival Australia were used in the creation of this film.
For more information on how to support this organization, visit their website: https://www.orangutans.com.au/
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