About

In Bukit Lawang and neighbouring villages, the rainforest directly encroaches on private land and plantations without any precaution. On paper, there exists a buffer zone (area between rainforest and agricultural land), but this is not strictly enough controlled by the government and thus not literally used as a buffer. The uncultivated land can be bought and is particularly lucrative for local farmers. Most local farmers have meanwhile decided to cultivate oil palms, as they bring in more money with less effort. Nevertheless, a few still cultivate fruit trees, cocoa or rubber in mixed crops, which creates a small but enormously important compensation for the large monocultures. But it is precisely here that conflicts arise again and again, especially between orangutans and humans…

A particular favourite food of the great apes, but also of some other animal species, such as the sun bear, is the in Indonesia extremely popular stinky fruit called durian. The large spiny fruits are harvested twice a year in large quantities – as long as no jungle inhabitant has had a go at them first! Unfortunately for both parties involved (farmer and orangutan), this happens regularly. If you book a jungle trek during the durian season, you will most likely not meet the impressive apes in the jungle, but already before the national park border in the “public land” area. Reason: the tempting fruits. Once an orangutan has found such a richly covered tree, it will make itself at home and do the farmers’ harvesting itself. What is a reason for joy for us (a close-up orangutan sighting) is an enormous loss for the farmer and often a death sentence for the orangutan as a result. As there is no compensation from the government for a lost crop, some farmers have no other option but to shoot the scavenger.

In order to prevent this, we want to distribute firecrackers to all landowners bordering the national park with the help of donations. These are intended to scare and intimidate the orangutans and thus push them back into the rainforest instead of settling down at the fruit tree for a few days. If an orangutan should destroy a crop anyway, we will pay compensation to the farmer to support his family and to bring the orangutan back to the rainforest safely and alive.

Where the national park borders private land in North Sumatra, about 500 orangutans die annually due to conflicts with humans. In order not to further diminish the small remaining number of wild Sumatran orangutans (only about 13,800 animals, 90% of them in the Leuser ecosystem), it is our greatest concern to mediate this conflict. Would you like to help us?