Discover the 'new paradise' of orangutans

Nature conservation experts have just found new orangutan populations on a remote island in Indonesia that can number up to 2,000.

An orangutan in Sangkulirang forest, Borneo island, Indonesia.Photo: AP.

Ecologist Erik Meijaard of the American Nature Conservancy and some colleagues came to Borneo to conduct a survey of animal and plant systems. They saw a lot of orangutans on the limestone cliffs of Sangkulirang forest in the east of the island. The forest covers an area of ​​about 2,500 square kilometers and is hardly burned.

"We counted 219 orangutans. Based on the number of nests we thought there were at least a few hundred living there. The maximum number could reach 2,000," Meijaard said. The expert team also met an adult male orangutan and he was angry, throwing branches at the scientists when they tried to take pictures.

According to ecological experts, there are only 50,000 to 60,000 orangutans in the world today, of which 90% live in Indonesia and 10% in neighboring Malaysia. These are the two most palm oil producing countries in the world. The tropical forests are being cut down at breakneck speed to make room for palm plantations, making the orangutans' living area shrinking.

The steep terrain, rough land and dangerous limestone mountains are the factors that make Sangkulirang forest on Borneo island unaffected by human destruction. Conservationists say they will ask the local government to protect Sangkulirang forest, which also preserves many rare and precious wood varieties.

Birute Mary Galdikas, a Canadian biologist who has studied orangutans for almost four decades, said that the majority of the orangutans in the world are quite small and scattered. This situation makes the risk of extinction of them higher. "Finding a huge population of orangutans is extremely important. They are a fairly rare subspecies of the Black Borneo orangutans," she added.