Orangutans are great apes native to the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia. They are now found only in parts of Borneo and Sumatra, but during the Pleistocene they ranged throughout Southeast Asia and South China. Classified in the genus Pongo, orangutans were originally considered to be one species. From 1996, they were divided into two species: the Bornean orangutan and the Sumatran orangutan. A third species, the Tapanuli orangutan, was identified definitively in 2017. The orangutans are the only surviving species of the subfamily Ponginae, which diverged genetically from the other hominids between 19.3 and 15.7 million years ago.
The proboscis monkey or long-nosed monkey is an arboreal Old World monkey with an unusually large nose, a reddish-brown skin color and a long tail. It is endemic to the southeast Asian island of Borneo and is found mostly in mangrove forests and on the coastal areas of the island.
Birutė Marija Filomena Galdikas or Birutė Mary Galdikas, OC, is a Lithuanian-Canadian anthropologist, primatologist, conservationist, ethologist, and author. She is a professor at Simon Fraser University. In the field of primatology, Galdikas is recognized as a leading authority on orangutans. Prior to her field study of orangutans, scientists knew little about the species.
Maludam National Park is a national park in Betong Division, Sarawak, Malaysia on the island of Borneo. It is located in the Maludam Peninsula and consists entirely of low-lying, flat peat swamp forest. Such forests cover about 10% of the total land area of Sarawak, but have mostly been exploited for timber and plantation agriculture. The Maludam National Park encompasses the largest single patch of peat swamp forest remaining in Sarawak and Brunei.
The Borneo peat swamp forests ecoregion, within the tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests biome, are on the island of Borneo, which is divided between Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia.
Mount Palung National Park lies on the island of Borneo, in the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan, north of Ketapang and east of Sukadana.
The Bornean orangutan is a species of orangutan endemic to the island of Borneo. Together with the Sumatran orangutan and Tapanuli orangutan, it belongs to the only genus of great apes native to Asia. Like the other great apes, orangutans are highly intelligent, displaying tool use and distinct cultural patterns in the wild. Orangutans share approximately 97% of their DNA with humans. Also called mias by the local population, the Bornean orangutan is a critically endangered species, with deforestation, palm oil plantations, and hunting posing a serious threat to its continued existence.
Kumai is a port in Central Kalimantan province in Indonesia, on the island of Borneo. It lies on the Kumai River.
The Kumai River is a river of Central Kalimantan province, Borneo island, Indonesia.
Betung Kerihun National Park is a national park located in the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo. The park was established in 1995, and has a total area of 8,000 km2 (3,100 sq mi) or about 5.5 percent of West Kalimantan Province area. Together with the 2,000 km2 (800 sq mi) Lanjak Entimau Wildlife Sanctuary in Malaysia, it has been proposed to form a World Heritage Site named the "Transborder Rainforest Heritage of Borneo".
Orangutan Foundation International (OFI) has its headquarters in Los Angeles, California. Founded by Dr. Birutė Galdikas, one of three anthropologists to study great apes under the guidance of Dr. Louis Leakey, OFI continues to rescue and rehabilitate orangutans, preparing them for release back into protected areas of the Indonesian rain forest. In addition, OFI promotes the preservation of rain forest habitats.
The Borneo Orangutan Survival (BOS) Foundation is an Indonesian non-profit non-governmental organization founded by Dr. Willie Smits in 1991 and dedicated to the conservation of the endangered Bornean orangutan and its habitat through the involvement of local people. It is audited by an external auditor company and operates under the formal agreement with the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry to conserve and rehabilitate orangutans. The BOS Foundation manages orangutan rescue, rehabilitation and re-introduction programmes in East and Central Kalimantan. With more than 400 orangutans in its care and employing more than 440 people at a 10 sites BOS Foundation is the biggest non-human primate conservation non-governmental organization worldwide. Nyaru Menteng and Samboja Lestari are the BOS Foundation sites that have received most extensive media coverage. Nyaru Menteng, founded by Lone Drøscher Nielsen, has been the subject of a number of TV series, including Orangutan Diary, Orangutan Island and the series Orangutan Jungle School, airing since 2018.
The Borneo lowland rain forests is an ecoregion, within the tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests biome, of the large island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. It supports approximately 15,000 plant species, 380 bird species and several mammal species. The Borneo lowland rain forests is diminishing due to logging, hunting and conversion to commercial land use.
Kutai National Park is a lowland national park located on the east coast of Borneo Island, in the East Kalimantan province of Indonesia, ranging approximately 10 to 50 km north of the equator.
The Borneo montane rain forests is an ecoregion on the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. It includes montane tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, also known as a cloud forests. The ecoregion is partly in East Malaysia and Indonesia (Kalimantan).
The Sunda Shelf mangroves ecoregion, in the mangrove biome, are on the coasts of the islands of Borneo and eastern Sumatra in Malaysia and Indonesia. They are home to the proboscis monkey.
The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve, nearly the size of Singapore, consists of 64,000 hectares of bio-diverse tropical peat swamp forest that contain as much as 1,000 plant and animal species per hectare and is one of the most highly endangered ecosystems on the planet. The project area and ongoing initiatives focus on environmental conservation, community outreach, and climate control. Rimba Raya is home to one of the few remaining relic populations of wild orangutans and is the largest privately funded orangutan reserve in the world. The area is also one of the world’s largest repositories of carbon. Rimba Raya is the world’s largest REDD+ project -Reduced Emissions from (Avoided) Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). The project developer, InfiniteEARTH, is an industry pioneer, delivering the world’s first REDD methodology in 2009.
Pangkalan Bun is the capital of West Kotawaringin Regency in Borneo, Indonesia. It has a population of around 200,000 It is also the administrative headquarters of South Arut district (kecamatan).
Sekonyer is a river in southern Borneo, Central Kalimantan province, Indonesia, about 700 km northeast of the capital Jakarta.
There are three species of orangutan. The Bornean orangutan, the most common, can be found in Kalimantan, Indonesia and Sarawak and Sabah in Malaysia. The Sumatran orangutan and the Tapanuli orangutan are both only found in Sumatra, Indonesia. The conservation status of all three of these species is critically endangered, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.
