TREEWORKER SUPPORT THE GREAT ORANG-UTAN PROJECT

Treeworker and Sawpod are helping volunteers working with Orang-utans in Borneo to teach the apes how to climb! Orang-utans are a fair bit better at climbing than humans, but in order to rehabilitate them, volunteers need to be able to teach them to climb. They put food in the trees to encourage the apes to climb, a job their mothers would have done in the wild.

The Great Orang-utan Project (GOP) is a collection of projects designed to save the Orang-utan and help local communities. Human activity is directly responsible for the rapid, large-scale decline of Orang-utan populations in parts of Asia. Decline may be steeper than previously thought and the apes are perilously close to oblivion.

Conservationists have long believed that Orang-utan declines in Indonesia and Malaysia are linked to habitat loss due to logging and the subsequent conversion of forests into oil-palm plantations.

As a human who depends on trees for your survival, buy a T Shirt and help engage the local people in wildlife management, which they can benefit from economically to create a win-win situation, whereby wildlife is protected and community welfare is improved at the same time.

Put simply, make Orang-utan conservation so vital to local communities in Borneo that they will protect and nurture, rather than hunt and kill the Orang-utans.