Noble Women 95get to Jakarta. I remember one year I
didn’t leave the island of Borneo - I
was just in the forest the entire time.Your story sounds like a tale
from Robinson Crusoe...
Oh, I could have been a Jane,
you know, who met Tarzan. But,
there was a lot of heartache too.
There were a lot of tears and there
was a lot of joy. But every single
time you get a new orphan orang-
utan in, you just know you have to
continue. I mean orangutans die
sometimes. Even though you grieve
over them, you just don’t have the
time to grieve over them forever. I
mean, over the years, I’ve probably
lost hundreds of orangutans; some-
times they come in such bad shape
that no matter how hard you work,
how good a medical team you have,
you just cannot save them. Or you
suddenly get a meningitis outbreak
amongst your orangutans and you
lose 12 orangutans in a month. All
these things happen, but you keep
pushing on because there’s always
another one and another one and
another one that needs your help.What are the main threats to
orangutans’ lives and wellbeing?
Well, the biggest threat is hab-
itat destruction, which is all hu-
man-caused of course. Initially, it
was illegal logging by big logging
companies that destroyed the for-
ests. But in the late 1990s, the palm
oil industry come in. After about
2002, wherever we went, we found
more and more orphans. And we
also found adult orangutans starving
to death, wandering around in open
plantations. Before that I hadn’t re-A LIFE’S CALLINGally heard much about palm oil, be-
cause I was so busy with the orphans.
But then the palm oil industry took
off. There was one year when we
rescued 160 animals from palm oil
plantations. And it is the same to-
day; whether it’s due to mining or
palm oil, habitat destruction is the
single biggest threat.
Adult orangutans become ex-
tremely stressed when their forest is
cut down. I remember seeing a wild
orangutan sitting at the edge of the
forest in an area turned to sand after
logging. There were only a few trees
left standing. She’d go into the for-
est to try and find food, but because
she was out of her territory, the stress
of competing with other orangutans
was too much for her. She couldn’t
make a nest. So, she just sat under
her remaining tree and slept.
These days we must think about
the impact of climate change too. If
the temperature keeps getting hot-
ter, the trees the animals rely on for
food will not fruit as much. There
will be changes in the cycles of the
fruiting seasons and it might be too
hot for certain species to survive.Have you received any threats
over the years?
Yes. I’ve had locals threaten me
saying they’re going to come and kill
me, or they’re going to burn down my
house. I’ve had several dogs poisoned.
One orangutan we tried to rescue was
in a brothel, used for prostitution.
Every time the Forestry Department
went to get the animal, they got
threatened with machetes and guns
and gave up. So, eventually, about a
year later, we managed to save the an-
imal with the help of the military po-
lice. We had 36 armed military police
with us. They did threaten us: they
said people from the village were go-
ing to come and break into the centre
(where we had about 400 orangutans
at the time), and that they were go-
ing to kill our orangutans, and take
the orangutan back. We had to pay
15 military police officers to be sta-
tioned around the centre for a month
to keep us safe.Do locals profit from trading in
orangutans?
Local people don’t really profit
very much. If you killed the mother
orangutan and took the baby, you’d
get what is equivalent to about a
couple of weeks salary. In Jakarta,
you might get IDR50,000 to 200,000
(US $3.48 to US $13.90) for a baby
orangutan. Once the baby gets to Ja-
karta and it’s sold on again, we are
talking millions, maybe IDR10mn
(US $695). Once it goes abroad, it’s
suddenly sold for something close to
about anything between $10,000 to
$30,000. So the person who actual-
ly kills the orangutan, they get very
little out of it. For them it is a couple
of weeks salary. If you go way back,In the late 1990s, the
palm oil industry came in.
There was one year when
we rescued 160 animals
from palm oil plantationsNoble Women 95get to Jakarta. I remember one year I
didn’t leave the island of Borneo - I
was just in the forest the entire time.
Your story sounds like a tale
from Robinson Crusoe...
Oh, I could have been a Jane,
you know, who met Tarzan. But,
there was a lot of heartache too.
There were a lot of tears and there
was a lot of joy. But every single
time you get a new orphan orang-
utan in, you just know you have to
continue. I mean orangutans die
sometimes. Even though you grieve
over them, you just don’t have the
time to grieve over them forever. I
mean, over the years, I’ve probably
lost hundreds of orangutans; some-
times they come in such bad shape
that no matter how hard you work,
how good a medical team you have,
you just cannot save them. Or you
suddenly get a meningitis outbreak
amongst your orangutans and you
lose 12 orangutans in a month. All
these things happen, but you keep
pushing on because there’s always
another one and another one and
another one that needs your help.
What are the main threats to
orangutans’ lives and wellbeing?
Well, the biggest threat is hab-
itat destruction, which is all hu-
man-caused of course. Initially, it
was illegal logging by big logging
companies that destroyed the for-
ests. But in the late 1990s, the palm
oil industry come in. After about
2002, wherever we went, we found
more and more orphans. And we
also found adult orangutans starving
to death, wandering around in open
plantations. Before that I hadn’t re-
A LIFE’S CALLINGallyheardmuchaboutpalmoil,be-
cause I was so busy with the orphans.
But then the palm oil industry took
off. There was one year when we
rescued 160 animals from palm oil
plantations. And it is the same to-
day; whether it’s due to mining or
palm oil, habitat destruction is the
single biggest threat.
Adult orangutans become ex-
tremely stressed when their forest is
cut down. I remember seeing a wild
orangutan sitting at the edge of the
forest in an area turned to sand after
logging. There were only a few trees
left standing. She’d go into the for-
est to try and find food, but because
she was out of her territory, the stress
of competing with other orangutans
was too much for her. She couldn’t
make a nest. So, she just sat under
her remaining tree and slept.
These days we must think about
the impact of climate change too. If
the temperature keeps getting hot-
ter, the trees the animals rely on for
food will not fruit as much. There
will be changes in the cycles of the
fruiting seasons and it might be too
hot for certain species to survive.Have you received any threats
over the years?
Yes. I’ve had locals threaten me
saying they’re going to come and kill
me, or they’re going to burn down my
house. I’ve had several dogs poisoned.
One orangutan we tried to rescue was
in a brothel, used for prostitution.
Every time the Forestry Department
went to get the animal, they got
threatened with machetes and guns
and gave up. So, eventually, about a
year later, we managed to save the an-
imal with the help of the military po-
lice. We had 36 armed military police
with us. They did threaten us: they
said people from the village were go-
ing to come and break into the centre
(where we had about 400 orangutans
at the time), and that they were go-
ing to kill our orangutans, and take
the orangutan back. We had to pay
15 military police officers to be sta-
tioned around the centre for a month
to keep us safe.Do locals profit from trading in
orangutans?
Local people don’t really profit
very much. If you killed the mother
orangutan and took the baby, you’d
get what is equivalent to about a
couple of weeks salary. In Jakarta,
you might get IDR50,000 to 200,000
(US $3.48 to US $13.90) for a baby
orangutan. Once the baby gets to Ja-
karta and it’s sold on again, we are
talking millions, maybe IDR10mn
(US $695). Once it goes abroad, it’s
suddenly sold for something close to
about anything between $10,000 to
$30,000. So the person who actual-
ly kills the orangutan, they get very
little out of it. For them it is a couple
of weeks salary. If you go way back,In the late 1990s, the
palm oil industry came in.
There was one year when
we rescued 160 animals
from palm oil plantations