The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOS) was founded in 1992 by the Dutch forestry scientist Dr Willie Smits and is the world's largest organisation for the protection of orangutans, which are directly threatened with extinction. Today, there are only around 14,000 orangutans left in Indonesia. And the trend is falling sharply. The biggest threat to their survival is human activity: Hunting, the timber industry and agriculture. During hunts, mothers are shot from the 30 metre high treetops and their babies are sold as pets on local markets or smuggled abroad. Even more devastating is the destruction of their habitat through the cultivation of palm oil plantations, which are irretrievably destroying ever larger areas of rainforest. In the province of Central Kalimantan (Borneo) alone, palm oil plantations increased by 50% to 286,000 hectares between 1999 and 2003. The release of forest for plantation cultivation means total destruction. Deforested, slash-and-burn rainforest with over-fertilised soil and monocultures is lost forever. And with it the orangutans living there and other endangered species such as gibbons and Malayan bears. When the clearing workers break in with their bulldozers, the animals can only flee to the already deforested areas.

The owners of the palm oil plantations set up there offer killing premiums for the orangutas to protect their plantations. The hunters waiting there only need to shoot them. In order to stop the slaughter, BOS will have to relocate the affected orangutans to safe areas in the coming years. Cooperation with all companies that manage plantations in Central Kalimantan is therefore very important. One plantation with which we already co-operate has been granted a new concession for a further 40,000 hectares. Around 600 orangutans currently live in this area alone. In the coming dry season - that is, during one season alone! - more than 100 orangutans and hundreds of other animals will have to be relocated - quickly and intensively to enable the necessary health check in the small quarantine centre in Nyaru Menteng. EURO I.D. and TROVAN are contributing 600 animal identification transponders (ID 100) and a reader to enable gentle and permanent labelling for the relocation of the orangutans. If you would also like to get involved in saving the orangutans, you can find out more about the BOS projects on the following websites.

www.bos-deutschland.de