Introducing our newest project site
We are excited to announce the addition of a new project site that will increase our conservation impact to cover 710,000 hectares of conserved natural habitat. Nestled within the 2 million hectare Arabella-Schwanner Forest Complex, the Gunung Naning Protection Forest is part of the largest remaining continuous intact forest that makes up the ‘Heart of Borneo’. This massive landscape consists of a mosaic of logging concessions, protected areas, customary forests and limited production forests. It spans the West and Central Kalimantan Border and contains lowland rainforest up to high montane cloud forests at over 2000 meter above sea level. This ecologically significant forest is home to an abundance of endangered and rare species including gibbons, hornbills and is believed to be home to roughly 10,450 orangutans - nearly 10-20% of the entire Bornean Orangutan population.
Endemic to the island of Borneo, Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) are extremely intelligent and arboreal animals. These great apes native to Asia primarily eat a diet of over 400 types of food including fruits, leaves, seeds and even bird eggs as well as insects. Since the turn of the century, it is estimated that the Bornean orangutan population has decreased by half because of severe habitat loss, poaching for bushmeat and capture for the pet trade. Despite being the most numerous orangutan species among the three (Sumatran and Tapanuli), the decreasing number of wild Bornean orangutans are a cause for concern.
By working alongside local villages and communities in this new project site, Planet Indonesia will help conserve the homes of these incredible primates and protect them from extinction while simultaneously improving human well-being. Expanding on lessons learned from our other project sites in West Kalimantan, we are scaling up our model to reduce deforestation and poaching by creating resilient livelihoods, improving access to basic social services and supporting locally-led law enforcement to ensure compliance with our conservation standards as well as government rules. By scaling up our Conservation Cooperative approach, we will also create opportunities for our partner communities to become actively involved in the decision making process on the use of their surrounding natural resources and co-manage this incredible forest area along with government management authorities. Villages that participate in our Conservation Cooperatives approach receive a host of benefits including tailored agricultural training, access to loans and savings schemes, access to basic health services and more, which help communities develop resilient income opportunities, reduce socio-economic inequalities and the need to solely rely on surrounding natural resources for subsistence. Evaluation of our approach has demonstrated much success in our other project areas of Gunung Niut and Kubu Raya in West Kalimantan, Indonesia.
In this landscape, we are also excited to work alongside indigenous communities in their pursuit to secure land tenure. Our team works closely with the Department of Forestry and Village Forest Management Units in order to support indigenous and local communities in their efforts to secure land tenure through the Indonesian government’s social forestry scheme - an initiative that researchers have linked to reduced deforestation and poverty alleviation. Through the creation of these customary forests, our support creates the enabling conditions for fair and equitable conservation, benefiting both people and wildlife.
