Hi All,

Some news from the Dream Team who are currently out in Samboja getting the project up to speed!

We are slowly being allowed access to more areas which means we can start to work on and improve the areas the orangutans are kept in. We started in the quarantine area, making hammocks and putting in ropes and tyres and preparing daily food enrichment, but last week we gained permission into an area called “wanariset”, so we have to start looking at what we need to do. Mostly building and installing hammocks and ropes. We also have now been asked to do the same in the holding area for the orangutans in forest school and tidy up and improve the play ground area for the baby orangutans, which should be fun!

In the quarantine area we have already installed several hammocks and puzzle feeders, and it is great to observe the difference, keeping the orangutans entertained and engaged in something."

A tired young orangutan with one of the BOS team


Dream Team providing enrichment to the orangutans.


More enrichment work.



One of the resident orangutans at Samboja.



2 resident babies at Samboja at play.


More photo's and updates to follow very soon.

If you want to find out more about how to join this project then please click here

Labels: BOS, orangutan enrichment, orangutan rehabilitation centre, orangutans, samboja lestari

As no doubt you are aware, internet connection is not the best at Samboja. We do encourage our volunteers to send through pictures as often as they can, so apologies to those of you who follow this blog and have been starved of new images recently!


A view of the Samboja Lestari grounds


Samboja is home to over 50 sunbears. As a volunteer you may be involved in preparing enrichment to encourage more natural behaviour from the sunbears.


Preparing orangutan enrichment. Enrichment is a vital part of these orangutans daily routine. Encouraging natural behaviour and making their day more interesting.


Orangutan Island - just one of the Islands that are home to these beautiful creatures.


One of our volunteers working hard on construction.


One of our volunteers securing a newly made hammock to one of the holding cages.

If securing the future of orangutans is something you wish to be part of then why not volunteer with us?...... we will help make your dreams come true.

Labels: dream, dream team, orangutan, orangutan enrichment, orangutan island, orangutan rehabilitation centre, samboja lestari

Labels: orangutan rehabilitation centre, rainforest, samboja lestari, work

Tom Makin, spent a month volunteering at Matang in May 2008 and returned to the UK determined to raise money for the project. In fact, so determined to fundraise for Matang, Makin is undertaking a 1000 mile bikeride across Britain.

In his own words;


"Follow me on my epic adventure to cycle 1000 miles in 15 days down the length of the UK from John o’grotes to Lands end to raise money for Matang Wildlife Park.

I spent a month living and working with Orangutans at Matang Wildlife Centre in Borneo and was completely captivated by the intelligence, beauty and fragility of our close evolutionary cousins.

Matang Wildlife Park focuses on the rehabilitation and release of Orangutans back into protected areas of natural rainforest. Those Orangutans that can't be put back are cared for and in many cases are used in breeding programs to sustain a fresh wild gene pool, vital for Orangutan survival.
This is a solo attempt which means i'll be alone with no support cars passing energy drinks out of the windows or cushy hotel spas at the end of each day, just me, my bike and hopefully a great deal of your support and donations to get me through the 70 mile per day average i need to achieve.

I have seen firsthand that any donations, no matter how big or small go a long way in Matang.

Please contact me for information on how to sponsor or donate"

To read more about Tom's efforts/donate to the project, see his Facebook page; "Follow my 1000 mile cycle ride to save Matang's Orangutans" or email him on tmakin@legionallacontrol.com. Good luck Tom!

Labels: cycling, fundraising, matang wildlife centre, orangutan, orangutan rehabilitation centre, orangutans, trip

Labels: indonesia, orangutan, orangutan rehabilitation centre

Hello everyoone, us again!!

Well, what an awsome past two days!!! enrichment extrordinaire!!! yesterday we did our first attempt at introducing enrichment, a trial run perhaps! we focussed on two main methods, bamboo puzzle feeders, a length of bamboo which is naturally closed at both ends and has a hole drilled in, just big enough for an orang finger to try to poke out the leaves and treats inside, and happy sacks, hessian folded an sewn with dried fruits, nuts seeds and leaves etc sewed in layers, almost like a pass the parcel idea, sewn tightly to give them a challenge.

As it was the first time these orangutans had been given this type of enrichment we made them easier than we normally do for orangs that are used to them, just to get them understanding that there are treats availiable with a little work! Yesterday we just trialed it on the orangs on island 5, with adolecent orangs and some mums and babies. (total of 5 and 2 babies) We sat and observed for over an hour, unfourtunately thay had been given their feed at the same time, so it took a little while to investigate, but once they became confident enough they didnt stop playing, even after all the treats had been extracted, the bamboo was used to scoop water up from their surrounding moat to drink, wash with and throw at each other. The sack was also used to cool down with, dunked in the river and put on their heads soaking wet, lovley!

It was a really good practice run and seemed to convince the staff that it worked, they even asked us to start doing it for them all on the islands and for those in the cages, BONUS! Even this morning they were still playing with the bamboo and sack as we walked to work, was cool!

So today, between planting 100 trees on our island (yummy fruit trees that hopefully will grow into big strong orang hardy trees) we continued to make bamboo puzzle feeders and happy sacks. After lunch had the joy of watching our enrichment being given to orangs on island 6, 4 and to big Leo on island 3, It was very amusing watching the different reactions! All the females and adolecents seem to continue having fun and playing with thier empty bamboo and sacks, however Leo just wasnt interested after the treats were gone!

It was a really rewarding couple of days, getting to see the first reactions to enrichments, and getting the keepers involved in what we were doing, they seem to find us hillarious but are keen to join in and help with the making . Hope fully we will now continue to make enrichment and pass it on to the keepers to give to those in the cages.

Tomorrow we are having the luxury of a moring off, and i think we shall continue working on enrichment in the afternoon, will keep you posted on developments!!!
hope you are all well, love to you all, hugest monkey hugs!! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Rob and Nic

Labels: babies, conservation, enrichment, happiness, indonesia, orangutan, orangutan rehabilitation centre

Back-drenching humidity and high-octane animal sounds. Pushing through the leaves of a giant fern, a young girl takes two baby apes by the hand. The girl who saves the ape- it’s is a legend with which we’re all familiar. No doubt the myth has been embellished by a variety of cinematic adaptations, from Gorillas in the Mist to King Kong. It has been retold by cultures the world over, from the screenwriters of Walt Disney, to the Dayaks of interior Borneo. But like all myths, the girl-ape tale has truth behind its leafy folds.

In 1960, a 26 year old woman called Jane Goodall left her middle-class life as a secretary in England, to study chimpanzees in Tanzania. Fifty years later, Goodall is a household name, having revolutionised the way in which we comprehend chimpanzees and animal cognition, she has even redefined our understanding of what it means to be human. But Jane was merely one of a trio of women who changed the way in which we comprehend apes. Birute Galdikas is just as famous for her pioneering work with the Bornean orangutan, having set up Camp Leakey in Tanjung Puting Reserve in Indonesian Borneo, a centre studying the behaviour and ecology of great apes. Birute has been instrumental in bringing orangutans to public attention; responsible for scores of high profile articles and documentaries in the last 32 years, she has given orangutans a very public profile. Dian Fossey is a figure needing little introduction. Her complicated struggle with Rwandan authorities on the well-being of the gorilla has conferred her memory with legend status, as well as drawing thousands of visitors to her Karisoke centre each year. But apart from the formidable team of Galdikas, Fossey and Goodall, the well-dubbed “Leakey’s Angels”, women have been formulating orangutan conservation in more understated ways.

Recent efforts at animal conservation place increased emphasis on volunteer interaction. Rather than ape survival being the preserve of well-educated specialists; primatologists like Goodall or Fossey, new release and rehabilitation programs are being being moved towards volunteer input. Yet the majority of people choosing to leave their day-to-day lives, donating their time to conservation are women. As Julie Ion, project coordinator for the Great Orangutan Project comments, “Eighty-nine percent of the volunteers signing up for our programs in Malaysia and Borneo are women, it’s phenomenol”. Indeed, visit the GOP centre in Matang, Sarawak and you’ll see women undertaking hard labour, building feeding platforms, improving enclosures for orangutans undergoing rehabilitation and tracking the movements of the released animals.

But how should we approach the interesting statistics? Is environmental conservation merely another area in which women will inevitably succeed, like the professions medicine or law? Perhaps increased female participation is natural, given the increased educational and financial opportunities available to women. Of course, this argument doesn’t go far enough, if women are being brought to further knowledge, why the specific pull towards apes? There are many areas in which women have not become more prominent-most mechanics are men and three alpha-males continue to present Top Gear. Women choose apes, dedicate their free-time and even their lives to ape protection. Why?

A traditionalist might answer that females, as nurturers, naturally have the patience and the desire to deal with species in critical danger. “Orangutan babies” may be the perfect outlet for a young woman to practice mothering skills, their vulnerable young faces drawing the humans most biologically set up to provide the vital care. But we must shy away from female-as-nurturer arguments. Looking at the profiles of the Leakey pioneers, or even the women applying for a place on the GOP program, most are well-established experts in their own fields; professional women whose intellectual rigour and determination rather than “soft skills” got them to where they are to date. In fact it could be argued that female led programs, like those of Galdikas or Goodall have argued for rational, distanced solutions to ape decline, requiring observers to take be at a respectful distance from the apes, calmly observing social patterns. In other words, females have advanced a rational solution to an emotive problem.
Indeed, Birute Galdikas’ answer to orangutan decline is sophisticated and objective. “In the end, the solution to orangutan extinction will be piecemeal: a patchwork of economic, political, cultural and social negotiations and compromises”

Labels: Borneo, developments, girls, orangutan rehabilitation centre, orangutans, progress, study, Tanzaniam, women

Welcome to my new blog. I have set this up to enable others to contribute and suggest ways that we can work together to fundraise the £32k needed to set up a new volunteer programme at an orangutan rehabilitation centre in Indonesia.

A team has been pulled together, consisting of volunteers who have spent time previously at Matang Wildlife Centre.

Robert Franklin
Nicola Clark
Elaine Purvis
Steve Jackson
Michelle Stevens
Hanna Kuiken
Kay Tompkins

Between them they have a target of £32,000 to raise. Over the coming days / weeks we will be posting details of events etc where you can help us, even if it is only by coming and along and showing your support.

If you have any ideas on ways that we can raise this money then please do contact us either by leaving a message on this blog, or calling any of the team on 01582 469950.

Orangutans need your help.....

Labels: indonesia, matang, matang wildlife centre, orangutan, orangutan rehabilitation centre