Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Project

On November 2nd 2014 I will be travelling to Malaysia to volunteer at Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre in the Malaysian Sabah District of North Borneo was founded in 1964, to rehabilitate orphan orangutans. The site is 43 sq km of protected land at the edge of Kabili Sepilok Forest Reserve. Today around 60 to 80 orangutans are living free in the reserve. When Sabah became an independent state in Malaysia in 1963, a Game Branch was created in the Forest Department for the conservation of wild animals in the region. Consequently, 43 sq km of protected land at the edge of Kabili Sepilok Forest Reserve was turned into a rehabilitation site for orangutans, and a centre built to care for the apes. Today around 25 young orphaned orangutans are housed in the nurseries, in addition to those free in the reserve. The facility provides medical care for orphaned and confiscated orangutans as well as dozens of other wildlife species. Some of the other animals which have been treated at the centre include; sun bears, gibbons, Sumatran rhinos and the occasional injured elephant. The United Nations has officially recognised the plight of these great apes and has launched The Great Apes Survival Project.  Despite this, the orangutan is considered to be critically endangered. Just ten years ago the estimated population was around 27,000, today it could be as low as 15,000. Indonesia and Malaysia were once covered in forest, until 40 years ago when wood became a more valuable commodity. The clearings made perfect farm land and overzealous agriculture fast cleared the orangutans’ natural habitat. In an attempt to improve the local economy, many global development banks fund palm oil plantations. Unfortunately, these plantations strip the land bare of its lowland forest. For example, a plantation can grow to be well over 300,000 hectares in size.