ARE ORANGUTANS EMPATHETIC?
It was a usual day at the Nyaru Menteng forest school, where young orangutans were learning from one another while their human surrogate mothers looked on from below.
The Kehje Sewen Forest is rich in natural resources, like the tengkaras tree, or agarwood (Aquilaria malaccensis). Agarwood is highly sought after and sold as a raw material in the production of perfumes. However, due to overexploitation, it is now an endangered species.
Destructive harvesting is the main threat to the survival of agarwood. In the hunt for quality agarwood, the tengkaras tree is often cut down first to find out if it has enough agarwood to harvest. Felled tengkaras trees are often left untouched and wasted if found to not contain enough of the precious material. If it was possible to determine the content of agarwood in a tree without cutting the whole tree down, it is possible the species would not be endangered, as it is today.
Not all tengkaras trees produce agarwood, as it is formed only under unique conditions. The formation of agarwood is naturally stimulated by the fungal infections of parasites from the Ascomycetes group, like Phaeoacremonium. So without this particular fungal infection, the value of agarwood for perfumes is absent.
Many of our team members previously worked as agarwood seekers. However, after being educated on the importance of nature conservation, they now understand how vital it is to ensure the sustainable use of agarwood. Even when our PRM team needs to cut through bushes and branches with machetes on patrol, they take extra care to not slash any precious agarwood.
It was a usual day at the Nyaru Menteng forest school, where young orangutans were learning from one another while their human surrogate mothers looked on from below.
Our Post-Release Monitoring (PRM) team at Camp Himba Pambelum in Bukit Baka Bukit Raya National Park (TNBBBR), Central Kalimantan, encountered Suci, a young female orangutan, three times back in 2023.
Kopral has been receiving treatment at the clinic since April 2023 due to wounds on the sole of his right foot and fungus between his toes.
