Orangutan Tries to Fight Off an Excavator Destroying His Forest

Originally published 2018-07-06.

The video that spread around the world in June 2018 shows a wild Bornean orangutan climbing down a felled tree in the rain and reaching for the bucket of an excavator that is tearing up the forest around him. He grips the metal for a moment, loses his footing, drops into the tangle of cut timber and then struggles back up. The footage came from Sungai Putri, a peat-swamp forest in West Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, and it was shared by the charity International Animal Rescue (IAR) on 5 June 2018, World Environment Day.

One detail is often missed: according to Mongabay's reporting, the clip was actually filmed in 2013 and only posted five years later. IAR said the orangutan was captured after the incident and taken to its rehabilitation centre in Ketapang, so this individual animal did survive. The forest he lived in, however, has stayed under pressure ever since.

What the footage shows, and what it does not

The moment the orangutan loses his grip and falls from the trunk into the cleared timber. Photo: International Animal Rescue

It is tempting to read the clip as an animal deliberately "fighting" the machine to defend his home. That makes for a powerful headline, but the camera cannot tell us what the orangutan intended. Primatologists generally describe this kind of behaviour as a frightened or cornered ape trying to escape, or reacting to a large, noisy threat at close range. Orangutans are mostly solitary and avoid confrontation when they can.

What the footage does show clearly is the situation the animal was in: standing trees gone, the canopy he would normally move through broken up, and heavy machinery working in the middle of his range. For a species that spends most of its life in the trees, that is a crisis whatever the ape was thinking.

Sungai Putri: a peat forest with one of Borneo's largest orangutan groups

Sungai Putri covers about 57,000 hectares in Ketapang district. Around 84% of the landscape is peatland, much of it very deep, which in theory should give it legal protection under Indonesian rules on peat. A survey analysis by the regional conservation agency (BKSDA) estimated that it holds roughly 950 to 1,200 orangutans, which makes it one of the more important remaining strongholds for the Central Bornean subspecies, Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii.

Most of the remaining forest lies inside a concession held by a company called PT Mohairson Pawan Khatulistiwa (MPK). The company dug drainage canals into the peat. In 2017 the government ordered it to stop work and fill the canals in, but Greenpeace reported in June 2018 that this had not happened and that heavy equipment was still on site.

(The Facebook video originally embedded here is no longer available.)

Greenpeace Indonesia photographed the area in March 2018 and documented at least six illegal logging camps in or near the forest. Its investigators reported that logging took place at night, sometimes close to orangutan nests, and that trucks moved the timber at dawn to sawmills and furniture workshops in the town of Ketapang. Greenpeace said it was not clear whether MPK or third parties were doing the cutting, since the loggers were using roads the company had built.

Karmele Llano Sanchez, programme director of IAR's Indonesian partner, told Greenpeace that Sungai Putri holds one of the largest orangutan populations anywhere, and that destroying it pushes the apes into plantations and farms, where conflict with people follows.

How endangered is the Bornean orangutan?

An IAR rescue team in Indonesia carrying a different orangutan to safety. Rescues like this usually happen after a forest has already been cleared or burned. Photo: International Animal Rescue

The Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) has been listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List since 2016. Current estimates put the wild population at about 104,700, far more than the roughly 14,000 Sumatran orangutans, but the trend is steeply downward. Researchers estimate the species is now at less than 14% of its long-term historical size, with most of that loss happening in recent decades.

Three facts about orangutan biology explain why the species recovers so slowly:

• Slow breeding. Females usually give birth for the first time at around 14 to 15 years old and then raise one infant at a time for years. Few mammals reproduce more slowly.
• Large ranges. They eat more than 400 kinds of food, from wild figs and durian to bark, leaves and insects, and need big areas of connected forest to find enough fruit through the year.
• Long lives. They live 35 to 45 years in the wild, so the loss of breeding adults takes decades to make up.

The main threats: clearance, fire and conflict

A thin mother orangutan and her infant rescued in 2015, after land in the area was reportedly set on fire to clear it. Photo: International Animal Rescue

Habitat loss from logging and from conversion to oil palm and pulpwood plantations is the biggest driver of decline. On drained peat, the danger is doubled: dry peat burns easily, and the great fires of 2015 and 2019 swept through large parts of Kalimantan. Animals that survive the clearing are pushed into plantations and village gardens, where they may be treated as pests.

Killing is also a serious problem. A survey of villages across Kalimantan estimated that between 750 and 1,800 orangutans were killed in a single year before April 2008, for meat, in conflict, or when mothers were shot so their babies could be taken as pets.

An orangutan stranded at the top of the last standing tree in 2016 after developers had cleared the surrounding forest. Photo: International Animal Rescue

Why rescue alone cannot save the species

Rescue centres such as IAR's in Ketapang do vital work. IAR reports that it has rescued more than 300 orangutans and has recorded wild births among animals it rehabilitated and released. But rescue treats the symptom. An orangutan moved out of one cleared forest still needs a large, safe, connected forest to be released into, and those are shrinking.

That is why conservation groups focus on protecting whole landscapes like Sungai Putri, enforcing the existing ban on draining deep peat, and restoring burned areas. Greenpeace forest campaigner Ratri Kusumohartono described the logging there as "a major embarrassment for the Indonesian government," which had promised to protect the site.

What you can realistically do

• Support established groups. Organisations that run both rescue and forest protection, such as International Animal Rescue, depend on donations.
• Shop for certified palm oil rather than boycotting blindly. Palm oil is in many everyday products, and replacing it often needs more land. Many conservation groups recommend choosing products certified as deforestation-free or segregated sustainable palm oil and pressing brands for traceable supply chains.
• Share accurate information. When a video like this goes viral, share it with the context: where it was filmed, when, and what happened to the animal. Accurate stories are harder to dismiss.
• Never pay to hold or photograph a captive orangutan when travelling. Demand for pets and photo props drives the killing of mothers.

Sources: Mongabay: Facebook video shows orangutan defending forest against bulldozer; Greenpeace International press release, 5 June 2018; Wikipedia: Bornean orangutan; International Animal Rescue; original video posted by International Animal Rescue on Facebook, as reported by The Dodo. Photos: International Animal Rescue.