Our Projects

TOP Supported Projects

TOP currently supports a variety of projects in Borneo & Sumatra, Indonesia. A summary can be found below with links to more detailed information on each project.

Meet some of our project leaders view profiles.

Batu Mbelin Care Centre
The Quarantine Centre of SOCP is called Batu Mbelin. It is located near the small village of Sembahe in North Sumatra. Because of its quarantine status, the site is not open to visitors. Most of the staff at the Quarantine centre are from the local villages and the majority of the orangutans’ food stuffs are locally produced fruits and vegetables. The SOCP has managed to foster an excellent ‘community spirit’ and they enjoy a great deal of support from the indigenous Karo Batak people.

Camp Buluh Orangutan Release Site: Lamandau Reserve
The Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve conservation area has become a site for the release of ex-captive orangutans into the wild. The Orangutan Foundation supports camps in the Reserve for releasing and monitoring ex-captive orangutans. Since 2005, TOP has been supporting the operation of one of these camps – Camp Buluh on the Buluh River – including funding initiatives that have successfully brought down the number of cases of illegal logging in the area.

Honary Wildlife Wardens: Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Programme
The goal of the programme is to achieve long-term viability of orangutan populations in Sabah. The programme's objective is to restore harmonious relationships between people and the orangutan, which in turn will support local socio-economic development compatible with habitat and wildlife conservation.

IAR Orangutan Rescue Centre West Kalimantan
International Animal Rescue (IAR) signed an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) in August 2009 with the Forestry Department in West Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, agreeing on plans for the rescue, rehabilitation and relocation of orangutans that have lost their forest habitat to make way for oil palm plantations

Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Project
KOCP was set up in 1998, aiming to achieve long-term viability of orangutan populations in Sabah. Only recently, in 2005, was the 26,000ha Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary established. Wardens play a crucial ‘on ground’ role in ensuring the proper maintenance of this area and its orangutan population, and TOP has an ongoing history of support for the KOCP Honorary Wildlife Warden programme.

Mobile Education Unit
As part of the ecosystem protection programme in Bukit Tigapuluh, a Mobile Education Unit (MEU) has been established to educate and to raise public awareness within these communities about the importance of wildlife and the natural environment. Most schools in this region have extremely limited resources that restrict their ability to create learning opportunities. MEU staff have developed educational programs for all levels of schooling, which are then customised to each school and delivered by mobile teaching teams.

Nyaru Mentang Care Centre
The Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Reintroduction Project is situated 28km outside of Palangka Raya, the capital of Central Kalimantan. It is located within the boundaries of the Nyaru Menteng Arboretum, a 62.5 ha lowland peat-swamp forest ecosystem, founded in 1988 by the Ministry of Forestry Regional office of Central Kalimantan. The project aims to rescue orangutans that have been displaced from their habitat or held in captivity as illegal pets, and through quarantine and half-way housing release them back into their natural environment.

Orangutan Caring Scholarships
Established in 2006, the Orangutan Caring Scholarship awards talented and disadvantaged Indonesian students with tuition funding, to complete postgraduate programs in Forestry and Biology. Through the program, recipients develop an understanding of the plight of the orangutan, and graduate as an advocate of orangutan conservation. TOP is fully funding two such scholarships.

Sabangau Peat Swamp Restoration
Environmental damage caused by illegal logging in the Sabangau Forest in Central Kalimantan has left the whole ecosystem at risk. TOP will provide $50,000 AUD in 2009-2010 to support the protection and restoration of orangutan habitat in the Sabangau peat swamp forest.

SOCP Long-Term Accommodation for Orangutans that Cannot be Released to the Wild
The vast majority of orangutans received at the SOCP quarantine centre are fit and healthy and can be transferred to one of the two reintroduction centres for the species in Jambi and now in Jantho (Aceh). However, on occasions we receive orangutans with serious medical concerns or disabilities (injuries) that prevent them from being returned to the wild.

South Central Kalimantan
Promoting conservation and sustainable management of lowland forests
A designated conservation area since 1998, the Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve is one of only a few release sites for rehabilitated orangutans in Indonesia. In 2007, the Lamandau Ecosystem Conservation Partnership was established to maintain the tropical forests of the Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve and surrounding forests as a functioning tropical forest ecosystem. In 2009-2010 TOP will contribute $15,000 to fund actions required to help achieve the goals of this project.

Sumatran Orangutan Ecotourism Development Programme in Bukit Lawang
Bukit Lawang offers visitors an extraordinary opportunity to view wild and semi-wild orangutans. In order to preserve the site for the future and protect the development of the local orangutans, tourism standards at the site require critical attention. TOP is providing financial support to assist the Orangutan Ecotourism Development Programme transform Bukit Lawang into a world renowned ecotourism site.

Sungai Pengian Station: Sumatran Orangutan Reintroduction Site
Bukit Tigapuluh National Park, located in the provinces of Jambi and Riau in Sumatra, is the site of the only Sumatran orangutan reintroduction centre; Sungai Pengian. Sumatran orangutan populations are now considered Critically Endangered, and currently number less than 7% of what existed in 1900. With approximately only 6,300 left in the wild and a current rate of loss of approximately 1,000 per year, it is imperative that viable released populations are built up outside of the troubled Aceh province.

Tripa Swamp Protection
Tripa, North Sumatra, is one of only six remaining populations for the critically endangered Sumatran orangutan and also has amongst the highest densities of orangutans anywhere in the world. Palm oil companies are destroying the forest here, and the total destruction of the remaining forest is predicted within less than five years if appropriate action is not implemented quickly.

Wildlife Protection Units
The Wildlife Protection Units (WPU), funded by TOP, are responsible for patrolling the Bukit Tigapuluh National Park and the ‘buffer zone’ surrounding its borders, to help secure the released Sumatran orangutan population and its habitat in Bukit Tigapuluh, and to stop and prevent illegal logging as the major threat to orangutan habitat. To date, the WPU have been highly successful in deterring illegal activities within the National Park, including logging.