National Geographic Society

Photo courtesy Orangutan Foundation

There is a place in Indonesian Borneo where "every place is a school, and every person is a teacher". That place is Kampung Konservasi (Indonesian for Conservation Village). Kampung Konservasi is an integrated environmental learning facility ran by Yayorin (Yayasan Orangutan Indonesia) at the city of Pangkalan Bun in Central Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo.

What started as a dream, has now become a dynamic place where people come to learn more about how to live "in harmony with nature", a concept barely heard of in the area before. There is really no better way to explain the concept of the conservation village than this excerpt from the Orangutan Foundation's blog:

The idea of Kampung Konservasi is quite simple really. Because Yayorin believes that there will be no real conservation without education, we felt (and still do) that people, especially those who live surrounding the orangutan habitats, must be introduced to the idea of "nature conservation" in more direct, simple, personal ways. We need an education center; a place where people can actually go to. We cannot just preach and say "Do not cut the trees!" or "Do not kill the orangutans!" because most of those who did illegal logging practices or illegal wildlife trade in this area only did that out of necessity. They needed the money to survive. If we really want conservation to happen, if we really want people to take conservation seriously, we need to work with these people and offer them alternative ways to make a living.

Since it was opened to the public in March 2006, the Village has been growing. Yayorin believes that the Conservation Village has the largest environmental library in the whole of Kalimantan. The village regularly show environmental films in their little theatre, offer small, informal environmental "classes" for children and work together with local schools in many other environmentally-related activities. In addition school teachers, student groups, youth groups, farmer groups, church groups, government groups and various other individuals visit the village almost every month.

This is just one of the programmes that the Orangutan Foundation has been running all geared towards saving orangutans in the forests of Borneo. The only great ape in all of Asia, the Orangutan is witnessing rapid loss of habitat and hunting pressure resulting in declining populations. The situation of the Orangutan is so dire such that in an article appearing in the UK newspaper, The Independent, in 2004, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) had said that the orangutan would be extinct in 20 years if the then prevailing rates of population decline would continue.

According to estimates made public in a conference prior to this announcement, the population of orangutans had dropped from about 60,000 in 1987 to as little as 30,000 in 2001, representing a decline of almost 50% in 14 short years.

Recently, the Centre for Orangutan Protection said that just 20,000 of the endangered primates remain in the tropical jungle of Central Kalimantan. At the risk of sounding alarmist, the Centre had in August this year warned that if the Indonesian government did not protect wildlife from commercial exploitation, illegal logging and poachers, orangutans could be extinct by 2011.

The hope of salvaging whatever population of this charismatic "old man of the forest" is left lies in the efforts of organization such as the Orangutan Foundation.

You can learn more about this conservation education programme and the other work of the Orangutan Foundation at their blog at WildlifeDirect