Where do you go when your home is destroyed? Human actions can leave wild orangutans stranded when forest is converted into palm oil plantations or other non-forest habitats. Orangutans are very reluctant to leave the shelter of trees and cross open ground, so habitat fragmentation can leave them isolated in tiny patches of forest.
In these extreme circumstances, the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme @socp.official may choose to step in to rescue isolated orangutans. The orangutans are taken to the SOCP’s quarantine centre where they receive the necessary care and preparations for reintroduction to the wild.
Since 2003, over 330 orangutans have been reintroduced to the wild by the SOCP at two protected sites in Sumatra. The SOCP’s monitoring efforts suggest that their reintroduced orangutans are establishing new self-sustaining populations in their new homes in the rainforest.
Photo credit: @paulhiltonphoto
#orangutan #conservation #leuserecosystem #sumatra #indonesia
When rainforests prosper, millions benefit. In the province of Aceh in northern Sumatra, millions of people live against the backdrop of the Leuser Ecosystem’s great forests. With a large portion of the population working in the agricultural industry, Aceh's economy relies heavily on the environmental services provided by the Leuser Ecosystem. It is estimated that the Leuser Ecosystem provides a total economic value of at least 350 million US dollars per year! In the long run, the profits generated by maintaining the forest far exceeds the profits generated by cutting down the forest.
#leuserecosystem #lovetheleuser #sumatra #indonesia
Photos by @paulhiltonphoto
Juicy and delicious! This ripe red strawberry was grown in a permaculture centre in the highlands of the Leuser Ecosystem. Thanks to a project from @yosloic , local people have been trained in this sustainable farming method, and the results are mouth-watering!
Despite the high levels of biodiversity they support, tropical forest soils are actually very poor. The stability of the rainforest habitat depends on a constant cycle of vegetation growing, dying and being broken down. When forests are cut down, this regenerative cycle is lost and after a few growing cycles, the topsoil quickly becomes unusable. This prompts local people to cut down yet more forest to find new areas to farm.
Permaculture brings this damaging process to an end. By adapting their farming methods to maintain the natural forest regeneration cycles, local people are able to grow food for longer in one place, and without clear cutting the forest. They are then able to produce quality food for themselves, and sell the excess to earn extra income. We hope that with the success of this permaculture project, this model can be extended to other areas of the Leuser Ecosystem to benefit both local people and the forest.
#permaculture #sumatra #indonesia #leuserecosystem #lovetheleuser
Photo credit: @paulhiltonphoto
There are at least 129 species of mammals found within the Leuser Ecosystem. That's almost 65% of the mammal species found on the island of Sumatra, and one quarter of all mammal species in Indonesia! In an already incredibly biodiverse country, the Leuser Ecosystem has one of the highest levels of biodiversity of any region of Indonesia. That's one of the reasons why we and our partners work so hard to protect it.
#wildlife #conservation #leuserecosystem #indonesia #lovetheleuser
Photos by @paulhiltonphoto
Solitary and secretive, very little is known about wild Sumatran rhinos. Even those who have studied Sumatran rhinos for years in the forests of the Leuser Ecosystem rarely catch a glimpse of this mysterious creature.
As the largest contiguous forest remaining in Sumatra, the Leuser Ecosystem is a vitally important refuge for the Sumatran rhino, one of only a handful of areas that still maintain the species. With your help we can protect the Leuser Ecosystem and the rhino’s home - click the link in our bio to find out more.
#rhino #sumatranrhino #wildlife #conservation #leuserecosystem #sumatra #lovetheleuser
Photo credit: @paulhiltonphoto
More worrying evidence of illegal logging taking place in the Leuser Ecosystem. One of the challenges in stopping illegal logging is that the Leuser Ecosystem is so vast, it would be almost impossible to guard all of the access points or patrol all of the forest where logging might take place. LEAF's partner NGOs have developed sophisticated data-led systems for tracking and monitoring logging hot spots, to make their efforts more targeted. However, more needs to be done to increase patrolling and to strengthen the actions of law enforcement operations.
In the past few years there have been a number of significant arrests of illegal logging perpetrators: a positive step! LEAF is raising money to support actions to increase the number of legal cases against forest and wildlife crime in the Leuser Ecosystem.
Photo credit: @paulhiltonphoto
#leuserecosystem #sumatra #rainforest #illegallogging #conservation
Today is International Tiger Day, an annual celebration to raise awareness of tiger conservation!
The islands of Indonesia were once home to three distinct tiger subspecies: the Javan, Bali and Sumatran tigers. Sadly, poaching of tigers and their prey as well as habitat destruction led to the extinction of two of the three subspecies. The Bali tiger has not been seen since the 1940s; the last official record of a tiger on Java was in 1976.
As the last remaining Indonesian subspecies, a lot of hope rests on the striped shoulders of the Sumatran tiger. LEAF’s partners in Sumatra are working hard to protect the remaining habitats of the Sumatran tiger, prevent poaching by patrolling the forests where it lives, and dismantling the illegal wildlife trade that drives the killing of tigers. By coordinating our efforts we can make sure these tigers are left alone to enjoy the forests of Sumatra in peace.
Photo credit: @paulhiltonphoto
#internationaltigerday #tiger #sumatrantiger #conservation #indonesia #leuserecosystem
Green, as far as the eye can see. The characteristic tree species of the Leuser Ecosystem are dipterocarps - a family of trees found in tropical rainforests all over the world. 111 species of these trees have been recorded on Sumatra, many of which are ‘emergent’ species, so called because they are the forest’s tallest trees that seem to emerge from the canopy beneath. Emergent trees in the rainforest canopy typically reach heights of 40-70 metres, but some have been recorded as over 90 metres tall!
Photocredit: @paulhiltonphoto
#leuserecosystem #sumatra #rainforest #trees
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to see an orangutan in the wild? If you’re hoping to catch a glimpse of this great ape in its forest home you will need to rely on all of your senses. Orangutans spend nearly all of their time in the forest canopy, often surrounded by leaves as they rest or search for food, so can be hard to spot from the ground. In fact, it’s often perfectly possible to be standing directly underneath a tree with an orangutan in it, but be completely unaware!
Orangutan experts in the Leuser Ecosystem have become adept at spotting signs of nearby orangutans. Orangutans tend to move slowly through the trees, unlike their acrobatic cousins the gibbons, so listening out for a gentle rustling of leaves is often the first sign that an orangutan is close by. The sight and sound of falling leaves, twigs and berries is another sign, as the orangutan picks through foliage to find the juiciest food.
#orangutan #sumatra #leuserecosystem #naturephotography #conservation
There are over one thousand villages situated within the Leuser Ecosystem and its buffer zone, some of which are home to communities with certain customary rights to land and who have long advocated for the protection of their forests, ecosystem services and cultural sites within the Ecosystem. In working to conserve the Leuser Ecosystem’s natural capital, we must never forget the needs and rights of local people, for whom these lands are essential to their livelihoods and may hold great cultural and spiritual significance.
In advocating for the land rights of communities in the Leuser Ecosystem, we not only ensure that local people do not lose the access to land where they have lived for generations, we can also help protect them against displacement by new development projects, including the establishment of plantations.
Working alongside communities in a bottom-up approach to conservation also provides better long-term benefits than restrictive top-down conservation projects. Local people become part of the effort to find long-term solutions that meet both their needs and the needs of conservation. The only way the Leuser Ecosystem will survive is by finding harmony between the natural and human communities who call it home.
Photo credit: @paulhiltonphoto
#leusersecosystem #lovetheleuser #conservation #landrights #indonesia
A study, published in 2021, looks at how climate change might impact the efforts to conserve endangered mammals such as rhinos, tigers and orangutans in the Leuser Ecosystem. The authors use several different projections of how the climate will change in the coming decades to predict what the Leuser Ecosystem could look like in 2050 and how this could impact 45 different endangered mammal species.
Climate change is likely to further restrict the habitat ranges of endangered species and cause their distribution to shift as a result of changing and more extreme temperatures and rainfall patterns. The study predicts that some species will be more badly affected than others by these changes - for example, the range of the agile gibbon occurs only in areas of the Leuser Ecosystem very strongly threatened by climate change.
A particularly worrying finding of the study is that the protected areas of the Leuser Ecosystem will become more susceptible to climate disturbance than the unprotected areas. This implies that the mammal species could migrate into unprotected areas, putting them more at risk of coming into contact with threats linked to human activities.
Although these findings are concerning, they are also useful in helping us to plan future conservation activities. A focus of LEAF’s partners’ work is collaborating with local people, businesses and government to maintain habitat for wildlife outside of existing protected areas, and the creation of habitat corridors to allow species to move around the Ecosystem more freely. These actions will help to mitigate the impacts of climate change on the endangered species living in the Leuser Ecosystem, and with more research being done into the potential impacts of climate change, we will get even better at predicting where intervention is most needed.
Photo credit: @paulhiltonphoto
#conservation #climatechange #wildlife #sumatra #indonesia #leuserecosystem
An Asian Pied Hornbill flies between trees in the forest canopy. The cry of a hornbill is a common sound in the Leuser Ecosystem. When communicating with each other, hornbill cries can sound like cackles of laughter. Other times they sound like screeches, or even like dogs barking through the trees. The sounds are made through the casque on the upper part of the bill, which works to amplify the harsh sounds.
Photo credit: @paulhiltonphoto
#wildlife #conservation #hornbill #leuserecosystem #sumatra #indonesia
