Foreword


These pages contain photographs taken in the Tanjung Puting National Park and at the Orangutan Foundation International (OFI)  care-giving facilities  in Central Indonesian Borneo (Kalimantan Tengah),  in the years 1987-2009.




In the early years,  much of my photography in the Tanjung Puting National Park
took place at  Camp Leakey  and the forest that surrounds it - the Camp Leakey
Study Area - a safe haven for both wild  and rehabilitated ex-captive orangutans,
and their offspring.     It was at Camp Leakey  that Dr. Biruté M. F. Galdikas, in 1971,  commenced her still continuing endeavors to study the orangutans,  and to
protect them  and the forests in which they live,  endeavors in which  I have been
privileged to assist in a small way.    In the later years, the locations of my image
gathering included several other facilities in  Central Indonesian Borneo,  places where  well over  two  hundred  orphaned   orangutans were - and still are - being
nurtured by OFI care-givers.




In the distant past, orangutans ranged over much of southeast Asia from Java to
southern China.   Now, they are to be found solely on the islands of Sumatra and
Borneo.   Unfortunately, logging and the planting of oil palm trees are destroying their forest habitat in both places, so that they may, in a few years,  no longer be seen in the wild.




I've set up these pages in the hope that after you have seen how close to being human the orangutans are,  you will want to help in the struggle  to save their species from extinction by supporting  one, or more, of the organizations that
are dedicated to orangutan survival.     A good place to start is:


The Orangutan Foundation International
other organizations

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Copyright © 2003-2009 Ralph Arbus.   All rights reserved. webmaster@orangutanpix.info