Elephants, tigers, rhinos, and orangutans, are the beneficiaries of habitat restoration efforts that have established 59,000 trees. 

The Orangutan Information Centre is an Indonesian non-government organisation making a huge difference in northern Sumatra through their conservation and community development work in and around the Leuser Ecosystem, one of our most biodiverse ecosystems.

The Leuser Ecosystem is also known as ‘The Last Place on Earth’, as it’s the only remaining place where Sumatran Orangutans, Elephants, Tigers, Rhinos and Sun Bears still share the same habitat.

For 15 years the Orangutan Information Centre has been working protect the Gunung Leuser National Park as it is threatened by conversion of rainforest for agriculture and plantations. The boundary of the park has not been clearly identified and this has resulted in encroachment. Thousands of hectares inside the national park have been cleared to create oil palm plantations. 

The Orangutan Information Centre work with the staff of the national park and oil palm companies to reclaim the land for the national park. Then they remove the oil palms and begin the rainforest restoration process. Between 2008 and 2022, the OIC team planted 2,578,352 trees to restored 2,781 hectares of degraded land inside and on the boundary of the Gunung Leuser National Park.

In 2020 the Rainforest 4 Foundation provided financial support enabling the OIC team to establish 59,000 trees. The project site is at Baruk Induk, North Sumatra where the OIC is workings with the community develop sustainable livelihoods while maintaining the integrity of the national park. The funding provided supported employment of local people in the construction of the plant nursery, and the growing, planting and maintenance of the trees.  

The Leuser Ecosystem has an estimated 10,000 species of plants, more than 200 mammal species and approximately 580 bird species of which 465 are residents and 21 are endemic.

Thank you to our donors who chose to support this project.