We need your help. The major, or “Super” El Niño event that climatologists have been forecasting has arrived in Borneo. This means an especially hot and extended dry season. In the devastating 2023 dry season, it didn’t rain from July until early November, and over 3000 hectares of OFI protected forest and reforestation area burned.
In the village where the OFI Orangutan Care Center and Quarantine Rehabilitation Center is located, it has not rained in two months, and OFI has already faced down eight forest fires in OFI protected land, or in or around Tanjung Puting National Park – one of the world’s largest protected orangutan populations. For the last five days, our team has been fighting a fire near the Sekonyer River, which serves as a boundary to the National Park and where many Park visitors enjoy the peace of the Bornean jungle as they venture to see orangutans at Camp Leakey.
Among the firefighting team members are OFI research staff, whose regular jobs involve wild orangutan observations and monitoring.
We are currently “all hands on deck” because without the forest, there will be no orangutans left to study.
This call to duty includes all of our orangutan caregiver staff at the OCCQ, our drivers, and office staff, many of whom are pulled from their daily jobs to fight fires in remote forests for days on end.
We know we will most likely be fighting the wind and the flames for weeks to come. The only thing that can stop the largest fires is rain. And we do not expect that soon.
Right now thousands of fires are burning across Borneo. These fires burn hot and fast, and animals like orangutans who usually move slowly through the canopy cannot keep up. They get swept up in flames and smoke and are left clinging to burned vegetation to stay alive.
In the first nine days of September, OFI has rescued seven orangutans. These are the lucky ones who manage to run or who survive close encounters with fire.
This is why we need your help.
Without you, our rescue team can’t respond to these urgent calls to save orangutans from fire.
Without you, our veterinarians don’t have medicine, oxygen, and tools to help these orangutans in need.
Without you, we have no pumps, hoses, food, and fuel for our courageous firefighting teams saving orangutan habitat.
Please donate today to keep OFI’s rescue teams operating 24/7 and our firefighting teams active around the clock. Together we can make it through this “Godzilla” season and keep as much forest standing and orangutans alive as we can.
Ruth Ella Linsky
President
Orangutan Foundation International Canada