))
Episode 7: The Orangutan Project
Manage episode 298972852 series 2927291
Content provided by Nicole Rojas. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Nicole Rojas or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.
Today we will be speaking with Leif Cocks, world renown orangutan expert and founder of The Orangutan Project.
The Orangutan Project was created in 1998. Its mission is to protect endangered orangutans from extinction and to live in secured populations for years to come. Leif has played a key role in establishing conservation plans for orangutans and their survival for nearly thirty years.
With Leif’s extensive work, he has published several papers on orangutans, is a public speaker, and lectures at universities. He is also an author of three books, one including an amazon best seller: Orangutans; My cousins, My friends.
Orangutans are amazing creatures who share 97% of human DNA. They are very self-aware and are as intelligent as a 6-year-old child.
Orangutans are found on the island of Borneo which is politically divided by Indonesia and Malaysia and the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Both species are critically endangered and due to being the slowest reproducing creatures in the world, their population is even more at risk.
80% of orangutans live in unprotected forests which puts them at risk to losing their precious habitats to palm oil plantations, logging, mining, and agriculture. Their habitats are rapidly being lost as every hour 300 football fields of rainforests are removed to make palm oil plantations.
We are losing approximately 5,000 orangutans per year. Therefore, The Orangutan Project’s strategy is to save up to eight ecosystems that orangutans live in, in order to bring the orangutans through our current extinction crisis.
In this podcast, we will learn what re-wilding means and why it is important to wildlife, humans, and our planet. We will also learn why the next ten years are critical to saving our planet and how The Orangutan Project work is not only helping to save orangutans but our planet as well.
You can learn more of The Orangutan Project’s work at:
Website: https://www.theorangutanproject.org
Twitter: https://twitter.com/orangutanTOP
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theorangutanproject/
Website: http://www.wildforchange.com
Twitter: @WildForChange
Facebook: /wildforchange
Instagram: wildforchange
51 episodes
Share
