The Orangutan Conservancy has long been a supporter of the Orangutan Tropical Peatland Project in Borneo and of the important work that they are doing there to protect orangutans and the entire Sabangau Forest ecosystem. Forest regeneration, dam building to protect damaged peatland and ongoing orangutan studies are part of the year-round efforts being accomplished by the amazing team at OuTrop.
As such, we were pleased to help facilitate a major donation made by the members of the Orangutan Species Survival Plan SSP Husbandry Workshop that was recently held at the Sedgwich County Zoo in Witchita Kansas. At the workshop, the SSP members rallied together to support OuTrop in their heroic firefighting efforts that have become a major focus these past several weeks.
Thousands of fires have devastated Borneo this year, and on-the-ground fire fighting teams like those at OuTrop are the only defense against total destruction of the land. The substantial donation made by the SSP members will no doubt go a long way to helping OuTrop’s CIMTROP firefighters as they continue to battle the flames.
OC Board members Juanita Kempe and Barb Shaw attended the SSP event and were asked by SSP’s Board member Lori Perkins if we would help to make sure that OuTrop received the generous donation collected from the workshop’s attendees. Of course we were glad to help!
Noted OC’s Barb Shaw, “The most effective plea for firefighting monies came from Lone Droscher-Nielsen, who was a most impressive keynote speaker. The audience was clearly moved by her accounts of the amazing orangutans with whom she has shared her life, and you could feel their excitement about being able to help.”
