Orangutan Caring Week is a worldwide event hosted by World Orangutan Events. The week long event is focused on bringing not only attention to the plight of orangutans but subsequent action on the part of the public.
Just being aware of the orangutans’ imminent extinction is not enough to protect them. We must use our knowledge to fight for their existence in the wild.
All species of orangutans are critically endangered and are dangerously close to becoming extinct in the wild. As they are only found in some regions of Southeast Asia, this loss would be detrimental to their respective ecosystems.
Orangutan Caring Week is an annual event which focuses on a different theme every year. In 2020, the theme is “Protecting Biodiversity for a Healthy Planet.” This is a particularly important point because although many know of the orangutans critically endangered status and efforts to combat that, very few realize the importance of biodiversity in Southeast Asia habitats.
Conservation is not a single race for a single species, even though it might seem that way from the amount of conservation organizations with one species’ name in the title. Conservation is instead a collective action that must be focused on habitats and ecosystems as they are extremely complex and interdependent.
This is just one reason that here at the Orangutan Conservancy, we are also dedicated to the protection and conservation of orangutans’ rain forest homes. This not only includes the literal rain forest but all of the different species that inhabit these regions. Each organism plays an important role in their respective habitat, and once extinction befalls one animal the ecosystem reacts.
Keeping in line with the theme of Orangutan Caring Week 2020, we are setting new goals for 2021 as we refocus on orangutan habitats and their health in the race to save orangutans from extinction.
