In our latest project, the “Orangutan Haven” on Sumatra, we sensitize Indonesian and foreign visitors to the threats to the rainforest and its inhabitants. We impart knowledge about biodiversity, climate change and sustainable development in a variety of ways. Let us introduce our holistic environmental education project!
Trips by Swiss PanEco staff to our programmes in Indonesia are very important to ensure a good cooperation with our local partners and staff. My name is Melina Erdin and I have been working for PanEco for one year. In June I visited our programmes in Indonesia for the first time. I would like to take you with me on my journey and give you an insight into my travel diary.
Orangutans are fascinating animals. And nature photographer Maxime Aliaga succumbed to
this fascination many years ago. He has compiled his most beautiful photos in an exhibition
that was shown in the Alte Kaserne in Winterthur in June 2023.
It is anything but easy to release young orangutans who have spent most of their lives in the care of humans, into the wild. Each year we release an average of 15 animals in our two reintroduction centers. Read about what could go wrong and how we try to prevent this from happening.
They are small, inconspicuous, and easy to operate and
and have proved invaluable for scientific work in remote areas such as the Sumatran rainforest. Wildlife cameras can provide us with important data on the biodiversity of the orangutan hbitat. See below who blundered into our cleverly placed camera traps last year!
How do we measure the impact of our work in Indonesia? How do we evaluate the implementation of our projects and programmes? Together with our sister organisation YEL and other long-term partners, we run a total of seven programmes in Indonesia. Last month, one of our grant projects was reviewed by the British funding organisation UK Aid as part of a three-year programme.
In November 2022, Brigitte Spillmann joined our team as coordinator for the seven PanEco programmes in Indonesia. The biologist has spent years studying the behaviour of orangutans in the rainforests of Sumatra and Borneo, experiencing the primates and their habitat with full intensity.
Hope, a female orangutan, was brought to the SOCP rescue and rehabilitation station with severe injuries. She was able to recover from her physical injuries, but psychologically she is still very vulnerable. In this article we will describe to you the special challenges required to care for traumatised animals.
Have you ever wondered what it is like in our SOCP quarantine and rehabilitation centre for orangutans in Sumatra? We have produced a video that takes you on a tour through the centre. You will get an overview of the facility and learn about the daily work of the SOCP team on site. Take the tour with us!
On Sumatra, near the large city of Medan, a home for Orangutans has been under construction since 2016. It is intended as a haven for those animals which can no longer be released into the wild, and which can spend their old age in dignity on several islands, close to nature. The Orangutan Haven is a unique environmental education centre that will be opened to the public as soon as possible. Visitors will also be able to experience many examples of sustainable construction techniques.
PanEco Foundation
Chileweg 5
CH-8415 Berg am Irchel
+41 (0)52 354 32 32
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