Samboja Lestari Rescue Centre in Borneo

Without their natural habitat, animals like orangutans and sun bears face extinction. Thankfully, there is some hope on the horizon. Wildlife rehabilitation sanctuaries, such as Samboja Lestari, offer an escape for abandoned, displaced and orphaned animals. However, the process from rescue to recovery to release takes years to complete and needs a large team of permanent local staff and the help of volunteers before an animal's journey to rehabilitation can even start to happen.

Samboja Lestari occupies a huge 20km² site in East Kalimantan situated some 40km from the port city of Balikpapan. It was founded in 1991 by the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF) on land that had been devastated by logging, drought and wildfires. The intention of the park was threefold: to provide a safe place for rescued orangutans and sun bears; to help to restore the natural rainforest; and to offer an alternative source of sustainable employment to local people.

By providing a step-by-step programme from rescue to release, the permanent team of 200 local staff are responsible for keeping the area’s orangutan population from extinction and volunteers play a vital role in supporting permanent staff at the centre. Practically everyone living in the surrounding region will have a family member employed at Samboja. This community connection, combined with outreach activities in local schools, goes some way to ensuring the roots of change are in place for future generations to continue the good work.

Wildfires

The draining of peatlands and practice of ripping out old-growth tree roots also leads to soil erosion and dry tinderbox forests. Out of control wildfires are inevitable and the smoke alone is responsible for respiratory illnesses amongst the human population as well as sending megatons of carbon dioxide into the earth’s atmosphere.

Imagine how an orangutan tries to cope in this sort of scenario, fleeing burning forests, toxic smoke, with nowhere to turn to other than fiercely protected palm oil plantations. It’s no surprise that this forest dweller has been placed on WWF’s endangered species list.

Kate Helliwell lives and works at Samboja Lestari Rescue Centre in East Kalimantan:
“One of the most current issues that Borneo’s wildlife faces are the yearly forest fires that swallow up huge areas of habitat during the dry seasons. These fires are set by humans in an attempt to destroy small or large plots of land for farming. However, more often than not, they get out of hand due to the unique peat soils and the lack of moisture around during dry season. These fires end up spreading across vast areas of rainforest and in those areas the damage is devastating.”

How do volunteers help?

When orangutans are first admitted to the centre they will go into quarantine for two months before being allowed to join a group at a similar stage of development. Usually orphaned babies will go into a nursery house where they’ll receive round-the-clock care. There are also multiple man-made islands along the Black River that offer a safe and quarantined environment for animals suffering from diseases or disabilities that prevent them from ever being able to be rereleased.

Educational playgrounds and ‘forest schools’ allow babies to make the next step from the nursery. This is where they’ll learn how to make nests, forage for food and find out the skills they need to survive on their own in the wild before returning to their cages at night.

Providing enrichment for orangutans is a key element of a volunteer’s role. Hessian sacks sewed up and stuffed full of food provide a stimulating puzzle as well as a way to help animals learn how to forage. Collecting natural resources that would usually be used for nest building, such as bendy green branches for weaving and thicker branches for structure and leaves for comfort, also encourages natural behaviours to kick in. Small construction projects such as creating platforms so orangutans can live on self-contained islands instead of cages are also vital.

Basically, without a volunteer workforce the permanent staff wouldn’t be able to do their jobs. The rehabilitation and release rate of orangutans would grind to a halt. Additional animals wouldn’t be able to be admitted to the centre as there would literally be no space. Without volunteers the variety of long term projects, including reforestation, couldn’t continue.

Kate Helliwell is volunteer co-ordinator at Samboja Lestari for our wildlife volunteer specialists The Great Projects: “In Samboja, volunteers become part of a team where we work alongside local staff to help improve facilities. One major part of what volunteers do is work on construction projects. These are all funded by the money volunteers pay for their experience as well as charity funds raised by BOSF. For instance, right now we have just finished our biggest construction project to date. Over the previous three months we built a gabion wall outside of one of the orangutan islands. The reason for this was that this area was suffering badly from erosion, meaning orangutans could not be placed on the island. The island is now usable and two orangutans will shortly be moved there to live out the rest of their lives.”