Bornean orang-utan  (Pongo pygmaeus)

Orang-utans were hunted relentlessly in the majority of their South East Asian range, their large size and slow movements making them easy targets for hunters (9). However, the main threat to orang-utans today is loss of habitat. In the past twenty years, 80 percent of orang-utan habitat has been lost to illegal logging, gold mining and conversion to permanent agriculture, in particular, palm oil plantations. These animals are extremely vulnerable to exploitation, largely as a result of their extremely long inter-birth interval (7).

Forest fires raged through much of Borneo in 1997 and 1998 and it is estimated that around one third of the island's orang-utan population was lost at this time (9). Orang-utans that wander into palm oil plantations and other human-inhabited areas may also be captured for the illegal pet trade, although this is a by-product of shrinking habitat and not a main issue (7).

The Bornean orang-utan is protected by law in both the Malaysian and Indonesian areas of the island, and is listed on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which prohibits international trade (8). Populations also occur within a number of protected parks, although illegal logging even within protected areas remains a key threat to the survival of this species, and has increased with political instability in Indonesia (2). Captive individuals are re-introduced into the wild in three rehabilitation centres in Kalimantan, one in Sabah and one in Sarawak (7). Time is running out for the Asian ape however, and there are fears that at current rates of decline, both the Sumatran and the Bornean orang-utan could be extinct in the wild by 2010 (9). Due to the large home ranges that these apes require it is the protection of habitat that will ensure that these beautiful and enigmatic 'people of the forest' survive into the next century (7).