Local Communities Protecting Millions Of Acres Of Orangutan Habitat Beyond Nat. Park Boundaries

Local Communities Protecting Millions Of Acres Of Orangutan Habitat Beyond Nat. Park Boundaries

Local Communities Protecting Millions Of Acres Of Orangutan Habitat Beyond Nat. Park Boundaries Orangutans by Getty Images for Unsplash+ On the island of Borneo, forest-dwelling communities have become key to ensuring that orangutans have enough intact forest to survive and thrive down the centuries. Documented by the Nature Conservancy, which is assisting in establishing and equipping these forest communities for conservation, these communities maintain millions of acres of forests for sustainable economic use and conservation. This includes logging, but research has shown that when legitimate, transparent logging operations cease, their former land concessions become akin to a no man’s land, and are taken over by illegal logging circuits, poaching, and agriculture. Instead, by logging small numbers of mature trees one small area at a time over a 30-year time horizon, the forest doesn’t shrink, and the communities can use profits from the hardwoods to sustain their families, and ensure th…