Borneo and Sumatra

WWF has embarked on a 60-year initiative to safeguard one of the last substantial tracts of rain forest on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, called Thirty Hills. In August 2015, WWF-Indonesia acquired licenses to manage 100,000 acres of forests bordering Bukit Tigapuluh National Park, which had previously been designated for logging.

In partnership with the Frankfurt Zoological Society and The Orangutan Project, the team is working through a jointly established company, PT Alam Bukit Tigapuluh, to restore deforested areas within the concession, set aside portions for sustainable economic activities with local and Indigenous communities, and protect the majority of the forest to support both environmental conservation and human well-being.

This is an ambitious approach to a problem driven by global demand for commodities such as palm oil, rubber, and timber. If successful, this collaborative effort has the potential to safeguard some of the world's most biologically significant and carbon-rich forests, along with the wildlife and Indigenous communities that call them home.

The Ketapang District of Borneo’s Arabela-Schwaner Landscape is a critical landscape and home to one of the largest concentrations of endangered Bornean orangutans and Bornean white-bearded gibbons. However, Arabela-Schwaner faces threats from habitat loss, wildlife poaching, and human-wildlife conflict.

The key to protecting these apes lies in effectively safeguarding their habitats against these threats. WWF is working alongside business interests to scale-up sustainable forest production and incorporate best management practices for wildlife protection into their conservation management plans. Habitat reforestation efforts are underway to provide apes and other species with critical fruit trees needed to thrive as well as help connect fragmented habitats.

In order to monitor and protect ape populations and other key wildlife, WWF is supporting local community anti-poaching patrols or “PAMWIL.” These local patrollers conduct field assessments to help estimate orangutan populations and identify hotspots of illegal activities, including logging or poaching. WWF has provided PAMWIL with training to more efficiently and effectively collect data during field assessments and patrols using the Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART).

Supporting local communities is essential to the success of conservation efforts and WWF is also working with local communities to develop sustainable business models for agricultural opportunities, like coffee agroforestry, rubber extraction, and honey production. These diversified opportunities provide additional economic opportunities for local communities so that they are less reliant on extracting natural resources.

WWF’s Elly Allies initiative strives to reverse the downward trajectory of elephant populations in Southeast Asia and China and promote a future in which key populations of elephants are thriving, habitat loss and fragmentation are reduced, and people and elephants live side by side in a sustainable way. In partnership with governments, private companies, and communities living in close proximity to wild elephant populations, this initiative seeks to build significant momentum for elephant conservation in this region. Indonesia and Malaysia are two of eight Asian elephant range countries under this initiative.

WWF engages in Bornean and Sumatran elephant conservation through research, forest management guidance, and ongoing monitoring. One key aspect of WWF’s work is advocating for sustainable logging practices, which allow elephants to thrive in selectively harvested forests.

In Sabah, Malaysia, 60% of elephant habitat has been converted other land uses, primarily agriculture, over the last 40 years. Elephants move through or live in plantations due to the resulting habitat loss and fragmentation. As they move from one fragmented forest into another, they can damage the crops within plantations and experience conflict with plantation workers.

WWF collaborates with plantation operators to establish wildlife corridors and build strategic fencing to connect forest patches through plantations. This facilitates elephant and other wildlife movement between natural forest areas while minimizing crop damage—and therefore financial loss—to plantations. These efforts help reduce human-elephant conflict, which provides benefits to both plantation operations and endangered species like Bornean elephants.

Over half of Indonesia’s timber is thought to be illegally harvested. WWF educates consumers, assists buyers, producers and traders, and works with partners to enable responsible forestry through more robust sourcing policies, transparency in supply chains and monitoring hotspots for illegal logging, and investing in local communities.

Palm oil originating in Borneo and Sumatra accounts for more than half of all palm oil produced in the world. WWF works with companies and producers to adopt responsible practices that safeguard against deforestation and restore previously deforested or degraded areas essential for wildlife movements and benefits to people.

WWF also supports small-scale farmers to participate in more sustainable markets through building capacity for more efficient, nature-friendly production practices. In the PT Alam Bukit Tigapuluh ecosystem restoration concession in Thirty Hills, WWF is working with rubber farmers to use a traceability tool that maps rubber farms and can provide assurance to downstream buyers that their rubber is deforestation-, conversion- and exploitation-free, an increasingly common requirement to access global markets.

Deforestation in Indonesia is often driven by indiscriminate land-grabbing, corruption, and lack of law enforcement. WWF co-founded Eyes on the Forest—an alliance with local civil society groups—to monitor the status of the remaining natural forests in central Sumatra and publish reports worldwide to empower those working to protect critical habitat.