Management of viable orangutan populations in oil palm landscapes

For the past decade, we’ve worked on managing orangutans in oil palm landscapes through two flagship projects: the Lower Kinabatangan (Sabah) and the Essential Ecosystem Area (Ketapang, Kalimantan). Both are now moving toward long-term financing to sustain the most detailed studies and adaptive management of orangutans in fragmented forests. Insights from these efforts—combining cutting-edge tools like thermal drones and AI with citizen science monitoring—are shaping our recommendations to the IFC on Performance Standard 6. This approach has proven powerful for understanding and supporting orangutan survival in oil palm-dominated landscapes.