The threats to the survival of the orang-utan are numerous and difficult to remedy. Orang-utans are also slow to reproduce, making their population slow to recover and putting their species at risk of extinction.
Each GOP site has the shared vision of increasing the size and health of Bornean orang-utan populations. The GOP also works to improve the lives of the local community including children.
While WOX believes it is best to conserve any species in its natural habitat, we also see an important conservation role played by zoos. Breeding programmes aim to increase numbers of orang-utans and preserve genetic diversity, with a view to one day rehabilitating and releasing individuals back to the wild.
Working in collaboration with zoo staff and volunteers we explore the use of enrichment in developing and maintaining a full behavioural repertoire in captive orang-utans in anticipation of eventual release to the wild.
Our planet’s ecological health is intricately connected to human wellbeing.
More than 1.35 billion people, many of whom are living in indigenous communities, inhabit some of the biologically richest and most threatened areas of Earth.
WOX believes that our projects will be most successful when we engage with local communities making the most of their knowledge and expertise and recognising them as one of the key stakeholders in any conservation plan.
In all sites WOX works towards addressing people’s needs by helping them to understand and explore their relationship with the natural environment, whilst encouraging responsible consumption and land use and facilitating sustainable alternatives that provide economic benefit to local communities.
We also aim to instil in the younger generations a resurgent appreciation of their environment and a desire to cherish and protect it.
Ape Centres of Zoo Taiping And Zoo Negara
To work with the zoos in Malaysia to increase the education of the public as to the issues that influence the survival of Malaysian endangered species, to work with the zoos to improve on knowledge development, enrichment and interpretation of the animals within their care, and establish successful conservation breeding programs for orang-utans and other endangered Malaysian animals.
Matang Wildlife Centre
To work with the local authority, the local communities, NGOs and other stakeholders to re-establish a successful rehabilitation and release program at Matang Wildlife Centre and to develop it into a global centre of excellence. This will be achieved by focusing on aiding the Centre in terms of husbandry, enrichment, infrastructure, rehabilitation and release, as well as knowledge transfer, enhanced interrelationships between relevant partners and sustainable funding streams.
Kinabatangan River
To work with ecotourism partners, NGOs, local communities and local authorities to successfully establish and maintain the reforestation of green corridors along the entire length of the river Kinabatangan, in order to reconnect orang-utan and pygmy elephant populations, maintain genetically viable populations and ensure the sustainable use of the riverine forests for human development.
Batang Ai National Park
To work with and empower the local tribal communities in and around the Batang Ai National Park area to promote sustainable stewardship of the natural resources, in particular the mixed Dipterocarp forests that support sustainable populations of wild orang-utans, through alternative and environmentally based economic solutions and the application of clean technologies.
| The Great Orangutan Project and Great Marine Project are made up of several programmes:
|
