Home About the Foundation Rainforests         more information About Orangutans         Photo of a logging concession courtesy of the Orangutan Foundation   Photo of a Palm Oil plantation courtesy of the Orangutan Foundation

The Disappearing Rainforests   About the Orangutan—a few facts Photo courtesy of The Orangutan Foundation   Orangutans are the largest arboreal mammal in the world. They are wholly dependent on the rainforests for their survival (their name in English means Man of the Forest).     They sleep in nests in the trees, which they make every day, feed mainly on fruit and rarely come down to the forest floor. They are great seed dispersers as they mainly eat ripe fruit whose seeds are not absorbed by them and instead go straight through, being excreted into their own compost pile. By swinging through the trees they part the canopies allowing light through to the forest floor which helps the forest regenerate.     60% of the their day is spent foraging for food with the other 40% spent sleeping     The preferred habitat of the Orangutan is low lying peat swamp forest, they are rarely found in habitats above an altitude of 800m. Found in both Sumatra and Borneo their ranges are limited.Under the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List, the Sumatran Orangutan is classified as critically endangered and the Bornean as endangered.     Unlike most apes and monkeys they lead a mainly solitary life with only the females spending approximately 25% of their time with other Orangutans, the males spend approximately 9% with other orangutans.     They are the slowest breeding of all primates and the gap between births is the longest for any land mammal at 8 years. A female will normally have her first offspring at 12-15 years in the wild and the offspring normally stay with their mothers up until 7/8 years of age. Their life expectancy is 45 years in the wild.   Destruction of a habitat Now for the scary bit! It is estimated that the rainforests are disappearing at the rate of one to one and half acres every second. Rainforests used to cover approximately 14% of the earths surface that has been reduced to 6% with experts predicting their disappearance within the next 40 years.   They are being reduced from this:   A Healthy Rainforest Photo courtesy of Konrad Wothe©   To this: A Habitat Destroyed. Photos courtesy of the Orangutan Foundation . All of this is being done for the price of the trees which are cut down for the wood. The land is cleared and palm oil plantations are put in their place. Trees that orangutans and other rainforest species cannot survive in.   Approximately 137 plant, animal and insect species are lost every day due to rainforest destruction, this equates to 50,000 species a year.   This is why Inside2Outside wanted to get involved with the orangutan Foundation. By providing funds for their land and forest rehabilitation projects we can help them sustain some of the forests they have protected. By using some of our donations to help build up the “buffer zones” around the orangutan reserves it will help create jobs and a livelihood for the local communities so that they will not need to go into the reserves for their food and shelter. This will in turn help educate the local communities in to living with the orangutans and rainforests so that their children can grow up to respect them and not destroy them.   We are working towards being a carbon neutral company. By donating to the foundation we are helping to reduce our ecofootprint and in turn help the planet. Please feel free to contact us or the Orangutan foundation if you would like any more information.         To contact us: Orangutan Foundation Web: www.orangutan.org.uk Phone:0207 7242912 Fax: 0207 7062613 Email: kristina@orangutan.org.uk Inside2outside Ltd Phone: 01480 498297 Fax: 01480 498303 Email: vanessa.reed@pocca.co.uk .