By nature’s standards, 25 years isn’t a long time. In fact, it’s not even long enough for most rainforest trees to reach maturity. But in just a few short years, whole ecosystems can be transformed, for better or worse.
For better. That’s what we’ve spent the last 25 years working towards: a better, more sustainable future for Borneo’s forests. And we’ve achieved a lot in that time…
The seed of BNF was planted back in 1995, when our founders, Dr Helen Morrogh-Bernard and Simon Husson, then zoology undergraduates at the University of Nottingham, undertook the very first orangutan surveys in Sebangau. Sebangau was—and still is—a vast tropical peat-swamp forest in southern Borneo, which had been a major logging site up until the year before. Incredibly, despite extensive forest loss from logging, Helen and Simon discovered that Sebangau was home to the largest orangutan population in lowland Borneo, and possibly the world!
OuTrop (the Orangutan Tropical Peatlands Project), as BNF was formerly known, was established at the turn of the millennia to raise awareness of this globally important rainforest habitat and encourage its sustainable management and protection. 25 years later, we have grown into one of the leading environmental NGOs in Indonesian Borneo, helping to implement local, regional and national conservation action plans.
For a quarter of a century now, we’ve been busy learning, protecting, restoring and inspiring. From primate behaviour studies to emergency firefighting, we’ve achieved a lot since 2000. For that reason, we’ve decided to publish a series of blogs, each looking back on one of our core work areas.
So, without further ado, let’s take a moment to reflect on 25 years of hard-hitting conservation action. First up, 25 years of learning and scientific exploration!
Written by Olivia Pilmore-Bedford, Communications Officer, BNF International
Borneo Nature Foundation is a non-profit conservation organisation. We work to protect some of the most important areas of tropical rainforest and to safeguard the wildlife, environment and indigenous culture on Borneo.
UK REGISTERED CHARITY NUMBER: 1194359