TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - For Jamartin Sihite, the Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus), serves as the forest's natural planter. Every day, throughout its lifetime, the animal roams the forest, scattering seeds from the fruits it consumes. The Chief Executive Officer of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation described this behavior as fulfilling a divine mandate.
"They carry out their creator's command to become farmers of the forest. The rest is up to God," Jamartin said on Wednesday, April 8, 2026. "Simply put, orangutans never think that their behavior will grow trees, absorb carbon dioxide (CO2), and influence climate mitigation efforts," he added.
Yet no matter how much waste orangutans produce, it will not be enough to regrow forests already stripped bare by humans. Deforestation and forest degradation remain the primary drivers of habitat loss, along with the disappearance of corridors connecting them. This destruction correlates with a steep population decline, which has dived 80 percent from 288,500 in 1973 to 57,350 by 2010.
This threat of extinction places the orangutan in the "critically endangered" category on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. According to the latest IUCN Red List assessment, 9.87 million hectares of core Bornean orangutan habitat disappeared between 1973 and 2010. The IUCN estimates an additional 5.71 million hectares were lost due to forest conversion into plantations between 2010 and 2025.
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