My Return to Gunung Palung

By Caitlin O’Connell, Deputy Director Hello to all our friends and supporters! I am thrilled to be back working with GPOCP again as the new Deputy Director, a position I started in July. I first traveled to Indonesia in 2010 as a first-year PhD student working with our Executive Director, Dr. Cheryl Knott. I spent the summer […]



Yayasan Palung and Village Forest Management Boards (LPHD) Fight Fires

By Robi Kasianus, Village Forest Field Officer From August 2023 to early September 2023, Ketapang Regency and North Kayong Regency experienced a particularly dry period. During the dry season, peatland areas are very vulnerable to fire, and we have seen an increase in the frequency and severity of fires in recent years. These fires, especially in peat […]



Wild Orangutans in the Heart of Borneo with the Leakey Foundation

By Cheryl Knott, Executive Director  As a child growing up in the 1960s, I remember being enraptured by the grandfatherly Louis Leakey describing his discoveries of human fossil ancestors in National Geographic TV specials.  This ignited a lifelong interest in trying to understand where we came from, how we got here and why we are […]



Sharing Love for Orangutans for World Orangutan Day

By Petrus Kanisius, Media Coordinator and Environmental Education Officer Every August 19th is World Orangutan Day (WOD) – a day to support and encourage all of us to care about the fate of this highly endangered primate. This year the theme for World Orangutan Day was “Love for Orangutans.” Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program/Yayasan Palung […]



My Journey to Becoming an Orangutan Field Research Assistant

By Aynuddin, Field Research Assistant My name is Aynuddin, but I am usually called Udin. I come from Dusun Tanjung Gunung in Kayong Utara Regency. This is the story of how I began working at the Cabang Panti Research Station (CPRS). Before I worked at CPRS, I was just an ordinary person who worked different […]



Planting Trees to Commemorate World Environment Day and World Rainforest Day

By Petrus Kanisius, Media Coordinator and Environmental Education Officer This June we commemorated two special days – World Environment Day, celebrated June 5th, and World Rainforest Day, celebrated June 22nd. We commemorated both days simultaneously by planting trees along the road to the tourist destination of Celingcing Mangrove Forest in Suka Baru Village, Benua Kayong […]