As I sit here at my desk writing this letter to you, I reflect on where I was almost exactly fifty years ago this month. It was November 1971 when I arrived at the place I named Camp Leakey. After three years of waiting, I had finally arrived in Borneo, the large forested tropical island […]

Today is International Orangutan Day! In honor of this day, we share a video episode of the podcast Eco Impacters featuring OFI’s President Dr. Biruté Mary Galdikas and Blane Edwards of Orangutan Alliance Australia in a dynamic conversation. Dr. Biruté shares her experience and wisdom gleaned from fifty years of fieldwork in Borneo.  Please enjoy and share […]

In the 1970s the situation facing orangutans and the existence of rainforest seemed somewhat bleak. Little did I know! The situation in the 70s was actually the calm before the storm. Suddenly, sometime in the late 1980s, everything seemed to go haywire. The destruction of the forest around the National Park accelerated. Gold was discovered […]

In the mid 1970s, two retired Indonesian Army Generals, one of whom had been the very popular Chief of Police for all of Indonesia, gave me their four orangutans. One of the retired Generals, who spoke English quite well because he had been a prisoner in Europe during the Second World War after being captured […]