Reforestation Experience

Dina Bredahl sent this special experience for us to share with you.

Each of us has been very affected by things we have seen and experienced on this trip. One thing that really hit home for some of us was having the opportunity to plant a tree as part of the reforestation project. The gravity of habitat loss issues facing orangutans can seem overwhelming at times. The chance to plant a tree and have a positive impact was extremely special. We each named our tree. One of the trees was named “MaryAnn” to honor a former staff member of Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, Mary Ann O’Connell, whose passion for reforestation of orangutan habitat and research skills have made their mark with orangutan conservation at CMZ.



We saw reforestation sites that were in different stages of maturity, and we learned so much about the investment each tree requires. It is a relief to know that the KOCP reforestation team will monitor, care for and protect each tree we planted during the next several years. We saw trees that were planted two years ago and some were over twenty feet tall! Their protective electric fence (to keep elephants at bay when the seedlings were small) is gone now and the team will continue to remove strangling vines over the next couple of years.


Seedling nursery for reforestation.


Mary Ann O'Connell

Why the Team Came to Sukau

Dr. Isabelle Lackman, a world renowned French primatologist and Director of Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Project (KOCP), visited Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and other zoos in the United States last October. She presented to CMZ staff about her work in Sabah, Malaysia. We were very interested in the projects and so impressed that Isabelle does not have a doom and gloom attitude about orangutan conservation. We asked her what we could do in the U.S. to help wild orangutans, and one of the things she said was that we should really come visit Sukau. Amazingly we were able to make this happen thanks to CMZ’s Q4C (Quarters for Conservation) program!

Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Project (KOCP):
At the headquarters, Isabelle presented to our whole group about the many ways KOCP has improved Sukau and the surrounding forest. Isabelle and Marc Ancrenaz started working in Sukau in 1998. Here are just a few highlights of their work:

• Educating and influencing local people about the value of the rainforest, and the Kinabatangan River biodiversity. When Isabelle and Marc first arrived in Sukau the people were almost at war against animals, the rainforest, etc. Now they truly do seem to value it.

• Helping the local people find ways to make a living without harming the rainforest or rivers.

• Giving guidance, as needed, as the local people established Red Ape Encounters, an ecotourism company.

• Setting up a research station to study orangutans and their behavior. Due to their research, we now know that orangutans can thrive in secondary (recovered/replanted) forests.

• Helping local people find ways to live in harmony with the local Borneo elephant herds. They have established an elephant conservation unit that monitors elephant herd movement, helps put up electric fences as needed and prevents conflicts between people and elephants.

•Buying up land and building corridors and firehose bridges with organizations such as BCT, Bornean Conservation Trust.

•Creating a reforestation team – they hired a team of four local women to plant and care for seedlings in the reforestation areas. These areas need to be monitored, protected (from elephants) and maintained for several years after planting.

•Rainforest seedling nurseries – training many families in the community how to sustainably harvest and grow some key rainforest tree species; the forestry department pays for the seedlings, about fifty cents per tree, and will order thousands at a time as the need arises. Twelve families have set up nurseries and are supported by this sustainable income.

We were amazed at the effectiveness of these projects in changing the attitudes of the local people.

Note: KOCP is funded by Hutan, an NGO based in France. Funds come largely from donors, including some zoos in the U.S.


Our group with Dr. Isabelle and the Reforestation Team