For those who are interested to learn firsthand conservation project of orangutan, visiting Orangutan Care Center & Quarantine (OCCQ)managed by Orangutan Foundation International (OFI) can be the option. The center is located in Pasir Panjang village, reachable from Pangkalan Bun airport within a 20-minute drive and a 30-minute drive from Kumai port.
By visiting OCCQ, you are supporting the orangutan conservation project. Your donation is important to support the work to conserve this critically endangered species and preserve their forest home. Visitor, however, is not permitted to enter the OCCQ without permission. Any visitor who wishing to enter the OCCQ is required to apply entry permission few months before arrival.
The OCCQ is sit within the area of 80 hectares, provides medical facilities for the orangutan. Currently there are 320 orangutan being taken care in the center. All the individuals are orphans, some were rescued from local people as they were illegally kept as a pet. This adorable creature is considered as exotic pets. Here, the orangutan is being rehabilitated and reintroduced to their wild home, learn the survival skills they need when one they are returned to their native habitat.
In the picture : Mrs. Soelvi Anette Almankaas and Mr. Peter Olof Weis with Dr. Birute Mary Galdikas, at OFI Care Center and Quarantine facility.
Dr. Birute Mary Galdikas is a scientist, conservationist, educator, who has studied and worked closely with the orangutans of Indonesian Borneo in their natural habitat, and is today the world’s foremost authority on the orangutan.
Dr. Galdikas has lectured extensively on the orangutans and their tropical rain forest habitat to thousands of people and numerous institutions in Indonesia and throughout the world. Her dedication not only to understand the nature of the orangutan but also to preserve the creature’s rapidly diminishing natural habitat extends to the people, culture, and environment as well.
After more 40 years in Tanjung Puting , now a national park, Galdikas has conducted the longest continuous study by one principal investigator of any wild mammal in the world.