Michelle Desilets & the Orangutan Land Trust
20 Nov 2009 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: Orangutans Borneo
Another inspiring woman involved with the battle to save the orangutan (who probably doesn’t get the credit she deserves) is Michelle Desilets and she also spared us her valuable time at Woburn.
Michelle’s interest for the great apes began at school when she watched films featuring Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Birute Galdikas and she remained fascinated by the apes’ behaviour. She learnt about them, their habitat and what challenge they faced.
Her dream to see apes in the wild became reality when she visited East and Central Africa, coming face to face with wild gorillas. In 1994 she visited Borneo when she volunteered at the Tanjun Puting National Park. Michelle returned later to look after the orangutan orphans that came in to the project.
In 1997, Michelle and her best friend Lone Droscher Nielson began to look into the possibility of building a centre in Central Kalimantan to give refuge and hope to the ever increasing numbers of orphaned orangutans. They sought advice from Dr Willie Smits and secured financial backing. With this support the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Reintroduction Project began.
Michelle didn’t get complacent or stop working. She h
as continued to be active and a leader of international campaigns to help the orangutan, including campaigns about repatriating smuggled orangutans, illegal trade and supporting sustainable palm oil.
She has now been working in orangutan conservation for more than 15 years and she was the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation UK. Now she has set up the Orangutan Land Trust, an organisation that is making it possible to secure and protect both future release sites for orangutans and their existing habitat. These are some of the other activities carried out by OLT:
- Funds forest rangers / anti-logging operations
- Supports alternative livelihoods and sustainable uses of foorest in exchange for their protection in cooperation with local communities
- Supports fire-fighting efforts in orangutan habitat
- Supports reforestation and regeneration activities
- Works with palm oil companies to set aside more than the required conservation areas
- Creates wildlife corridors
- Develops education, outreach and empowerment to communities living in orangutan habitat areas
- Lobbies local and national authorities to protect orangutan habitat.
Here’s some of the ways how the Orangutan Land Trust is funded:
- Carbon funding/offset agreements
- Fees paid into Orangutan Friendly Palm Oil logo
- Fundraising events
- Grants from government & grant-giving agencies
- Sponsorship from corporations and other groups, including zoos
- And obviously public donations
If you would like to be in at the start of what looks to be another amazing project set up by Michelle, then visit the website at www.forests4orangutans.org to see what you can do.
