Based in Jakarta, Medan (North Sumatra), and Balikpapan (Kalimantan), OCSP’s goals are to implement policy reform, law enforcement, public outreach, and site-based conservation measures that will reduce the widespread habitat destruction that threatens the remaining populations of wild orangutans at key sites in Borneo and Sumatra. The main drivers of orangutan habitat loss and populations decline include forest conservation and logging, which are the consequences of poor land use decisions that followed in the push toward decentralization in Indonesia.

If viable wild populations of orangutans in Indonesia are to survive increasing threats to their natural habitats, change must occur at three levels. Nationally, policies must support habitat protection and establish appropriate incentives for conservation. Regionally, decentralized authorities and conservation programs must have the knowledge and wherewithal to implement these policies in a manner that meets economic development and conservation goals. Locally, government, businesses, and communities must reach compromises that avoid the type of conflict that threatens to derail many of the country’s well-conceived conservation initiatives.

DAI brings to OCSP many years of experience working in Indonesia and in conservation and natural resource management. By September 2009, OCSP will have established sustainable orangutan conservation programs in at least four priority locations covering about 2 million hectares (ha) of prime habitat where 80 percent of the critically endangered Sumatran species and at least 9,000 members of the two Bornean subspecies will be protected. Threat levels will be reduced through implementation of site-specific conservation plans supported by improved law enforcement, outreach, and sustainable financing schemes.

The OCSP team expects to broker commitments from public and private donors and government to provide at least $4 million annually for orangutan conservation in the region by 2009. More importantly, OCSP will build Indonesian and international momentum for orangutan conservation and a constituency that will sustain this support well into the future.