A Small Act to Save Orangutans

A few days ago, I saw news about forest fires in Kalimantan again. This happens almost every year. The forest burns, smoke covers the cities, the air becomes bad, other countries complain, and the government response is something I do not want to talk about here.

Fires That Keep Happening Again

In West Kalimantan alone, up to September 1, 2026, the burned land has reached about 38,310 hectares¹. Fires are still burning in many places, mostly in Kubu Raya and Ketapang.

What I cannot understand is why this problem never really ends. We know the dry season will come. We know that dried peat land can catch fire very easily. We know which places burn every year. We have satellite images, data, workers, rules, and years of experience with this same problem. A friend from my master's program even wrote a paper about palm oil satellite images. But every time a fire starts, we go back to the same old way: putting out the fire after it is already big.

I am not saying the government does nothing. They do many things. The President even went to Pontianak to see the situation, or maybe to see his own field, I am not sure, then held a meeting about the fires on Monday, August 24, 2026, in Palembang and Pekanbaru. That meeting gave us some "great" new ideas: new instructions, water wells², sweet potato bombing³, trail motorbikes⁴, and job promotions⁵ as a reward.

To me, some of these choices feel strange. Instead of buying fire-fighting planes, they sent parachute jumpers to hard-to-reach places, held a send-off ceremony for firefighters⁶, and now there is a plan to use influencers to spread messages about not burning land⁷.

An Orangutan in a Palm Oil Field

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An orangutan was found very weak in a palm oil field in Ketapang. People named her Sampurna. They think the fire smoke hurt her lungs and made it hard for her to breathe, so a rescue team had to help her. In the past few weeks, other orangutans have also been rescued after leaving their forest homes because of the fires.

When I read this news, I asked myself: why did an orangutan end up in a palm oil field?

Of course, the answer is not that simple. An orangutan can leave its home for many reasons, like looking for food when its usual food is gone, or when its habitat is disturbed. I also do not want to say that every palm oil field an orangutan enters was made from illegal forest clearing. A palm oil plantation cannot get a permit without official paperwork, right?

Still, seeing a weak orangutan lying in a palm oil field, right after a fire near its home, feels very sad and unfair.

What makes me even more upset is seeing that some burned land is later turned into new plantations⁸. I do not know the full history of every piece of land in the news, but to me, this pattern happens too often to just be a coincidence.

Officials have said this is not true, and that the burned land was never protected forest. But I still think this is not the right time to plant palm oil on land that just burned down. It will only make people think badly about it, and I think that reaction is fair.

What if I am right?

A fire that should be a disaster can become a fast, easy way to change what a piece of land is used for. I think that is the strange part that keeps me thinking about this news. It is not only about the fire that burns the forest, but about what happens after the fire goes out. When the trees are gone, the animals are gone, and the land is burned, who makes sure it is really restored? And if what grows back is not forest, but a plantation, then what did we actually save?

Adopting Monyo

In the end, I know I cannot put out these fires. I cannot make government policy. I cannot go to Kalimantan and rescue the orangutans affected by this. What I can do is something much smaller.

My girlfriend has always led the way in donating. Together we found BOS Foundation (Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation), an organization that works in orangutan conservation.

About BOS Foundation

BOS Foundation started in 1991 and runs one of the largest ape conservation programs in the world, on the island of Kalimantan⁹. They have four main areas of work:

• Releasing orangutans back into the wild (more than 561 orangutans released so far)
• Protecting the ecosystem and preventing forest fires
• Caring for and rehabilitating orangutans at rescue centers such as Nyaru Menteng and Samboja Lestari
• Supporting communities and education near orangutan habitats

I learned that BOS Foundation has a symbolic adoption program for orangutans going through "jungle school," a kind of training before they are ready to return to the wild. Adopting does not mean bringing an orangutan home. It means giving support that helps with rescue, care, rehabilitation, and preparing the orangutan for life in the wild again. In return, the adopter gets regular updates about their orangutan's progress.

I chose Monyo.

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Monyo was rescued when she was very young, and now she is going through rehabilitation at Nyaru Menteng. She is still learning the skills she needs to live on her own in the wild¹⁰. Choosing Monyo also brought back a core memory I have kept for a long time.

A Memory at Bali Zoo

When I was in elementary school, I once went on a school trip with my father's junior high school group to Bali Zoo. I still remember how happy I was, because it was my first time at a zoo, and I could see animals I had never seen before, up close. At Bali Zoo, there was an orangutan sitting calmly while people watched from behind a barrier.

We were told not to give the orangutan any food. The reason was actually funny: if you give it food, it might just throw it back at you.

As a kid, I only thought one thing: this orangutan is funny. I never thought further than that, about where it came from, what its habitat was like, or what was happening to its home, like what is happening now. I was just a small child, happy to watch an orangutan sit calmly.

Years later, I thought about orangutans again, because of news about a forest fire. This time, I am a bit older, and I am starting to understand that behind what we see at the zoo, there is a much bigger story.

Before, I only saw an orangutan as something fun to look at in a zoo. Now, I see it as something we need to fight for, so it can keep living where it truly belongs.

Hope

I know that what I am doing is very small. One donation will not stop the forest fires. One adoption will not bring back the thousands of hectares of forest already lost. Even this post may only be read by a few people.

But maybe not everything has to start big.

I hope the government can act in a way that makes more sense. Policies should be truly efficient and effective, not just built on raw ideas from other people without deeper thought. Maybe this is the real meaning of "OK GAS": ask for 50 trail motorbikes, get "OK GAS, give them 100."

Because to us, a forest may look like just a group of trees. To some people (palm oil bosses), a forest is land for planting. To the animals, a forest is home.

And if one day Monyo truly returns to the wild, that might become the best part of this story. Not because I once adopted her, but because in the end, I no longer need to.