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Ten years of orangutan-related wildlife crime investigation in West

Kalimantan, Indonesia

Article in American Journal of Primatology · December 2016

DOI: 10.1002/ajp.22620

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Received: 7 April 2016 | Revised: 31 October 2016 | Accepted: 1 November 2016

DOI 10.1002/ajp.22620

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Ten years of orangutan-related wildlife crime investigation in

West Kalimantan, Indonesia

Cathryn Freund1,2 | Edi Rahman2 | Cheryl Knott1,2,3

1 Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation
Program, Boston, Massachusetts
2 Yayasan Palung, Ketapang, West Kalimantan,
Indonesia
3 Department of Anthropology, Boston
University, Boston, Massachusetts
Correspondence
Cathryn Freund, Gunung Palung Orangutan
Conservation Program, P.O. Box 15680, Boston,
MA 02215, USA.
Email: cathryn.freund@gmail.com
Funding information
Association of Zoos and Aquariums; Arcus
Foundation; Conservation, Food and Health
Foundation; Orangutan Conservancy; Sea
World-Busch Gardens Conservation Fund, Tides
Foundation, and the Woodland Park Zoo
Poaching for the pet trade is considered one of the main threats to orangutan survival, especially
to the Bornean species (Pongo pygmaeus). However, there have been few attempts to quantify
the number of individuals taken from the wild or to evaluate the drivers of the trade. Most
orangutan poaching is thought to be opportunistic in nature, occurring in conjunction with
deforestation for large-scale agriculture. Using data from our long-term wildlife crime field
investigation program collected from 2004 to 2014, we evaluated the prevalence of orangutan
poaching and its spatial distribution in and around Gunung Palung National Park, in the
regencies (districts) of Ketapang and Kayong Utara, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Over the
project period, investigators uncovered 145 cases of orangutans being illegally held captive for
the pet trade. There was a significant correlation between the extent of oil palm and the number
of cases reported from each sub-district in the landscape, supporting the widely held hypothesis
that orangutan poaching is opportunistic, and we found no evidence of orangutan trading rings
(i.e., international traders) targeting Gunung Palung National Park. Over the past decade, there
only has been one prosecution of orangutan trading in West Kalimantan, and weak law
enforcement by Indonesian authorities remains the most significant challenge in addressing
wildlife trade. We offer four recommendations to address this, including that Indonesia dedicate
at least $3 million more to addressing orangutan poaching and trade in Kalimantan and that the
country's wildlife protection laws be revised and strengthened, with the new laws socialized to a
wide audience, including government officials and all aspects of civil society. As oil palm begins
to expand into Africa, this study also may help predict how this will affect gorillas, chimpanzees,
and bonobos, encouraging proactive conservation action.

KEYWORDS
Bornean orangutan, law enforcement, pet trade, poaching, West Kalimantan

1 | INTRODUCTION internationally and domestically (i.e., within range countries) (Nijman,

Wildlife crime, which can be defined as any illegal actions or activities
involving wild species (WCS Indonesia, 2015), is the fourth-most
lucrative black market industry in the world, with an estimated worth
of $19 billion (Terrorism's Red Gold, 2013). Most wildlife crime occurs
in the form of poaching, or illegally removing animals from their natural
habitats (Eliason, 2003). Primates are a common target for poachers to
meet the demand for bushmeat (Fa, Ryan, & Bell, 2005; Rose, 1996),
for body parts for medicinal or cultural use (Alves, Souto, & Barboza,
2010), and for the pet trade (Agoramoorthy & Hsu, 2005; Bush, Baker,
& Macdonald, 2014; Kabasawa, 2009). Conservationists estimate that
hundreds of thousands of live primates are traded each year, both
Nekaris, Donati, Bruford, & Fa, 2011). Buyers include the entertain-
ment and tourism industries, illicit zoos, private collectors, and wealthy
individuals, who view owning exotic pets, especially great apes, as a
status symbol (André, Kamate, Mbonzo, Morel, & Hare, 2008; Stiles,
Redmond, Cress, Nellemann, & Formo, 2013; WCS Indonesia, 2015).
The pet trade in great apes is fueled by orphaned animals taken
from the wild. For African great apes, the capture of infants co-occurs
with the bushmeat trade (André et al., 2008; Kabasawa, 2009;
Peterson, Ammann, & Museveni, 2003; Stiles et al., 2013). The adult
animals are killed for their meat, and babies are taken as a “by-product”
of the hunt (Beck, 2003). The hunting and poaching of African great
apes has received significant attention by conservationists over the

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2 of 11 | FREUND
past 15 years, with a variety of strategies used to mitigate hunting
pressure (Schoneveld-de Lange, Meijaard, & Löhr, 2016). However,
although poaching for the pet trade is an oft-cited driver of orangutan
decline (Ancrenaz et al., 2016; Marshall et al., 2006; Rijksen &
Meijaard, 1999), there have been few studies attempting to quantify
the extent of the trade, including poaching and killing rates, or to
understand contributing factors (Meijaard et al., 2011). This is
alarming, especially in light of the fact that available data indicate
that in recent years, more orangutan infants (N = 1019) have been
taken from the wild for the pet trade than chimpanzees (N = 643),
bonobos (N = 48), and gorillas (N = 98) combined (Stiles et al., 2013). It
is clear that orangutan conservation groups and the Indonesian and
Malaysian governments urgently need to acknowledge and address
the impact of poaching on orangutan populations. Hunting for
bushmeat is also a threat to Bornean orangutans (Marshall et al.,
2006; Meijaard et al., 2011), but that is outside the scope of this study
and thus we will not be addressing it here.
The taking of infant orangutans for the pet trade is thought to
occur in conjunction with other conservation threats, mainly
deforestation for large-scale agriculture (Nijman, 2005; Stiles et al.,
2013) and, more rarely, hunting for bushmeat or as a response to
human-orangutan conflict (Campbell-Smith, Simanjorang, Leader-
Williams, & Linkie, 2010; Meijaard et al., 2011). Adult females, who
only give birth to one offspring every 7–9 years (Knott, Thompson, &
Wich, 2009), are almost always killed in the process (Meijaard, Wich,
Ancrenaz, & Marshall, 2012). There are few estimates of exactly how
many orangutans have been lost to the pet trade over the past several
decades, but the off-take rate from hunting alone is thought to be
above the 1% rate deemed sustainable for orangutans (Marshall et al.,
2009), and therefore poaching remains a serious threat to the species.
Based on his 2003–2004 survey of wildlife markets and private
owners across Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo), Nijman (2005),
assessed the known extent of orangutan trade and estimated that
up to 500 infants were lost per year; this number may be higher now
that rainforest habitat is rapidly being cleared for large-scale
agriculture (Carlson et al., 2012), or may be lower due to education
and awareness-raising efforts by conservation NGOs such as the
Wildlife Conservation Society, Profauna, International Animal Rescue,
and GPOCP (Shepherd, 2010; WCS Indonesia, 2015). There are
currently between 1,300 and 1,600 orangutan survivors of poaching
and habitat loss in rescue and rehabilitation centers (Arcus Foundation,
2015). At one such center in West Kalimantan, 43% of rescued animals
came from situations in which they were illegally being kept as pets in
local people's homes (Arcus Foundation, 2015), a common form of the
domestic trade in Indonesia (Nijman, 2005, 2006; Shepherd, 2010).
Finding an effective conservation solution to the great ape trade
requires understanding the spatial distribution of hunting and
poaching (Ghobrial et al., 2010). This can indicate whether animals
are sourced by people poaching opportunistically (i.e., not in a
premeditated manner), the model that most great ape poaching is
thought to follow (Fa et al., 2005), or if the trade is part of an organized
crime ring. Using genetic analysis techniques, Ghobrial et al. (2010)
found that there was no discernible spatial pattern to the origins of
rescued chimpanzees in Cameroon, and thus concluded that poaching
ET AL.
there mainly followed an opportunistic model. The conclusion that
most trade in orangutans is a result of opportunistic take is generally
supported by Meijaard et al. (2011), who found that very few of their
6,983 survey respondents had killed an orangutan specifically to sell
the baby or because they were being paid, indicating that there is not
an organized crime ring driving the orangutan trade in Kalimantan.
However, since 2004 there have been reports of at least 137
orangutans taken from Borneo or Sumatra to disreputable zoos in
Thailand and Cambodia (WCS Indonesia, 2015), and in 2015 at least
three baby orangutans were smuggled to Kuwait (TRAFFIC, 2015),
demonstrating that international orangutan trading operations do
occur.
Using data collected by our long-term wildlife crime investigation
program between 2004 and 2014, we aim to answer three main
questions in this study: (1) What is the geographic distribution of the
orangutan pet trade in our study area, and do these data support the
widely accepted hypothesis that most orangutan poaching is
opportunistic? (2) To what extent are Indonesia's wildlife protection
laws enforced in the Gunung Palung landscape? (3) What are the
specific conservation solutions required in the study area to reduce
orangutan poaching? To our knowledge, this is the first detailed
evaluation of long-term data on orangutan poaching and trade.
2 | M E TH O D S
2.1 | Study area
Since 2004, the Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program
(GPOCP), known in Indonesia as Yayasan Palung, has been running a
field investigation program in and around Gunung Palung National Park,
in the regencies (districts) of Ketapang and Kayong Utara, West
Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo). This landscape, located in the
southernmost portion of West Kalimantan, covers 36,093 km2 and is
divided into 25 sub-districts, 20 of which are in Ketapang, with the
remaining five in Kayong Utara (Figure 1). Approximately, 10% of the
land area has already been converted to oil palm (Badan Pusat Statistik,
2015a,b), with other major industries being bauxite mining and logging.
Gunung Palung National Park (1° S, 109° E), a 108,000-hectare
protected area located mainly in Kayong Utara regency, is home to
approximately 2,500 Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii)
(Johnson, Knott, Pamungkas, Pasaribu, & Marshall, 2005). The park
contains large sections of continuous peat swamp and lowland
Dipterocarp forest habitat and is considered one of the most important
habitats for the remaining Bornean orangutan population (Sugardjito &
Adhikerana, 2010). Because of this, Gunung Palung National Park has
been designated as a United Nations-Great Apes Survival Partnership
priority area (Nellemann, Miles, Katenborn, Virtue, & Ahlenius, 2007).
The orangutan population in Gunung Palung has been studied since 1983
by scientists working out of the Cabang Panti Research Station, a 2,100-
hectare research site in the interior of the Park. This research includes
vertebrate censuses and studies of frugivory (Leighton and Darnaedi,
1996; Marshall et al., 2014), nest surveys (Johnson et al., 2005),
short-term behavioral studies (Mitani et al., 1991; Lameira et al., 2013)
FREUND ET AL.
F I G UR E 1 The investigative landscape of Ketapang and Kayong Utara regencies, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. The two regencies consist of
25 sub-districts
and the current long-term study that was begun by Knott in 1992 [1998,
2008, 2010].
2.2 | Field investigation
While in the field, GPOCP investigators spend time working
undercover, often posing as traveling merchants or oil palm workers,
and spending time in coffee shops and small restaurants where
people openly discuss sensitive topics such as the local wildlife
trade. GPOCP's investigative team also works in conjunction with a
network of informants spread across the landscape to search out
and report cases of orangutans being illegally held, purchased, or
sold as pets. Informants are local contact people who voluntarily
pass information to GPOCP investigators via phone or text message.
As investigators cannot visit each village in the project area on a
regular basis, informants are recruited by the investigators to watch
and listen in their village and the surrounding area for wildlife
poaching and/or trading, and thus many of them have a long-term
relationship with the GPOCP team. Over the project period, our
investigators have worked with over 100 informants. Informants are
not paid for their assistance, although on occasion they are
reimbursed for their transportation costs if they are asked to do
additional reconnaissance work on a potential case.
The majority of these cases almost certainly involve infant or
young juvenile orangutans who were taken from the wild after their
| 3 of 11
mothers were killed (Marshall et al., 2006; Nijman, 2005), although
that information can rarely be verified in the field, as people found
owning orangutans routinely claim that they “discovered the baby in
the forest after the mother abandoned it” (or some variation of that
story). Given the valuable reproductive investment that an infant
orangutan represents (van Noordwijk & van Schaik, 2005), and the fact
that young orangutans must spend the first approximately 8 years of
their lives learning survival skills from their mothers (Rijksen &
Meijaard, 1999), this is highly unlikely.
Other situations our team may investigate are potential human-
wildlife conflict incidents, cases in which orangutans are stranded in
small habitat patches by deforestation or forest fires, or illegal logging
or land-clearing in orangutan habitat. The team works closely with
Ketapang's Natural Resources Conservation Authority (Balai Konser-
vasi Sumber Daya Alam, hereafter BKSDA) and local police depart-
ments to report such cases. We also coordinate with area NGOs,
mainly International Animal Rescue (IAR), to ensure that these
orangutans are rescued quickly and safely.
Once the investigative team verifies a report from an informant
(usually through photographic evidence to check that the captive
animal in question is an orangutan), an undercover investigator travels
to the location to collect basic information about the case, including
the name and address of the owner/trader, the age and sex of the
orangutan, the exact location where the orangutan is being held, the
sale price of the orangutan (if applicable), and photographic evidence
4 of 11 | FREUND
(Figure 2). This field work is critical for two reasons: first, the team must
collect as much information as possible for BKSDA to increase the
likelihood of a later prosecution, and second, to assess the urgency of
the situation (i.e., if the orangutan is critically injured or ill). After the
necessary information is collected, GPOCP investigators prepare a
formal report and map of the location, which is then submitted to
BKSDA, the Ketapang Police Department and IAR. These parties are
then responsible for rescuing the orangutan in question. GPOCP does
not have the legal authority to confiscate or receive any endangered
wildlife, nor does IAR, without BKSDA present. Before 2010, GPOCP
managed a small orangutan transit center in Ketapang and we
participated directly in rescues, but with the arrival of IAR in late 2009,
we transferred management of all orangutan confiscations/rescues
and subsequent veterinary care to them. The research adhered to the
protocols approved by the Boston University Institutional Animal Care
and Use Committee, the legal requirements and regulations of
Indonesia and to the American Society of Primatologists Principles
for the Ethical Treatment of Non-Human Primates.
2.3 | Data compilation
Data on the frequency and geographic locations of cases, as well as the
number of investigation-days per sub-district per year, were compiled
from GPOCP's investigation and rescue/confiscation records
(2004–2014). These data are based only on cases that have been
verified in the field by GPOCP investigators. GPOCP began keeping a
database of investigation-days per sub-district in early 2007, and thus
we do not have reliable records for the number and location of
investigation-days for the 2004–2006 time period. For the purpose of
our analyses, we extrapolated from the average number of investiga-
tion-days per sub-district per year from 2008 to 2014 (as the 2007
data are incomplete). Additional data on the total area of each sub-
district, area of oil palm concessions in each sub-district, and the
number of police officers in each sub-district were obtained from the
Ketapang and Kayong Utara branches of Indonesia's Central Bureau of
Statistics’ (Badan Pusat Statistik, BPS) reports on individual sub-
districts. We also collected data on the current extent of forests per
forest type for each sub-district from BPS, but there were serious
F I G UR E 2 Photographic evidence of an orangutan kept as a pet in
a village in Tumbang Titi sub-district, taken as part of an investiga-
tion in 2014. This individual was rescued by BKSDA and is currently
undergoing rehabilitation at IAR's center in Ketapang
ET AL.
discrepancies in the data and thus we elected not to include these
in our analysis.
2.4 | Data analysis
Data were analyzed in RStudio (R Development Core Team, 2011). We
performed individual regression analyses for each variable against the
number of cases reported by GPOCP investigators. All regression
analyses were done using a GLM of the negative binomial family to
account for over-dispersion in the data. Model fit was evaluated by the
deviance and likelihood ratio (G2) tests.
2.5 | Analysis of geographic distribution of cases
We compared across years and sub-districts to discern trends in the
data. We performed a Wilcoxon signed-rank test on the locational
distribution of cases, comparing the six sub-districts directly
bordering Gunung Palung National Park with the remaining 19
sub-districts to determine if the park is a significant source of
orangutans involved in the pet trade. We assume that significantly
higher trade activity in these six sub-districts than in those not
directly bordering the national park would potentially indicate the
presence of an organized crime ring in the region (Dudley, Stolton, &
Elliott, 2013; Ghobrial et al., 2010). The number of cases reported
was modeled against the total amount of oil palm in each sub-district
(measured as both the number of hectares under concession and as
a percentage of total sub-district area), under the assumption that if
the extent of oil palm is a significant predictor of the number of
cases, orangutan poaching in this landscape likely follows the
opportunistic model (Ghobrial et al., 2010).
2.6 | Examining law enforcement efforts
To quantify efforts by law enforcement authorities in the study area,
we calculated the proportion of cases reported by GPOCP that
resulted in orangutan rescues/confiscations over the 2004–2009 time
period. We only included data through 2009 because GPOCP
transferred ownership of our Ketapang-based orangutan transit
center to International Animal Rescue in late 2009 and it has since
become the main orangutan rehabilitation center for all of West
Kalimantan. Thus, the total number of rescues in 2010–2014 does not
reflect the number generated by GPOCP's investigative efforts alone.
We also modeled the relationship between the presence of law
enforcement officials (standardized to sub-district area, i.e., the total
number of police officers/km2) in each sub-district and the number of
cases reported. Our count of law enforcement officials was restricted
to only police officers because data on the number of BKSDA and
Forestry Department staff per sub-district were not available through
the Central Bureau of Statistics. However, we assume that the relative
distribution of these officials across the landscape is similar to the
distribution of police officers. Finally, we collected information on
the number of orangutan poaching and trade cases prosecuted at the
provincial (West Kalimantan) level, to understand how the prosecution
rate in our working landscape compares.
FREUND ET AL.
| 5 of 11

2.7 | Measuring additional factors sub-districts and the total from the remaining 19 sub-districts
(W = 24, Z = 0.32, p = 0.78). The regression analyses showed that
Individual regression analyses were run to test for significant
the extent of land under oil palm concession in each sub-district
correlations between additional variables that may explain the
(Table 2) is a significant predictor of the number of cases recorded
geographic distribution of the cases reported by GPOCP. These
by GPOCP investigators (G2 = 137.5, df = 24, p < .05), but the
include the total investigative days per sub-district (i.e., survey effort)
proportion (percentage) of land in the sub-district allocated to oil
and sub-district area (hectares), and the density of orangutans in each
palm was not (G2 = 141.1, df = 24, p = 0.86).
sub-district.

3.3 | Effectiveness of law enforcement

Over the time period during which GPOCP managed the orangutan
3 | RE SULTS transit center (2004–2009), BKSDA followed up on 55 of the 84
reported cases (65.5%) of illegally held orangutans (Table 3). The
3.1 | General trends follow-up from report to rescue was generally an inconsistent process
with long waiting periods. In 2004, only 40% (N = 17) of the orangutans
From 2004 to 2014, GPOCP investigators reported a total of 145
reported by GPOCP were rescued, and in 2006, BKSDA did not rescue
cases of captive orangutans in Ketapang and Kayong Utara regencies,
any of the seven reported cases. From 2004 to 2014, a total of 17
an average of 13.2 cases per year. During the first year of the program,
orangutans died in captivity while awaiting rescue. The presence of
42 cases of orangutan wildlife crime were reported. This was followed
law enforcement was not a significant positive or negative predictor of
by yearly fluctuations in the number of cases reported, with no
the number of cases reported in each sub-district (G2 = 139.25, df = 24,
significant positive or negative trend over the 10-year project period
p = 0.22). Finally, none of the 145 cases that GPOCP reported, nor the
(Figure 3). Of the 145 cases, 128 were discovered in Ketapang regency
133 rescues/confiscations that BKSDA-Ketapang carried out over the
and 17 in Kayong Utara (Table 1). The top five sub-districts combined,
project period (some of which, not all, resulted from GPOCP's
which cover 31.0% of the total study area, account for 51.7% (75) of
investigations) resulted in legal charges. Only one orangutan trade
the 145 total cases reported by GPOCP investigators. Of the five
case from West Kalimantan has ever been pursued in the legal system.
highest-crime sub-districts, only one (Sandai) directly borders Gunung
This case, the product of investigative collaboration between GPOCP,
Palung National Park, and it had the fewest cases among the group
IAR, WCS, and other local conservation organizations, resulted in the
(Table 1).
sentencing of one trafficker to 8 months in jail and a fine of IDR
1,000,000 (approximately $80 USD), and the sentencing of an
3.2 | Geographic distribution of cases
accomplice to 45 days in jail (Berita, 2011).
Thirty-three of the 145 cases (23%) occurred in the six sub-
districts directly bordering Gunung Palung National Park (Table 1).
3.4 | Additional factors
These six sub-districts cover approximately 9,773 km2, or 27% of
the working landscape. There was no significant difference The number of cases reported was significantly positively related to
between the number of cases reported from these buffer zone the investigation-days per sub-district (G2 = 128.96, df = 24, p < .001).

F I G UR E 3 Number of cases reported per year over the project period (2004–2014)
6 of 11 | FREUND ET AL.

TABLE 1 Number of cases of orangutan pet trade reported by GPOCP during the project period and potential explanatory variables
Regency Sub-district Cases Area (ha) Investigation days # Law enforcement
a
Ketapang Matan Hilir Selatan 19 181,310 175 21
Delta Pawana 16 7,400 74.2 46
a
Nanga Tayap 15 172,810 138.6 21
Kendawangana 14 577,750 33.6 27
a,b
Sandai 11 177,880 21 20
Marau 10 123,500 39.2 25
Tumbang Titi 7 129,580 39.2 46
Matan Hilir Utarab 6 72,010 137.2 19
Simpang Dua 5 104,810 16.8 12
Singkup 4 22,690 21 3
Sungai Melayu Rayak 4 15,950 29.4 21
Air Upas 3 85,630 7 0
Manis Mata 3 291,210 7 0
Muara Pawan 3 61,060 89.6 17
b
Sungai Laur 3 165,080 5.6 14
Jelai Hulu 2 153,900 0 11
Simpang Hulub 2 3,17,450 0 15
Hulu Sungai 1 468,500 7 0
Benua Kayong 0 34,900 61.6 0
Pemahan 0 33,100 5.6 0
b
Kayong Utara Simpang Hilir 8 142,180 120.4 16
Seponti 4 15,900 16.8 12
Sukadanab 3 102,707 74.2 31
Teluk Batang 2 75,500 50.4 12
Pulau Maya Karimata 0 76,460 0 11
–
Total 145 3,609,267 1,276.8 400

Sub-districts are ordered by number of cases.

a
Sub-districts with the five highest report rates.
b
Directly borders Gunung Palung National Park.

The size of the sub-district was not a significant factor in the number of
2
cases reported (G = 140.41, df = 24, p = 0.39). We were unable to
assess if the orangutan density in each sub-district was a significant
predictor of cases reported, because there were not enough data to
reliably estimate orangutan density at such a fine scale. Many of these
sub-districts are still remote and local conservation organizations,
including GPOCP, have not yet done thorough surveys of the
orangutan populations there.
4 | DISCUSSION
The goals of this study were to examine the geographic distribution of
orangutan pet trade in the GPNP landscape, to test the assumption
that most orangutan poaching is opportunistic in nature, to discuss to
what extent Indonesia's wildlife protection laws are enforced in our
study site, and to propose specific solutions to the conservation threat
of orangutan poaching and trade.
4.1 | Poaching as a threat to orangutans in Gunung
Palung National Park
In other areas of Indonesia, national parks are a target area for individual
poachers as well as organized crime syndicates (Shepherd, Sukumaran, &
Wich, 2004; WCS Indonesia, 2015). Little is known about the role of
organized crime in orangutan trafficking, but GPOCP is aware that
Gunung Palung National Park (GPNP) is a source location for the
international trade in pangolins and hornbill parts (E. Rahman, pers.
comm.; TRAFFIC, 2016). If there were an organized orangutan trade ring
operating in this region of West Kalimantan, we expect that they would
target GPNP, as it's estimated population of 2,500 orangutans (Johnson
et al., 2005) is a well-publicized statistic. Based on the fact that the
occurrence of cases in the six sub-districts directly bordering the park was
not significantly more common than the number of cases found in the rest
of the landscape's sub-districts, our study suggests that GPNP is not a
significant source of traded orangutans, supporting a previous finding that
in the Gunung Palung landscape specifically, forest crimes are largely
concentrated outside of park boundaries (Sugardjito & Adhikerana, 2010).
FREUND ET AL.
| 7 of 11

TABLE 2 Extent of oil palm in each sub-district palm in each sub-district, and that 64.8% of cases occurred in sub-
Extent of oil % Oil districts with more than 10,000 hectares of oil palm (Tables 1 and 2),
Regency Sub-district palm (ha) palm our results appear to corroborate the widely held hypothesis that
Ketapang Matan Hilir Selatana 17,232 9.50 most orangutan poaching in this region of Indonesia is opportunistic
a
Delta Pawan 0 0.00 in nature (Nijman, 2005). Poaching occurs most often in conjunction
Nanga Tayapa 46,159 26.71 with land clearing for large-scale agriculture (most often oil palm),
Kendawangan a
41,740 7.22 but also likely including deforestation for mining, pulp, and paper

Sandai a,b
6,621 3.72 plantations, and small-scale farming (Marshall et al., 2006; Wich
et al., 2008), and rarely as a by-product of human-wildlife conflict
Marau 23,817 19.29
(Campbell-Smith et al., 2010). It appears that the extent of oil palm
Tumbang Titi 12,608 9.73
today reflects the total hectares of orangutan habitat that have been
Matan Hilir Utarab 14,298 19.86
lost over the past decade, especially given the fact that since 2007,
Simpang Dua 0 0.00
49–69% of yearly forest conservation for oil palm has been in
Singkup 9,985 44.01
forested peatlands (Carlson et al., 2012), the Bornean orangutan's
Sungai Melayu Rayak 11,227 70.39
preferred habitat type (van Schaik, Priatna, & Priatna, 1995). Further
Air Upas 18,605 21.73 evidence for the opportunistic model of orangutan poaching would
Manis Mata 49,070 16.85 likely be found upon more in-depth analysis of forest and land-use
Muara Pawan 2,384 3.90 data, including mining and logging concessions. However, in
Sungai Laurb 24,694 14.96 gathering the data for our analyses, we found that the Indonesian
Jelai Hulu 14,095 9.16 forestry data are not consistent or reliable enough to do this
Simpang Hulu b
8,898 2.80 accurately at this time.

Hulu Sungai 0 0.00

Benua Kayong 0 0.00 4.3 | Drivers of orangutan poaching in “hotspot”
Pemahan 6,767 20.44 sub-districts
Kayong Utara Simpang Hilirb 30,436 21.41
The five sub-districts with the highest number of cases reported
Seponti Jaya 0 0.00
merit additional investigation to better understand the specific
Sukadanab 0 0.00
drivers of orangutan poaching and trade in these areas. Matan Hilir
Teluk Batang 0 0.00 Selatan and Delta Pawan are located in and around Ketapang city,
Maya Karimata 0 0.00 which has both (a) a significant port and trading hub, with the
Sub-districts with the five highest report rates.
a region's only airport and a key boat harbor; and (b) a wealthier
b
Directly borders Gunung Palung National Park. population, many of whom work for the government, (E. Rahman,
pers. comm.). These wealthy individuals, including many government
We attribute this to better-than-average park management (Wich et al., employees, can more easily afford to purchase and care for wildlife
2008) and the consistent efforts of GPOCP and other conservation NGOs than their counterparts in poorer sub-districts (Corlett, 2007; WCS
in this landscape (Meijaard et al., 2012). Indonesia, 2015). Kendawangan is the other major port of Ketapang
regency (to this day, nearly 10% of the materials entering into or
leaving West Kalimantan pass through Kendawangan) (Badan Pusat
4.2 | Poaching as a threat to orangutans outside of
Statistik, 2015a) and during the first half of the project period
the protected area
(2004–2008) our investigations revealed that lumber from the
Based on data indicating that the number of cases uncovered by regency's logging concessions, as well as illegal timber taken from
GPOCP investigators is significantly correlated with the extent of oil the Kendawangan Nature Reserve area, were taken out through this
port (Rijksen & Meijaard, 1999). Illegal orangutan trading was
TABLE 3 Number of reports compared to number of orangutan symbiotic with these legal shipments of logs (Nijman, 2005;
rescues from 2004 to 2009 E. Rahman, pers. comm.). Finally, at least 13% of the land in the
Year Reports Rescues Rescue rate (%) Matan Hilir Selatan, Nangka Tayap, and Sandai sub-districts has
2004 42 17 40.5 been cleared for oil palm and mining (both legal and illegal) over the

2005 5 7 140 past 10 years, increasing access to the forest for local people and
thus the occurrence of poaching in these areas and the number of
2006 7 0 0
animals available for the local pet trade. Because 75% of the
2007 11 11 100
remaining orangutans are predicted to live outside of National Parks
2008 13 8 61.5
(Meijaard & Wich, 2007), without better land-use planning and
2009 6 12 200
forestry regulation, the poaching and trade of wild orangutans will
Total 84 55 65.5
continue to contribute significantly to the species’ rapid decline.
8 of 11 | FREUND
4.4 | The problem of weak law enforcement for
orangutan conservation
Weak law enforcement is another major factor in the occurrence of
poaching and hunting. Effective enforcement of wildlife protection
laws is a strong deterrent to poaching activities (Hilborn et al., 2006;
Keane, Jones, Edwards-Jones, & Milner-Gulland, 2008; Tranquilli et al.,
2012). Compared to other Southeast Asian countries, Indonesia has
relatively complete wildlife protection laws, with maximum penalties
of up to 5 years in jail and/or an IDR 100,000,000 (approximately
$7,700) fine for lawbreakers (Mulqueeny & Cordon, 2013; WCS
Indonesia, 2015). However, law enforcement in Indonesia is
notoriously weak and ineffective in protecting endangered species
(Meijaard et al., 2012; Meijaard & Nijman, 2000; Nekaris, Shepherd,
Starr, & Nijman, 2010; Shepherd, 2010). For example, Nekaris et al.
(2010) found that traders in public wildlife markets in Medan (on the
island of Sumatra), Jakarta and Surabaya (Java), three of the largest
cities in the country, openly discussed how they obtained and sold
slow loris and other endangered species, with no repercussions from
local conservation authorities. Similarly, between 1997 and 2008,
Shepherd (2010) discovered 1953 individual primates being traded
through surveys in 66 bird markets in the city of Medan without using
undercover techniques, and dealers observed that the trade in most
protected species (including primates, other mammals, birds, and
reptiles) attracted no attention from wildlife conservation authorities.
Sometimes government officials are even involved in the wildlife trade
as hunters, sellers, or buyers (see Meijaard & Nijman, 2000). In
Indonesia, BKSDA is the main government agency responsible for
enforcing wildlife protection laws, and other law enforcement bodies
include the National Park management units (Balai Taman Nasional, or
BTN), the forest police, who are often a division of either BKSDA or
BTN, and quick ranger response units (SPORC). In West Kalimantan,
SPORC operates out of the provincial-level Department of Forestry,
based in Pontianak.
Weak law enforcement, in our experience, stems from three main
challenges. One challenge to implementing stronger law enforcement
is the lack of financial resources (Shepherd, 2010). The 2015 national
budget for addressing wildlife and forest crimes was just $16.4 million,
which was shared among the country's BKSDA and National Park
management units (WCS Indonesia, 2015). In previous years this has
been a barrier to rescuing orangutans in our landscape; for example, in
2014, BKSDA was only allocated enough money for 10 orangutan
rescues (E. Rahman, pers. comm.), and had to follow a bureaucratic
process before securing the necessary funds for additional rescues,
causing significant delays. If a single orangutan rescue costs, on
average, $500 (including vehicle usage, fuel, food, and lodging for the
rescue team, extra wages for the government representatives who
accompany the team, and medical equipment for orangutan care), we
anticipate that it will require additional funds in the amount of $10,000
to provide for all orangutan rescues in one regency in an average year.
This does not include the costs of orangutan rehabilitation, the training
and salaries of additional law enforcement staff, conservation
activities aimed at other species, or wildlife protection activities at
the provincial level; thus, we believe that Indonesia should allocate
ET AL.
additional funds in the amount of $3 million to improve wildlife law
enforcement in Kalimantan. The second is that the quality of human
resources is highly variable, and there is little accountability for
individual staff or offices that do not perform their duties (WCS
Indonesia, 2015), creating a permanent cycle of lack of enforcement of
wildlife crime. Conservation organizations, including GPOCP, urge
citizens to contact the wildlife authorities when they see cases of
poaching or protected animals being held as pets. However, when they
do, and there is no legal follow-up, they are less likely to make a similar
report in the future. To our knowledge, there is no tracking system to
monitor authorities’ effectiveness in the field, and so an under-
performing authority or office can go unnoticed by higher levels of
government indefinitely. Similarly, there is no visible system for
rewarding highly dedicated and knowledgeable staff, and thus no
incentive for wildlife officers to improve their performance. These two
forces together can lead to situations in which officers “turn a blind
eye” to wildlife crimes (WCS Indonesia, 2015) and, more seriously,
corruption (Schoneveld-de Lange et al., 2016). Solving this particular
issue may not be within the power of conservation organizations, and
will require a cultural shift, but one way that we can address it is by
exposing examples of effective and ineffective action by wildlife
authorities in the media (Mulqueeny & Cordon, 2013).
The third challenge is that in addition to inconsistent law
enforcement on the ground, orangutan poachers and traders are
very rarely prosecuted. When offenders are caught, the animals are
simply confiscated, with no further follow-up action taken by
authorities. This is a pervasive problem enabling the primate trade
across all of Indonesia, with 63% of the 85 cases investigated by the
WCS Wildlife Crime Unit from 2003 to 2015 punished with only a
confiscation letter from the authorities (WCS Indonesia, 2015). In a
“business” where poachers can earn $39–$115 per orangutan traded
in rural areas, and up to $45,000 for those sold internationally (Nijman,
2005), with very little risk of legal action being taken against them even
if they are caught, the threat of prison time or a relatively small fine is
not a strong deterrent. Additionally, local people may feel immune
from prosecution as they know that authorities are unlikely to travel to
remote areas on poorly maintained roads to investigate wildlife crimes
(Campbell-Smith et al., 2010).
4.5 | Limitations of the study
The data presented here have a number of limitations. One is that our
investigative effort was not constant over time. For example, in 2009
and 2011 GPOCP only reported six and five cases of captive
orangutans, respectively, significantly less than the 13.2/year average.
This likely does not represent an overall decline in crime during those
years, but was instead caused by a lack of funding and limited staff for
the program. The data are also biased toward more accessible
locations, as evidenced by the fact that the second-highest number of
cases was reported from Delta Pawan sub-district (Table 1), where
GPOCP's main office is located. Although investigative effort is a
significant determining factor in the geographic distribution of
orangutan poaching/trade cases reported by GPOCP over the project
period, we interpret this as an effect of our program design, in which
FREUND ET AL.
| 9 of 11

investigators relied on informant reports to guide their movements in 4.7 | Comparison with the African Apes
the field (thus biasing them toward positive outcomes), instead of a
Clearly, these are difficult challenges to overcome, but there is much
causal relationship between the number of investigation-days in a sub-
that orangutan conservationists can learn from studies of poaching
district and the number of cases reported from said sub-district. As an
and trade of chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas (see Schoneveld-de
orangutan conservation NGO, we are dedicated to doing our work as
Lange et al., 2016 for a thorough discussion of this topic). Factors that
efficiently as possible, and thus giving equal effort in areas where there
enable poaching of great apes for the pet trade across all range
have been no reports of orangutan poaching/trading was deemed to
countries include a lack of effective law enforcement, high levels of
be counterproductive to our mission. Finally, our approach is an
corruption in local, provincial, and national governments, lack of
incomplete method of determining how many orangutans are actually
political will for prosecuting wildlife crime, lack of resources for
victims of the pet trade in this region, and, similar to Nijman's analysis
enforcing wildlife protection laws, and insufficient penalties for
of the orangutan pet trade in 2000–2004, our interpretation of these
individuals convicted of wildlife crimes (Arcus Foundation, 2013;
data rely on the assumption that their geographical distribution
Shepherd, 2010; WCS Indonesia, 2015). Estimating poaching rates of
reflects the locations from which the orangutans were originally taken
great apes is difficult due to the vast landscapes and the inherently
(Nijman, 2005). However, without in-depth interviews with each of
secretive nature of the wildlife trade. However, data collected by the
the former orangutan owners and accurate tracing of the chain of
United Nations’ Great Ape Survival Partnership indicate that there
custody of these animals (information which is dangerous to obtain,
have been 442 chimpanzee, 111 gorilla, 55 bonobo, and 1,233
and sometimes not available at all), this is the best estimate possible.
orangutan individuals confiscated in the last decade (Great Apes
Interviews with local people about wildlife trade also are problematic
Survival Partnership, 2016). Since as many as 5–10 chimpanzees and
in that the majority of people are fully aware that orangutans are a
bonobos, and 1–2 orangutans and gorillas, are killed for each individual
protected species (Meijaard et al., 2011), and are often untruthful
captured (Arcus Foundation, 2015; Stiles et al., 2013), we can estimate
toward, or unwilling to cooperate, with interviewers.
that 2,210–4,420 chimpanzees, 111–222 gorillas, 275–550 bonobos,
and 1,233–1,466 orangutans have been poached in the past 10 years
4.6 | Implications and recommendations to fuel the pet trade alone. While the absolute values of these figures
may not be accurate, they are important in revealing the relative
Without strong government commitment to orangutan and forest
magnitude of the threat of poaching among great ape species:
conservation, Indonesia's orangutan population will continue to decline.
Orangutan infants are being taken from the wild at twice the rate of
In fact, in early 2016 the Bornean orangutan was declared Critically
their African cousins.
Endangered, just one step from extinction in the wild (Ancrenaz et al.,
However, there is another challenge looming on the horizon for
2016). The near-total lack of law enforcement on wildlife crime reflects
the African great apes—the expansion of the palm oil industry. The
the current lack of political will toward orangutan and rainforest
massive destruction of rainforest for oil palm is currently a greater
conservation in Indonesia. However, the Indonesian government is
threat to orangutans in their range states than it is to the African great
currently revising its wildlife protection laws to make them more explicit
apes (Beck, 2003); however, experts predict that oil palm companies
and provide for more severe punishments for offenders (Jong, 2016).
will soon be expanding into Africa and South America, as there are over
We strongly recommend that this revision be completed quickly and the
400 million hectares of land available there (Fitzherbert et al., 2008;
new laws be extensively socialized, not only to government officials but
Sayer, Ghazoul, Nelson, & Boedhihartono, 2012), and this will have
also to the general public so that ignorance of the law can no longer be
negative consequences for the West and Central African great ape
used as an excuse to avoid punishment for wildlife crimes. Below we
populations (Wich et al., 2014). If the poaching and trade of gorillas,
detail two additional policies and actions that can be put in place in this
bonobos, and chimpanzees in these new oil palm landscapes follows
region of Indonesia to effectively provide protection for orangutans.
the same opportunistic pattern that we found for orangutans in the
First, stronger legal action, including significant fines and prison time,
Gunung Palung region, rates of species decline will likely accelerate.
should be taken against oil palm and mining concessions operating
This is especially critical for bonobos, as 99.2% of their habitat overlaps
illegally outside their boundaries, as every instance of land clearing
with areas suitable for oil palm cultivation (Wich et al., 2014). Thus we
creates a situation in which apes and other wildlife can be taken from
recommend that conservationists and researchers in these areas be
their natural habitats to be kept as pets in local households. Secondly,
proactive and vigilant in monitoring poaching and trade as oil palm
conservation organizations should initiate educational programs
companies begin to move into Africa.
targeted at Indonesian judges and lawyers to make them aware of
the importance of legal action in protecting endangered species. This
approach was implemented in the Kinabatangan landscape in Sabah, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Malaysian Borneo, by the judiciary there with assistance from local
orangutan conservation NGOs (Kinabatangan Orang-utan Conserva-
tion Programme (HUTAN), 2015), and has also been used successfully
by the Last Great Ape Organization in Africa (Schoneveld-de Lange
et al., 2016) and we believe that similar efforts could prove effective in
Indonesia.
We would like to acknowledge former Field Director, Elizabeth Yaap,
who started the orangutan investigation program at GPOCP, Desi
Kurniawati, who assisted us in making the map, all of the GPOCP staff
that have worked as investigators over the past 10 years, including T.
Indrawan, H. Handoko, M.R. al Qadrie, and their anonymous
informants across West Kalimantan. We would also like to thank
10 of 11 | FREUND
International Animal Rescue-Ketapang and BKSDA-Ketapang for their
continued collaboration on this project and GRASP for sharing
statistics from the Apes Seizure database with us. This work has
been funded by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums; Arcus
Foundation; Conservation, Food and Health Foundation; Orangutan
Conservancy; Sea World-Busch Gardens Conservation Fund, Tides
Foundation, and the Woodland Park Zoo.
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How to cite this article: Freund C, Rahman E, and Knott C.
Ten years of orangutan-related wildlife crime investigation in
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