Sumatran and Bornean orangutans are losing rainforest habitat at catastrophic rates, with individual welfare consequences including starvation, injury, and orphaning that accompany each forest clearance event.
Each hectare of rainforest cleared for palm oil or timber represents welfare harm to individual orangutans — displacement, starvation, injury, orphaning and death. These are not abstract conservation statistics; they are specific, identifiable welfare events affecting individuals with complex cognitive and emotional lives. Orangutan rehabilitation is among the most intensive and expensive wildlife welfare interventions — 12 years of care per animal to return one individual to functional wild life. The most efficient welfare intervention is preventing habitat loss in the first place through consumer choices, supply chain pressure and legislative protection of forest.