Bornean and Sumatran orangutans face population collapse from deforestation driven by palm oil and timber production, with surviving individuals experiencing habitat loss, fragmentation, malnutrition, and increasing human conflict.
Orangutans surviving in degraded and fragmented forest experience chronic welfare harm: food insecurity, increased travel costs to find fruiting trees, contact with human settlements, and the stress of living in deteriorating habitat. Displaced orangutans entering plantations face lethal persecution. Rescued infants — whose mothers were killed for the pet trade or by plantation workers — experience profound psychological trauma and require years of socialisation and forest skills training before rehabilitation is possible. The welfare and conservation crises for orangutans are inseparable: habitat protection, sustainable palm oil certification, and demand reduction for unsustainable commodities are simultaneously the most important welfare and conservation interventions.