Bornean and Sumatran orangutans face existential threats from deforestation driven by palm oil, logging, and agriculture. Both species are Critically Endangered with populations still declining.
Orangutan welfare is threatened at multiple levels: loss of habitat forces individuals into human-dominated landscapes where they face starvation, persecution, and injury from conflict with farmers; orphaned infants who lose mothers to deforestation or hunting require years of intensive rehabilitation; and remaining wild individuals in fragmented forests experience nutritional stress as food trees are cleared. Welfare interventions must address the structural driver — deforestation — alongside individual-level responses like rehabilitation centres. The corporate commitment to deforestation-free supply chains, monitored through satellite surveillance, is a direct lever on orangutan welfare. Rehabilitation and reintroduction programmes return individual animals to the wild but are costly and capacity-limited; habitat protection at scale is irreplaceable.