Orangutans are losing their Bornean and Sumatran forest habitats at catastrophic rates driven largely by palm oil plantation expansion, threatening both populations and individual welfare.
Orangutans displaced by forest clearing face starvation, dehydration, and often violent conflict with plantation workers. Orphaned infants - whose mothers are typically killed when encountered in clearings - require years of specialist care. Individual orangutans suffering from habitat loss represent not just conservation losses but genuine individual welfare crises for long-lived, cognitively complex animals.