Combining Science and Storytelling for the Singing, Swinging Apes!
The role of culture in gibbon conservation Earlier in October, our Scientific Director Dr Susan Cheyne co-led a session at the IUCN World Conservation Congress (WCC) 2025 in Abu Dhabi. Through an exciting blend of science, story and song, the event explored how local culture can inspire conservation action to protect gibbons throughout their range. […]
20 YEARS OF GIBBON RESEARCH
Ever wondered what 20 years of gibbon-watching can teach us? Since 2005, we’ve been gathering one of the world’s longest continuous datasets on wild gibbon behaviour. In that time, we’ve produced 69 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters, plus a stack of reports, training materials, and even DVDs, all to inform the protection of these charismatic […]
25 Years of Inspiring
For 25 years, our mission has been to learn, protect, restore and inspire in a bid to save Borneo’s biodiversity. Of these four major work areas, perhaps the most crucial for ensuring long-term impact is inspiring – our commitment to nurture a conservation generation through environmental education and outreach. Long-term impact requires long-term investment Education […]
Meet the Orangutans of Sebangau
Every orangutan is just as unique. For a Critically Endangered species like the Bornean orangutan, every individual counts. And each of those individuals has a name, a distinct appearance and personality, just like you or me. For World Orangutan Day 2025, we decided to turn the spotlight on five of Sebangau’s most iconic residents, introducing […]
Race for rainforest at the 2026 London Marathon
Race for rainforest at the 2026 London Marathon Are you an orangutan superfan? A carbon comrade? Or simply bonkers about Borneo? Then we need you to move your feet for peat at the 2026 London Marathon on April 26th. We have one, highly sought-after, London Marathon charity spot! An opportunity for you, or someone you […]
25 Years of Restoring
First, we learn, facilitating world-leading research to gain a fuller understanding of Borneo’s unique biodiversity. Then, we protect priority ecosystems, using this new scientific insight to guide conservation management and identify threats. And we don’t stop there: we restore degraded areas, breathing life back into drained peatlands and fire-damaged forests to reverse the trend of […]
25 Years of Protecting
The Borneo Nature Foundation (BNF) was founded 25 years ago to champion the protection of the Sebangau peat-swamp rainforest in southern Borneo. This forest harbours one of the largest populations of wild orangutans anywhere on Earth, as well as gibbons, wild cats and thousands of other rare and endangered species. Here, 215 tree species have been recorded in a limited survey area of 500km² – to put things in perspective, that’s more than twice the number of tree species found in the entirety of the UK, an area almost 500 times the size!
25 Years of Learning
We exist because of scientific research.
BNF (or The Orangutan Tropical Peatland Project, as we were then known) was formed 25 years ago off the back of two undergraduate projects, which first identified the Sebangau forest as a priority landscape for orangutan conservation in the mid 1990s.
25 Years of Borneo Nature Foundation
Have you heard? We’re turning 25 this year! By nature’s standards, 25 years isn’t a long time. In fact, it’s not even long enough for most rainforest trees to reach maturity. But in just a few short years, whole ecosystems can be transformed, for better or worse.
Women’s welfare and wildlife
In Borneo and around the world, women are a driving force for conservation in their communities. Today, on International Women’s Day, we celebrate the vital contributions of women in rural Borneo, whose wellbeing is thoroughly intertwined with that of the island’s ancient rainforests.