Sumatran Ranger Project Update – Supporting the Leuser Ecosystem

Sumatran Ranger Project Update – Supporting the Leuser Ecosystem
September 12, 2019 admin

We are moving forward with our support efforts for the remaining few rhinos of Indonesia by supporting the Sumatran Ranger Project! This funding was made possible by all those who donated to our #GivingTuesday online fundraiser in 2018. With your help we were able to donate $3,517!

The GCF team has also been busy supporting their team with training, technology, and high quality patrol gear. This community ranger team continues to show progress and success and we’re excited to help them maintain their forward momentum.

 

 

Why are rhinos our primary focus species around the world? These iconic species face a serious threat by poachers for wildlife product demands coming from South East Asia. Therefore the organized crime proves to be sophisticated and well funded making it a serious problem for rhinos and the rural communities surrounding their habitats. When we train, equip, support, and mentor anti-poaching units in key crisis zones for rhino poaching we are protecting everything that lives in the rhino habitats, rooting out organized criminals in the communities, and providing stable income and jobs for community members.

“The Leuser Ecosystem is the LAST place on Earth where the remaining Sumatran megafauna co-exist: Sumatran orangutans, elephants, tigers and rhinoceros. The Leuser Ecosystem is one of the most important and biodiverse ever described and has a global impact and importance, through it’s ability to regulate worldwide climate, by storing millions of tons of peat in its ancient peat swamp forests.

But the Leuser is under imminent threat from a multitude of destruction: mining, roading, oil palm and large scale development to name a few. The dwindling wildlife living within the ever-shrinking forests are under significant pressure and extensive wildlife conflict still occurs, despite the legal protection status of much of the forest and its inhabitants. Forest edge communities have settled up to and into the forest, planting crops and gardens to sustain themselves and their livelihoods, creating extensive wildlife conflict along the buffer zone. Buffer zones in and around the Leuser Ecosystem forests are the site of significant human-wildlife conflict. Species particularly impacted are the Sumatran elephant and orangutan, both critically endangered with over 80% of their habitat lost in one generation. Forest edge communities are often poverty-stricken, sustaining or supplementing their income through harmful and illegal practices such as poaching and forest clearing as they have little alternative.

The Sumatran Ranger Project was formed to help provide a level of protection to the wildlife living in and around forest edge communities and to work with communities to help identify alternative income that does not harm the forest. The project employs a small team of rangers who deactivate and remove snares, provide community outreach and engagement, collect data, mitigate wildlife conflict and conduct drone surveys. They are the only team working solely in the buffer zone of the Leuser Ecosystem in North Sumatra, but one of many committed organizations working desperately to protect this precious environment.

With your help we can keep our team of skilled and dedicated rangers employed and patrolling monthly, maintaining a presence in the buffer zone of the threatened Leuser Ecosystem. We thank you so much for your support and generosity in helping to keep the wildlife and people of the Leuser Ecosystem safe.” – The Sumatran Ranger Project Description.