The geographic distribution of Bornean orang-utans and its overlap with existing land-use categories (protected areas, logging and plantation concessions) is a necessary foundation to prioritize conservation planning. Based on an extensive orang-utan survey dataset and a number of environmental variables, we modelled an orang-utan distribution map. The modelled orang-utan distribution map covers 155,106 km2 (21% of Borneo's landmass) and reveals four distinct distribution areas. The most important environmental predictors are annual rainfall and land cover. The overlap of the orang-utan distribution with land-use categories reveals that only 22% of the distribution lies in protected areas, but that 29% lies in natural forest concessions. A further 19% and 6% occurs in largely undeveloped oil palm and tree plantation concessions, respectively. The remaining 24% of the orang-utan distribution range occurs outside of protected areas and outside of concessions. An estimated 49% of the orang-utan distribution will be lost if all forest outside of protected areas and logging concessions is lost. To avoid this potential decline plantation development in orang-utan habitats must be halted because it infringes on national laws of species protection. Further growth of the plantation sector should be achieved through increasing yields in existing plantations and expansion of new plantations into areas that have already been deforested. To reach this goal a large scale island-wide land-use masterplan is needed that clarifies which possible land uses and managements are allowed in the landscape and provides new standardized strategic conservation policies. Such a process should make much better use of non-market values of ecosystem services of forests such as water provision, flood control, carbon sequestration, and sources of livelihood for rural communities. Presently land use planning is more driven by vested interests and direct and immediate economic gains, rather than by approaches that take into consideration social equity and environmental sustainability.

New surveys provide higher estimate of Sumatran orangutans than previously, but future scenarios indicate decline continues.

Species conservation is difficult. Threats to species are typically high and immediate. Effective solutions for counteracting these threats, however, require synthesis of high quality evidence, appropriately targeted activities, typically costly implementation, and rapid re-evaluation and adaptation. Conservation management can be ineffective if there is insufficient understanding of the complex ecological, political, socio-cultural, and economic factors that underlie conservation threats. When information about these factors is incomplete, conservation managers may be unaware of the most urgent threats or unable to envision all consequences of potential management strategies. Conservation research aims to address the gap between what is known and what knowledge is needed for effective conservation. Such research, however, generally addresses a subset of the factors that underlie conservation threats, producing a limited, simplistic, and often biased view of complex, real world situations. A combination of approaches is required to provide the complete picture necessary to engage in effective conservation. Orangutan conservation (Pongo spp.) offers an example: standard conservation assessments employ survey methods that focus on ecological variables, but do not usually address the socio-cultural factors that underlie threats. Here, we evaluate a complementary survey method based on interviews of nearly 7,000 people in 687 villages in Kalimantan, Indonesia. We address areas of potential methodological weakness in such surveys, including sampling and questionnaire design, respondent biases, statistical analyses, and sensitivity of resultant inferences. We show that interview-based surveys can provide cost-effective and statistically robust methods to better understand poorly known populations of species that are relatively easily identified by local people. Such surveys provide reasonably reliable estimates of relative presence and relative encounter rates of such species, as well as quantifying the main factors that threaten them. We recommend more extensive use of carefully designed and implemented interview surveys, in conjunction with more traditional field methods.

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of feeding time to different food types such as fruit, vegetable matter, bark, insects, and other items (e.g. Fox et al. 2004; Wich et al. 2006a; Chapter 8 this volume). Understanding a species' diet, however, also requires a comprehensive list of the food items eaten (Tutin et al. 1994; Rodman 2002). 9.1 Introduction This chapter compares orangutan diets, both across orangutan sites and relative to other great apes, based on current food lists. Orangutan diets are typically represented in terms of the allocation

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IntroductionThe presence of two sexually active male morphs with different reproductive tactics in a single species is rare among mammals. The most striking case of bimaturism among primates is exhibited by the orangutan (Pongo spp), in which one adult morph, the unflanged male, irreversibly develops into another one, the flanged form, but may remain arrested in the unflanged state for many years. However, it has been suggested that such arrest is less common among Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) compared to Sumatrans (Pongo abelii). To investigate this possible inter-specific difference we compared both the number of developing males and the ratios of the two male morphs at two long-term study sites, Suaq Balimbing on Sumatra and Tuanan on Borneo.ResultsFirst, we observed a significantly greater number of flanged than unflanged males per month in the Tuanan study area, whereas the opposite pattern held at Suaq. Second, the same contrast held for the total number of identified individuals over the study, with more flanged than unflanged males at Tuanan and the opposite at Suaq. These differences were mainly due to transient males. For Tuanan, the identification results were confirmed by detailed genetic analyses. Finally, we recorded a higher proportion of unflanged males that became flanged during any given year at Tuanan than at Suaq.ConclusionThese results show that developmental arrest is far more common at Suaq than at Tuanan. Preliminary comparisons suggest that this is a general contrast between the island taxa of orangutans and should help efforts to identify the function and proximate control of developmental arrest in orangutan males.

497-11-000001 to E.R.V). This research complied with the current national laws of Indonesia. 29We also thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback.