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View all search resultsSumatran, Tapanuli orangutan populations down nearly 20%, Forestry Ministry says
The deputy forestry minister cited fragmented habitats and catastrophic natural disasters, such as the floods and landslides late last year, as key causes of the decline in Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan populations.
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A female Tapanuli orangutan calls as it perches in a tree with its infant in the Batang Toru Forest in North Sumatra, in this undated handout photograph released by the Medan-based Orangutan Information Centre on June 10, 2026. (AFP/Handout/Orangutan Information Centre)
T
he populations of two orangutan species stood at 12,410 individuals, down 19.5 percent from the baseline in 2011, the Forestry Ministry revealed recently, citing the latest available survey conducted in 2021-2023.
Deputy Forestry Minister Rohmat Marzuki said the survey recorded 11,694 Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii) and 716 Tapanuli orangutans (Pongo tapanuliensis).
“When compared to data from the last survey in 2011, the population of Sumatra and Tapanuli orangutans decreased 19.5 percent,” Rohmat said on Saturday during the “National Seminar on Reflections on a Decade of Collaborative Conservation of Sumatran and Tapanuli Orangutans”, held in provincial capital Medan.
The deputy minister said fragmented habitats had caused the population decline in the two orangutan species, both of which are endemic to Sumatra.
They had also been affected by the November 2025 flooding and landslides that struck the island’s northern provinces of Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra.
According to a study by Borneo Future, the World Weather Attribution and Liverpool John Moores University published on June 9, at least 58 Tapanuli orangutans, or around 7 percent of 800 total individuals in the wild, had died as a result of last year’s hydrometeorological disaster.
Most Tapanuli orangutans live in the Batang Toru ecosystem in South Tapanuli regency, North Sumatra.
