Seen from the sky, it is no more than a thin thread of forest, a tiny, fragile and fragmented strand that follows the river on either side.

This corridor of degraded forest has been miraculously preserved in a sea of palm oil plantations that have destroyed 90% of Borneo's native forest, and it is now home to a large population of orangutans, great auks, hornbills, huge crocodiles, a local species of pygmy elephant and a host of lesser-known but equally magnificent animals. This success is the result of work carried out over the last 30 years by the inhabitants of the village of Sukau for the NGO HUTAN founded by doctors Isabelle Lackman and Marc Ancrenaz.

In a bona fide open-air laboratory, the teams observe these species on a daily basis, replanting clearings with considerable effort to restore the continuity of the forest. They install monkey bridges and artificial hornbill nesting boxes, for the eight different species of hornbill in the area. The project is a real success, and the orangutans are the symbol of successful adaptation to a degraded environment. Thought incapable of surviving in such an environment, they are now building nests on the oil palm trees themselves. A minor revolution in the world of primatology!

Now that deforestation is finally slowing down, the possibilitý of replicating this tried and tested method elsewhere by saving other patches of forest brings the faint hope of safeguarding these magnificent species in serious danger of extinction.