ABOUT
SUMATRAN
RANGER PROJECT
OUR MISSION.
is to provide long lasting protection to wildlife, support forest-edge communities, and preserve the environment they share.
We work to ensure long term protection of the forest edge and, support of communities within the Leuser Ecosystem in North Sumatra.
RANGERS.
The Sumatran Ranger Project is a community conservation initiative, established to help provide long term protection of the Leuser Ecosystem forest edge to benefit both wildlife and people.
We employ a team of 11 rangers (men and women) who patrol the edge of the Gunung Leuser National Park in North Sumatra.
They deactivate and destroy traps and snares, provide community outreach and education, mitigate and prevent human-wildlife conflict, collect vital data from the forest, and support communities to achieve sustainable and practical solutions to issues that affect quality of life and livelihoods.
The rangers are all locals themselves, living in the forest edge communities they are working so hard to help protect and support.
We monitor wildlife through camera traps, patrols and direct monitoring.
We also employ four staff to run our budding seedling programme; a community support initiative to help locals move away from palm oil and rubber, and improve livelihoods.
Every month our team of 11 rangers patrol on foot through 25 forest edge communities, forest border, and community land
They deactivate and remove snares, provide community outreach and education, monitor wildlife and illegal activity, respond to and mitigate human-wildlife conflict, and collect data.
We support local education initiatives in North Sumatra wherever possible.
We fund SOBAN school to help provide free conservation and English lessons for children and educational supplies, botanical interpretation of signs to support learning in the national park, and funding for 100 local children per month for 12 months, to visit the forest, supporting their classroom learning.
We help to mitigate and prevent conflict along the forest edge.
This includes building predator-proof livestock corrals to prevent retaliatory attacks on tigers and keep livestock safe, using sound to move elephants away from gardens and plantations, and guiding orangutans safely out of Durian crops and back into the forest to keep them safe in the tree canopy.
We provide employment to a team of locals to monitor trail cameras along the forest edge. They collect data on critically endangered species such as Sumatran tigers, Sumatran elephants, Sunda pangolins as well as Malayan sun bears, serow, porcupines and Muntjac deer can be found here, in addition to a multitude of other bird, reptile, mammal and plant species.
There is very little data available on the wildlife living and using the forest edge, and the more we know, the more we can do to help.
The communities we work in and near experience poverty, and most rely on oil palm or rubber for income, supplemented with livestock and other activities, some of which are harmful to wildlife.
Our team has formed positive relationships with these communities to provide support such as fruit trees, supplies, and fences for schools, predator-proof livestock corrals, feminine hygiene products, phones for farmers, and a seedling program to help communities move away from oil palm.
In partnership with Raw Conservation Adventures, we offer small group field trips and adventures for tourists and conservationists to witness and participate in Sumatran Ranger Project activities.
This provides additional hands-on support to help communities, such as building predator-proof livestock corrals, and sparks awareness and generates support for the park and the wildlife and communities that live within/alongside it.