By James Swyer | Head of Individual Giving
As you might have seen, the end of 2025 brought an unexpected and severe challenges to our rewilding sites in Sumatra. Heavy flooding and ecological disasters swept through the region, threatening the fragile progress we’ve made together. We’re delighted to share that, despite this onslaught, the PETAI restoration site stood its ground.
Amidst the rising waters, a small but vital “hut of hope” remained safe. While it may look like a simple structure, this restoration hut serves as the essential base of operations for our rewilding work in Gunung Leuser National Park - a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the last strongholds for the Sumatran orangutan.
More importantly, the heart of our project, the tree nursery, remains intact. This is where the magic of rewilding truly begins. The seedlings currently being nurtured there will eventually grow into the towering trees that form the backbone of a healthy rainforest. These trees do more than provide a home for orangutans; they hold the soil together and help the land manage water, providing a natural defence against the very floods we witnessed in November.
The scale of the flooding meant that the rewilding activities were halted as PETAI focused on disaster response. But thanks to your support, forest restoration will restart soon. The survival of that small hut in Tenggulun is proof that even in the face of natural disaster, hope can be nurtured when we act together.
Your donations are the heart of this restoration. They allow us to maintain tree nurseries, nurture even more seedlings, and keep teams on the ground, ensuring that wild orangutans have a thriving forest to call home.
Thank you for being the reason we can keep planting.
By Selene Parr | Development Assistant
By Rhia Docherty | Individual Giving Manager
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