It is with a heavy heart we inform the passing of Professor David Chivers, Trustee of Orangutan Land Trust. David passed away peacefully on 5th March 2025 at the age of 81. David first came to Cambridge University in 1963 and completed his PhD in Physical Anthropology, focusing on primates in the Malaysian rain forests. His research included pioneering fieldwork on siamangs in Peninsular Malaysia as well as extensive research on gibbons and orangutans, and their rainforest ha

Interview with Jane Griffiths and Emma Lokuciejewski Jane Griffiths Jane: Can you tell us a little about your background, and what inspired you to write The Rimba? (You can also say why it is called the Rimba - I don’tmean to mention me, but what does Rimba mean and why that is fitting.) I am a retired Head of English, and have lived in Cornwall for over 40 years. I first became aware of the destructive force of palm oil in 2018, after watching the Rang Tan Greenpeace ca

By Dr Elliot Howard-Spink Adult orangutans eat hundreds of different types of food in the wild, but how do they learn what to eat? In our recently published study , we investigated whether immature orangutans must learn knowledge from other individuals to develop their exceptionally broad diets. We analysed over a decade of data previously collected on wild Sumatran orangutans in the Suaq Balimbing Research Area to characterize how immature orangutans engage in behaviours hyp