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Permaculture Helps Save Orangutans

What has permaculture got to do with rescuing, protecting and saving orangutans?

Good question, and one I had not thought to ask before I met Panut Hadisiswoyo and his colleague Nayla from the Orangutan Information Centre in Nth Sumatra a couple of days ago.

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Maia, Me, Panut and Nayla from the Orangutan Information Centre

I had the pleasure of interviewing Panut (recorded on August 17, 2019) at my home in the permaculture village. Panut is a quietly spoken and humble man, who is currently travelling around Australia with his 2 children (13yo & 9yo) to share the story of their orangutan protection work and permaculture farm.

World renown orangutan conservationist runs a 100ha permaculture farm in North Sumartra.

Panut is a world renown conservationist and recipient of many prestigious awards recognising his pioneering work as founder of the Orangutan Information Centre – including National Geographic’s Emerging Explorer Award, UK’s Whitley Award, Ashoka Fellowship Award, the World Wildlife Fund’s Russell E. Train Education for Nature Award, and the UN GRASP’s Ian Redmond Conservation Award. Panut’s work is also supported by Lush.

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Introducing Founding Director of Orangutan Information Centre, Panut Hadisiswoyo in our recorded conversation.

In this conversation (click below) Panut shares the interconnectedness between permaculture, saving forests, protecting waterways, saving keystone species and creating sustainable livelihoods, nature connectedness and human well-being.

Permaculture Education Institute and the Ethos Foundation host a free community talk exploring how permaculture helps save orangutans

We hosted Panut and Nayla of the Orangutan Information Centre (OIC) for 2 days – offering community meals, accommodation, a tour and ecovillage experience in exchange for a presentation to the local community. (I love these rich, money-free exchanges!). He gave an amazing talk – the founder of Crystal Waters, Bob Sample, said this was one of the most inspiring ever given by a visitor to Crystal Waters.

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Introduces orangutan conservationist, Panut Hadisiswoyo at  the Crystal Waters event.

Orangutan Information Centre

The Orangutan Information Centre is based in North Sumatra, in and around the Leuser Ecosystem. Panut and his team have been working there for 20 years. They have helped to regenerate 2000ha of forest, ripple permaculture to over 1000 villages, start a full time nature and permaculture school for local children, create a permaculture field school for farmers, rescue and relocate hundred of orangutans. They have not only helped to stop forest clearing, but have actively removed illegal plantations of palm oil and replanted with natural forest again – already these are being re-inhabited by wildlife.

Permaculture Demonstration Farm

Panut has launched a 100ha permaculture farm to demonstrate a different way of farming, a more nature-connected, diverse, sustainable, soil-building, health-giving, educational, wildlife-friendly place to be. Their students are sharing the results that ecological farming/permaculture is actually more profitable and sustainable for them on their little farms (average size 1-2ha).

The introduction of permaculture approaches into local communities has helped to re-invigorate more traditional approaches to farming – agroforestry approaches with a big focus on diverse tree crops in permanent, multi-layered food systems.

This new permaculture farm and education centre has been supported by Lush and they are also exploring the production of organic plants for essential oil production – such as lemongrass, patchouli, ylang ylang and vanilla. This is a great partnership for local farmers that can really help them move out of plantations to polycultures, from chemical farming to organic.

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Nayla loved meeting our chooks and exploring our permaculture garden.

Positive practical story of action to stop extinction and contribute to soil, habitat and climate restoration

Panut’s is such a positive story of vision, dedication, love and determination. I hope you enjoy listening, and are inspired to support their work, help your local community and environment, and be really conscious of not buying products that contribute to forest destruction.

Nayla was born into a palm oil family, and was a teacher. She fell in love with the orangutan, left her teaching job and is dedicated to helping them, their forests, and helping others to appreciate and love them too.

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Panut and Nayla joined a tree planting day at Crystal Waters with local families.

I am so delighted to be sharing their amazing stories with you. They are doing incredible work for the planet, for the community, for wildlife.

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Hugh, our 11yo son, was so inspired by their visit. “When are we going over to work with them?” he asked as soon as they left! We are discussing creating an in-situ course – permaculture and ecosystem regeneration – with OIC.

THINGS TO DO

  1. CHANGE YOUR SEARCH ENGINE: Sign up to Ecosia – it’s free. Instead of using Google, Firefox etc, use Ecosia and you will help support projects like the Orangutan Information Centre.  Make a positive difference every time you search. My daughter has supported planting 500 trees in a coupld of months. Nayla’s film from Ecosia is above.
  2. DON’T BUY PALM OIL: Avoid products with palm oil – particularly non-sustainable palm oil. Here’s one source of palm oil free products
  3. DONATE: Please support the Orangutan Information Centre
  4. LEARN: Become a Permaculture teacher and ambassador at the Permaculture Education Institute. I’ll guide you through a comprehensive online course to receive both your Permaculture Design Certificate and Permaculture Teacher Certificate.
  5. GARDEN AND COOK: Grow as much local food as you can and cook from scratch to avoid palm oil and other destructive ingredients. If you need help to get your thriving diverse edible garden going, join my permaculture gardening course – The Incredible Edible Garden
  6. SUPPORT: Become my Patreon to support me to continue making films for the Our Permaculture Life channel