6 Sanctuaries And National Parks

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The island of Borneo is a mystic land known for its untamed rainforest and unique jungle wildlife – the most famous of all are the Bornean orangutans, a threatened species exclusively native to this part of the world.

For any visitor to Borneo, a chance to glimpse these magnificent animals, especially in the world, will be a bucket list item you’d want to tick off. But you may be shocked to what you see before you.

Where the rainforest once stood, more than 50% of it has been cut down, making way for palm oil plantations, mainly.

This deforestation has put many of these animals in critical danger of being extinct, and makes viewing them in the wild a rare occurence.

Now the best way to see orangutans in Borneo, and sometimes the only way, is at an Orangutan sanctuary.

Fortunately, there are a few Orangutan rehabilitation centers in Borneo where orphaned babies can be cared for before they return to the wild, as well as national parks set up to protect their natural home.

If you’re wondering where to see orangutans in Borneo, here are the best sanctuaries and protected areas where you can spot them.

Where do Orangutans live in Borneo?

Borneo is an island made up of three countries: Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei. The best places to see orangutans in Borneo are on the Malaysian side of Borneo in the north, in the provinces of Sabah and Sarawak.

This is where most of the orangutan sanctuaries in Borneo are placed since they have connections to the rainforests.

Most of Borneo belongs to Indonesia, and you can find a few sanctuaries in the Central and West Kalimantan provinces.

However, most of the orangutan population of Indonesia lies on the island of Sumatra, to the southwest of Borneo.

You won’t find orangutans in the wild other than in Sumatra and Borneo, which are where orangutans are exclusively native to.

Orangutan Santuaries in Borneo

1. Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre (Pusat Pemuliharaan), Sandakan

Perhaps the most well-known orangutan sanctuary in Borneo is the Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary located just 25km outside Sandakan, to the west of the Sabah region of Borneo.

The world-renowned conservation facility has been open since 1964 and was the first official orangutan rehabilitation centre in Borneo, dedicated to the rescue and rehabilitation of orphaned baby orangutans.

Most of the orangutans were rescued from logging sites, illegal hunting or kept as pets, or those who wandered into plantations looking for a home.

You are pretty much guaranteed to see young orangutans at the outdoor nursery, where visitors can view the babies playing from behind glass.

These babies and youngsters are not ready to be out in the wild, but are learning to survive and play on a huge climbing apparatus made of rope swings, climbing frames, and rope crossings.

This is not about keeping them in captivity, but training them for being released back into the wild.

Tourists can watch them play from two large indoor seating areas that have a large window overlooking the play area.

What’s special about this centre is that it has no walls. There are about 60-80 orangutans that live in the comfort of the surrounding 4,294 hectare Kabili-Sepilok Forest Reserve, and they are free to come and go as they please.

Of course, you can always see them coming back during feeding time, which happens twice a day when rangers bring out food of fruit, leaves, bark, and insects, and place them on a feeding platform.

But other than that, there are no walls or cages, or boundaries, and they can live happily in their natural habitat. This is the most eco-friendly way of conserving orangutans and keeping their species alive.

2. Matang Wildlife Centre

The Matang Wildlife Centre is a particularly special reserve. It was established over 15 years ago on a piece of 180 hectacre land, in the western corner of the Kubah National Park in the Southwest region of Borneo near Kuching.

It works to restore and protect the rainforest of Sarawak, as well as to rehabilitate rescued animals for reintroduction back into the wild where possible.

One of the highlights of visiting Matang Wildlife Centre is, without a doubt, seeing the orangutans up close and personal.

Sarawak has the highest population of orangutans in Borneo, but sadly, most of the orangutans at this centre were confiscated from members of the public who illegally kept them as pets.

This means they don’t know how to look after themselves in the wild, which the Matang Wildlife Centre aims to correct.

It is their mission to educate and train the orangutans to fend for themselves so they can survive on their own in the wild.

It’s an unforgettable experience to see these amazing primates up close. To see their intelligence thriving allows you to truly recognize just how fragile these ecosystems are, why we need to safeguard them and what we stand to lose if something were ever to happen.

With passionate people dedicated to preserving its beauty and diversity, we can rest assured that the future of this orangutan centre looks bright.

3. Tabin Wildlife Reserve (Part of Tabin Wildlife Resort)

The Tabin Wildlife Reserve is where you can see phase two of the rehabilitation program. After their time at one of the orangutan sanctuaries in Borneo, the orangutans are released into the wild.

But what happens from there? This is where the Tabin Wildlife Reserve comes in. This reserve is where orangutans are usually released from Sepilok.

The reserve is located in Tawau, in the southeast region of Sabah, Borneo.

As well as being able to see orangutans in their natural home, you might also get a chance to see leopards, pygmy elephants, and more.

Visitors to the reserve are taken through the forest on a safari experience, led by knowledgeable guides, who keep in touch with one another by walkie-talkie, keeping each other informed of any wildlife sightings.

Wildlife Reserves and National Parks

4. Kinabatangan River Wildlife Sanctuary

Not far out of Sandakan is the Kinabatangan River, also known as the wildlife corridor. Here is where the jungle stops and the plantations start, separated by the river.

This is considered one of the best places to see wild orangutans, who often nest high in the trees next to the river.

It’s not a sanctuary as such, but it’s a protected area, and tourists can stay in nearby jungle lodges before taking a boat cruise out onto the river and its tributaries, keeping an eye out for these elusive endangered species.

While there is no guarantee you will see an orangutan here, it does allow you to get closer to their home and to see the conservation efforts up close.

As your boat sails down the water, you’ll notice several ropes leading from one side to the other. This is to allow animals to cross over, since many still often cross the river in search of food and home, unknowing of the plantations that reside on the other side.

If you don’t see orangutans on this trip, you won’t go home disappointed. This forest area is also home to several other native animals to Borneo, such as pygmy elephants, proboscis monkeys, clouded leopards, sun bears, tigers, macaques, and thousands of species of birds.

You can even opt for a night walk where you can get a glimpse of nocturnal animals such as snakes, frogs, insects, and maybe even a pair of beady crocodile eyes peering out of the water.

5. Danum Valley Conservation Area

The Danum Valley is similar to the Tabin Wildlife Reserve in that visitors can also stay at a resort nearby, and then take guided tours into the reserve to see the orangutans in their natural home.

It’s a huge 438 square kilometres area of protected, undisturbed lowland in Sabah, that has a huge array of tropical plants and flora and fauna, making it a thriving habitat for not just orangutans but many other species of animal in Borneo.

Gibbons, mousedeer, clouded leopards, Malayan sun bears, bearded pigs, pygmy elephants, and deer, as well as over 270 bird species, call this area home.

You can enjoy being in the heart of the Bornean jungle, on the banks of the Danum River, where wildlife thrives.

In the daytime, take a safari out into the jungle to see if you can spot some of the local residents hiding in the treetops.

Of course, wildlife sightings are never guaranteed, but there’s more enrichment to seeing these intelligent apes in their natural home than behind glass in a zoo.

6. Tanjung Puting National Park

Tanjung Puting National Park is a protected area on the Indonesian side of Borneo.

It’s made up of 416,040 hectares of forest, swamp forest, mangrove, and coastal beach forest, and is accessed from Kumai by speedboat along the Kumai River.

The Kumai River forms the northern border of the park. Above that, the forest has been cut down and turned into palm oil plantations.

The park was established in the 1930s by the Dutch colonial government as a place to protect the orangutans and proboscis monkey. It was designated as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1977 and made into a national park in 1982.

It was teeming with natural life in the 1930s, and the same is true today.

Visitors can take an ecotourism tour of the park, which consists of a boat tour along the park’s rivers and tributaries. As you sail through the calm waters, you may catch a glimpse of gibbons, macaques, leopards, sun bears, porcupines, and sambar deer. 

Of course, the main animal people come here to see, are the orangutans, which are living in their natural habitat – which few locations on earth can boast.

Seeing these friendly giants swing from branch to branch truly offers something special; they are brought food to eat several times a day by tour guides, so no time is wasted in finding them! Of course, no sightings are ever guaranteed.

How to get around Borneo

Borneo may be an island, but it’s huge, and requires a bit of effort to get around. Your best way to get around is by combination of domestic flights and driver services.

There are two main airports in the Sabah region of Borneo, Kota Kinabalu and Sandakan Airport.

Kota Kinabalu is the gateway to Borneo since most flights fly into here, specifically from Kuala Lumpur, but it’s a long way to get from here to the orangutan sanctuaries which are mostly located on the East side (the west is mostly palm oil plantations).

Your best bet would be to take a direct flight from Kota Kinabalu International Airport to Sandikan, and then get a driver from there to the reserves you want to visit.

Map of places to see orangutans in Borneo

To help you plan which sanctuary or national park to visit, here is an interactive map which details the location of each of these places.

Final Thoughts

A friend told me of his experience encountering orangutans both at the reserve and while remote jungle trekking in the Sabah. Of course, he compared the wild encounter to be more worthwhile.

I don’t think you could beat the thrill of that, but there is so much joy to be had in spending time watching them play in sanctuaries as well.

Whether it’s a random encounter or a planned visit, it’s heartwarming to be close to their carefree, playful spirit.

They need us more than ever.

I wish we humans could be more like it in all we do.

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