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Alain Schroeder
by helphoto
Saving Orangutans
Alain Schroeder (BE)
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Indonesia’s Sumatran orangutan is under severe threat from the incessant and ongoing depletion and fragmentation of the rainforest. As palm oil and rubber plantations, logging, road construction, mining, hunting and other development continue to proliferate, orangutans are being forced out of their natural rainforest habitat. Organizations like the OIC (Orangutan Information Centre) and their immediate response team HOCRU (Human Orangutan Conflict Response Unit), rescue orangutans in difficulty (lost, injured, captive, etc) while the SOCP (Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme) cares for, rehabilitates and resocializes orangutans at their purpose-built medical facility, aiming to reintroduce them into the wild and to create new selfsustaining, genetically viable populations in protected forests. The fact that we share 97% of our DNA with orangutans seems obvious when you observe their human-like behavior. Today, with just over 14,000 specimens left, the Sumatran orangutan (Pongo Abelii) along with the 800 specimens of the recently discovered Tapanuli species (Pongo tapanuliensis), are listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Various artworks of the artist were exhibited at the National Museum of Finland, Korjaamo Culture Factory, Kaapeli, Pyhän Birgitan puisto, and JCDecaux Finland.
© Alain Schroeder, Saving Orangutans 7, 2019
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Alain Schroeder is a Belgian photojournalist born in 1955. In 1989, he founded Reporters (www.reporters.be), a well-known photo agency in Belgium. He has illustrated over thirty books dedicated to China, Persia, the Renaissance, Ancient Rome, the Gardens of Europe, Thailand, Tuscany, Crete, Vietnam, Budapest, Venice, the Abbeys of Europe, Natural Sites of Europe, etc. Belgian titles include, Le Carnaval de Binche vu par 30 Photographes and Processions de Foi and Les Marches de l’Entre-Sambreet-Meuse. Publications include National Geographic, Geo, Paris-Match, among others. He has won many international awards including a Japan Nikon Award 2017 for the Rohingya series, the TPOTY Travel Photographer of the Year Award 2017 with the series Living for Death and the series Kushti, and 1st prize at World Press Photo 2018 for the series Kid Jockeys in the category Sports Stories and 2 World Press in 2020. Alain Schroeder has participated in numerous exhibitions worldwide.
© Alain Schroeder, Saving Orangutans 1, 2019
