Deep in the Sumatran rainforest, two orangutans, a mother and her child, prepare for a coming rainstorm. As the air grows thicker, the mother leads her child into a nest she built earlier that day. Then, collecting vines and leaves, she weaves an umbrella out of the foliage and holds it devotedly over her daughter.
The place these orangutans call home is the Leuser
Though they once thrived in healthy jungles from Indonesia to China, wild orangutans, which are among the rarest and most intelligent of the great apes, are now limited to the rainforests of two Southeast Asian islands that are part of Indonesia: Borneo and Sumatra. Mainly because of habitat destruction—in the form of mining, logging, and the leveling of vast numbers of palm trees by the booming palm oil industry—their populations have dwindled.