Mammoth Campaign Calls to Save Orangutans for National Wildlife Week

In the last 75 years, humans have wiped out over 80% of the orangutans on the planet. That’s an estimated 225,000, or 3000 every single year (IUCN). Through hunting, illegal trade, and our collective part in the deforestation of our rainforests, all three species of orangutan are now critically endangered, and we risk losing the wild Bornean orangutans within the next few decades.

This National Wildlife Week (5-9th April), Borneo Orangutan Survival (BOS) UK has partnered with creative agency and 1% for the Planet member, Truant, to develop a nationwide campaign to educate the British public about the urgent action required, and bring financial support to BOS’s mission of providing a better future for the orangutan species.

An Indonesian non-profit and non-governmental organisation, BOS Foundation is dedicated to the conservation of the critically endangered Bornean orangutan, their habitats and the local Indigenous communities that surround them. BOS UK, the Foundation’s UK arm, is working to change the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mentality of the orangutan issue, showing that the future of this species is our collective responsibility.

For over 34 years now, BOS Foundation has been working to provide sanctuaries for orangutans rescued from situations like their illegal trade, orangutans orphaned after their mother is killed, as well as managing over 1.1 million acres of Bornean rainforest. To get an idea of that scale, think of the size of one football pitch. Now think of 100 football pitches. Now think of one million football pitches side by side. That’s only half the size BOS Foundation manages.

Briefed to drive awareness of the near extinction of the orangutan, Truant developed a campaign that likens the orangutan to another historic species we’ve lost - the mammoth. Running across OOH, print media and digital platforms, this impactful campaign dramatises the critical endangerment of orangutans as a mammoth problem.

Ben Callison, CEO of BOS-UK said, “Our incredible teams across the world wake up every day to continue the lifesaving work of saving orangutans, in the hopes that one day we aren’t needed anymore since orangutan populations are restored to a thriving status. In that world, we have not only saved orangutans, but thousands of other species that call the same rainforests home. We also will have saved ecosystems that are critical for our survival as humans. I long for that day and have hope it will arrive.”

We hope that this campaign awakens our society to ensure we don’t lose another incredible species to the history books. If we act now, work together, and scale our proven solutions we can ensure orangutans continue to share this planet with us for millennia to come!”

Simon Labbett, founder of Truant said, “It’s easy to think of extinction as something from the past, and just as easy to overlook the incredible animals still fighting for survival in far-off places. Orangutans, one of our nearest evolutionary cousins, are nothing short of extraordinary, and they desperately need our help. This campaign is a small but vital step toward ensuring the foundation can continue its incredible work. The idea speaks for itself, simple, powerful, impossible to ignore.”

William Spencer, account director at JCDecaux UK said, “The JCDecaux Community Channel is proud to support this vital campaign, helping to raise awareness of the urgent need to protect Bornean orangutans. Our Community Channel was created to open up access to Out-of-Home media for charitable initiatives and communities, ensuring important messages like this reach people across the UK. We are delighted to partner with BOS to bring this issue into the public eye, and I look forward to seeing the campaign on the streets.”

The campaign will go live nationwide across over 100 billboards from 2nd April. A big thanks to our partners at Truant London, JCDecaux, Ocean Outdoor and Build Hollywood who helped to make the campaign possible.