
This project offers you the chance to work on enrichment with captive orangutans and sun bears at the world-renowned Samboja Lestari Rescue Centre.
Samboja Lestari is an area of restored tropical rainforest near the city of Balikpapan in East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. Established by the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF), this 2,000-hectare orangutan sanctuary was created with the aim of providing a safe haven for orphaned orangutans which had been rescued from areas of habitat loss, whilst at the same time providing a source of income for local people.
The project site is home to several forest schools which have been built to provide natural, educational playgrounds for the orangutans, in which they are able to learn vital forest skills in the hope of someday being released. Elsewhere, several islands have been created to accommodate those orangutans which may be suffering from disabilities, preventing them from ever being released, whilst others are used to prepare suitable candidates for their return to the wild!
By joining this project, you will help rehabilitate Samboja Lestari's orangutans and sun bears by assisting in a range of activities such as enrichment, husbandry, and sanctuary upkeep. Each year since 2012, the foundation has been able to successfully release a number of orangutans, and your work will help to ensure that more orangutans can continue to be released back into their natural forest home.
Samboja Lestari is an area of restored tropical rainforest near the city of Balikpapan in East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. Established by the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF), this 2,000-hectare orangutan sanctuary was created with the aim of providing a safe haven for orphaned orangutans which had been rescued from areas of habitat loss, whilst at the same time providing a source of income for local people.
The project site is home to several forest schools which have been built to provide natural, educational playgrounds for the orangutans, in which they are able to learn vital forest skills in the hope of someday being released. Elsewhere, several islands have been created to accommodate those orangutans which may be suffering from disabilities, preventing them from ever being released, whilst others are used to prepare suitable candidates for their return to the wild!
By joining this project, you will help rehabilitate Samboja Lestari's orangutans and sun bears by assisting in a range of activities such as enrichment, husbandry, and sanctuary upkeep. Each year since 2012, the foundation has been able to successfully release a number of orangutans, and your work will help to ensure that more orangutans can continue to be released back into their natural forest home.
Your main activities whilst volunteering with orangutans at Samboja Lestari include husbandry, enrichment, reforestation, maintenance and construction work for both the orangutans and the sun bears resident here. You will be treated as pseudo-staff whilst on the project, meaning full participation in all of the centre's work.
Below is an example of a typical two-week itinerary. Please note, however, some activities may be subject to change during the time of your stay as they are dependent on weather conditions and the requirements of the project at the time.
Important Information: This project is extremely popular, with dates getting fully booked up to 6 months in advance. We therefore recommend securing your place as early as possible to ensure you can join on your preferred start date.
To secure a place on this project a deposit of $245 is required at the time of booking, with the remaining balance due any time up to 60 days prior to your start date.
Select a duration below to see the available start dates. All dates shown are currently available for you to join this project but please be aware the project only runs between April and September.
Accommodation during your time on the project will be in twin-share rooms at the Samboja Ecolodge where all of the interior and exterior walls are built out of recycled materials! Each room comes equipped with fully working air conditioning, mosquito nets and an en-suite bathroom, with hot water and a western-style toilet.
You will have three meals per day provided for you whilst on this project. Breakfast is a variety of cereals, eggs and rice/noodle dishes alongside fruit and fresh fruit juice. Lunches and dinners typically consist of noodles or rice with chicken, seafood, mutton or beef and vegetables. Tofu and Soy bean dishes are also provided for vegetarians and each meal is served as a buffet.
This project is based at a rehabilitation sanctuary, and there are orangutans and sun bears here year-round, meaning there is no real preferred time to volunteer regarding the animals.
The weather is also quite constant throughout, and whilst it can rain at any time of the year due to the rainforest climate, you can expect mostly dry weather with temperatures averaging 29-31°C (84-88°F) in the daytime and 24°C (75°F) at night.
You will need to fly into Balikpapan Airport on your project start date, arriving between 7am-7pm, with most international flight routes going via Jakarta International Airport (Soekarno-Hatta International Airport). Upon arrival into Balikpapan Airport, you will be met by a project representative in the arrivals hall who will then transfer you to Samboja Lodge. This transfer takes approximately one hour.
If you arrive a day early and stay in a hotel close to Balikpapan Airport, we will be able to arrange your transfer to Samboja Lodge from there. Please let us know if you would like any suggestions.
To join this project, you will need a tourist visa which you can get on arrival in Indonesia. The cost of this visa is approximately US$35.
If you plan to stay in Indonesia for longer than 30 days, you can get a 30-day tourist visa on arrival and then extend your visa for a further 30 days by taking a trip to an embassy while in-country. Alternatively, it is possible to arrange a 60-day social/cultural visa in advance of your arrival and we can provide you with the correct documents to support your application.
We advise that you speak to the embassy in your country to see if there are any requirements for travel. Please note that your passport must be valid for a minimum of six months from your date of entry into Indonesia.
The work undertaken on this project can be quite physical, often in humid conditions, so a moderate level of fitness is required. No skills or experience are required; all that we ask is that you arrive with a commitment to the project and its aims, a passion for wildlife conservation, and the willingness to work alongside your team!
To volunteer on this project, you must be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 (at least 2 doses) and provide negative test results to show you do not have HIV or Hepatitis B or C prior to arrival. A chest x-ray or QuantiFERON blood test to show you do not have Tuberculosis is also required. These are ESSENTIAL, as without them you will be unable to join the project.
Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, additional safety measures have also been introduced to ensure the safety of all volunteers, staff members and the orangutans. These can be viewed by clicking here and may change at any time.
We are often asked whether or not volunteers will have the chance to touch or play with the orangutans whilst on this project. Our answer to this question is, and always will be no, and this is for good reason.
Orangutans are highly susceptible to human diseases, many of which are far more dangerous to an orangutan than they are to us. Also, an environment of constant change, with new volunteers going to the project every two or four weeks and being in contact with the orangutans would be very detrimental to the orangutans' well-being. With no consistency in their lives, behavioural problems arise. They also have a tendency to begin to trust humans which is damaging should they be released back into the wild, as they will become easy targets for poachers. Finally, an orangutan is around 7 times stronger than an adult male human so a no-contact policy is just as crucial for your safety as theirs.
That is not to say that you will have no interaction with the orangutans, it simply means that you will have no direct contact with them. You will still observe them on a daily basis and see how your contribution to their husbandry and enrichment makes a real difference to the lives of these apes. For more information, please view our article on hands-on contact with orangutans.
Take a look at wildlife adventurer Catherine Capon's trip to Samboja Lestari and discover what volunteering is really like!
Leslie, Alena and Charlotte review their experience at the Samboja Lestari Orangutan Project in Borneo.