Marc Ancrenaz, co-founder and director of Hutan and the Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Project, will speak about how critical it is to protect forests for orangutans and elephants on the island of Borneo.

Borneo, the world's third largest island, lies within the Sundaland Hotspot, a region of high biological diversity that has lost upwards of 75 percent of its original tropical forest cover. The two most prominent species on the island are the orangutan and the Asian elephant, both of which are classified as endangered and have lost significant habitat to logging and the subsequent conversion of natural forest to oil palm plantations. The only hope for these large charismatic animals is that remaining forests be included within the national protected area systems of Indonesia and Malaysia, the two principal countries into which Borneo is divided.