Java’s Singing, Swinging Gibbons

It’s a happy accident for the Javan gibbon that Rahayu Oktaviani could not find funding to study orangutans and switched to gibbons for purely practical reasons. She was hooked once she heard “the most beautiful song” of her life in the forest and is working with her team at KIARA, the NGO she founded, to make sure that it doesn’t disappear. Less than 10 percent of forests remain in Java, one of the most densely populated islands on earth. Rahayu, known as Ayu, is part of a new generation of conservationists inspired by Sir David Attenborough as well as primatologists Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Birute Galdikas. She tells Kate and Edward that she wants to raise awareness of the Javan gibbon in the same way the legendary women helped chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans to win hearts and minds around the world.

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Find out more and watch Ayu’s film https://bit.ly/WFN_Podcast_Oktaviani

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For more on primates, listen to our episode with Kuenzang Dorji in Bhutan who works with Gee’s Golden Langur monkeys https://bit.ly/WFN_Podcast_Dorji

Executive producer: Sarah Treanor

Illustrations by Emily Faccini

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