Partnering to protect Borneo's biodiversity
Unique subspecies of elephants and orangutans depend on the lushly forested Kinabatangan region for their survival. This biodiversity hotspot is surrounded by oil palm plantations. For the sake of the animals and people that live there, it must be protected.
Fragmented forests
Kinabatangan is a biodiverse region in Malaysia. Named for the river that runs through it, it is rich in flora and fauna and plays host to elephants, Bornean orangutans and eight species of Bornean hornbill. This landscape is a vital haven for animals under threat. It is also surrounded by vast areas given over to palm oil cultivation.
Unsustainable palm oil production has driven deforestation and habitat loss in Malaysia. Together with the demand for pulp wood, slash-and-burn land clearance has degraded habitats across Borneo, and monocrop plantations have replaced the place of native plants. Within the context of a landscape dominated by palm oil, the biodiversity of Kinabatangan is increasingly important.
Chester Zoo is leading an ongoing campaign to support a move away from damaging agricultural practices toward sustainability. We push for change at individual consumer, community, national and international levels through our Deforestation Free Commodities work. At the same time we have a decades-spanning partnership with HUTAN, a Borneo-based grassroots conservation organisation dedicated to protecting species and habitat.
Linking and growing
First established in 1998 in the Kinabatangan floodplain of Eastern Sabah, HUTAN is run by a team of over a hundred staff from the indigenous Orang Sungai community who work to safeguard their natural heritage. It is named after the Indonesian word for forest.
Landscape connectivity is vitally important in this fragmented enviroment. We work with HUTAN to maintain elephant and orangutan territories, build wildlife corridors and engage in reforestation, maintaining and linking habitats.
The project also helps the people who rely on this landscape by reducing human-wildlife conflict and by growing their economic development in a sustainable way, both through our support of work on the ground and through our international advocacy.
Science - Helping hornbills
With our support, HUTAN has restored more than 200ha of rainforest and created green corridors to link surviving patches of forest, allowing wildlife to move across the landscape. This includes the recently established Keruak corridor, 110 acres connecting two vital patches of protected forest, where we also help monitor biodiversity. Data collected in the corridor, surrounding agricultural land and forest is being used to assess the effectiveness of reforestation. We have also facilitated drone biodiversity surveys which will contribute to landscape management plans.
Our experts have been called in to support breeding ecology and population research into the critically endangered helmeted hornbill, the endangered wrinkled hornbill, and the vulnerable rhinoceros hornbill.
Our surveys found that the area lacked large trees and natural cavities for hornbills to use as nesting sites, limiting the area’s ability to sustain healthy populations of these ecologically important birds. To remedy this, we provided technical expertise to help conservationists build nest boxes and continue to support the planting of hornbill food and nesting trees. Many of the practical solutions we help put in place were first trialled at the zoo.
Kinabatangan Biosphere Reserve
The work carried out by HUTAN and other conservationists to protect this precious habitat has been recognised at an international level.
In late 2025, Kinabatangan was designated one of 26 new UNESCO Biosphere Reserves. HUTAN led the nomination, which was coordinated by the Sabah Biodiversity Centre and involved community, NGO and industry stakeholders.
This recognition of the region as a ‘learning place for sustainable development’ by the Man and the Biosphere Programme was a major conservation win for the organisations working in the area, and for their partners.
We will continue to support HUTAN as they carry out conservation activities and advance sustainability education and science within and beyond the Kinabatangan Biosphere Reserve.
