Lone Dröscher Nielsen

Lone Dröscher Nielsen is the founder and manager of the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rehabilitation Project in Central Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo).

Working with Borneo Orangutan Survival (BOS), Lone began this project in 1999 with help from Willie Smits. Nyaru Menteng is now the largest primate rescue project in the world, with more than 600 orangutans in its care. The project rescues and rehabilitates hundreds of orphaned orangutan infants with the goal of a return to some sort of wild life. It has also rescued hundreds of adult wild orangutans from oil-palm plantations which have been planted after their natural forest habitat has been cleared.

Lone’s project is the only orangutan project actively rescuing wild orangutans from certain death in the oil-palm plantations of Central Kalimantan. These orangutans are treated for wounds inflicted by loggers and starvation, and when healthy, eventually returned to safe forests, which have been secured by Lone.

Lone began working with orangutans 14 years ago while she worked as a flight attendant with SAS – the Swedish airline. She originally  volunteered in an orangutan conservation project in Tanjung Puting. In 1993, she moved permanently to Borneo to devote her life to saving orangutans.

Originally from Denmark, Lone has been featured in a Danish film called The World’s Most Remarkable Dane. Other films have featured the work of Lone and her team, most notably National Geographic’s Disenchanted Forest, Animal Planet’s Growing Up… Orangutan, BBC’s Apes In Danger: Orangutan, and the BBC series  Orangutan Diary 1 & 2, which also was featured on Animal Planet. Most recently she was featured on Animal Planet's Orangutan Island, which was produced by Natural history new Zealand (NHNZ).

Lone lives in a house near the Nyaru Menteng Rescue Center, and she works around the clock managing the project. Her duties include training and managing a work force of approximately 80 local Indonesian Dayaks who work as “Babysitters” (local Dayak women caring for the infant orphans) and “Teknisi” (local Dayak men caring for the older orangutans). Lone manages a well-equipped clinic with veterinarians and paramedics as well as coordinates constant rescues – many of which she attends herself. She continuously faces the challenge of fundraising for the project, a never-ending effort with money often depleting. In addition to her already huge workload, Lone updates sponsors constantly, writes reports, negotiates huge food requirements with local suppliers and coordinates with television crews filming these orangutan stories.

Lone Dröscher Neilsen has become an expert on the care of these orphaned primates, and her methods of raising them and helping them to learn wild skills are recognized internationally.