Every year, nearly 80,000 people make their way to Tanjung Puting National Park in Central Kalimantan. Many come for the same reason: to see an orangutan in the wild. In 2025 alone, the park recorded 79,920 visitors, an average of around 219 people a day, with almost eight in ten coming from overseas.

Their journey usually begins on the Sekonyer River, where traditional klotok boats carry visitors deep into a 415,000-hectare landscape of peat swamp, lowland and mangrove forests. Along the way, the forest offers much more than its most famous resident. More than 200 bird species have been recorded here, alongside proboscis monkeys, crocodiles, gibbons and other wildlife. And somewhere in the canopy is the animal that put Tanjung Puting on the world map: the Bornean orangutan.

For the people who live and work around Tanjung Puting, however, the orangutan is more than a reason to visit. It is part of a landscape that sustains their livelihoods. 
 

More Than an Orangutan Destination

For many visitors, Tanjung Putting National Park is synonymous with orangutans. The park's globally renowned orangutan observation sites have attracted visitors from around the world for decades, placing the landscape firmly on Indonesia's conservation map.But protecting the orangutan has always meant protecting something much larger: the forest and wetlands that make its survival possible.

Tanjung Puting was first protected in 1936, making its conservation story nearly a century old. Today, the national park spans more than 412,000 hectares—an area roughly the size of Bali—and includes one of Central Kalimantan's most important wetland landscapes. 

More than 90% of the park is recognized as a Ramsar wetland of international importance. Its landscape includes peat swamp, freshwater swamp, mangrove and coastal forests, ecosystems that store water, support wildlife and help sustain the ecological life of the wider landscape. 

That living landscape is also what visitors come to experience. Wildlife-based ecotourism differs fundamentally from conventional tourism. Its success is directly tied to the health of wildlife populations and the ecosystems that support them. If forests degrade, if rivers become polluted, if wildlife populations decline, tourism declines as well. Conversely, healthy ecosystems generate opportunities for tourism, education, research, recreation, and local employment. 

In Tanjung Puting, the orangutans are more than a symbol of conservation. They are also part of what brings visitors—and income—to the communities around the park. Their presence draws people from around the world, supporting guides, boat operators, cooks, lodge staff, handicraft makers, community enterprises and local transport providers. That is the promise of ecotourism: a forest can be protected while creating opportunities for the people who live alongside it. 

When Biodiversity Creates Opportunities

Across Tanjung Puting, local livelihoods are increasingly linked to the health of the National Park. Tourism operators depend on intact forests. Boat operators depend on visitors wanting to experience wildlife. Guides depend on thriving ecosystems that continue to support wildlife encounters. Local communities benefit when visitors stay longer, spend more, and seek authentic experiences connected to nature and culture. Community members who once depended on activities that placed pressure on natural resources are increasingly finding opportunities through tourism-related services. Wildlife, once viewed primarily as a conservation concern, has become an important source of local economic value. 

This creates a powerful incentive structure.

When communities see that healthy wildlife populations contribute directly to their income and well-being, protecting nature is no longer solely the responsibility of conservation authorities. Conservation becomes a shared interest.

 

The Women Behind Ecotourism

While wildlife usually takes centre stage in stories about ecotourism, many of the people who make a visitor’s experience possible are working behind the scenes. Women are among them—preparing meals for guests, running homestays, making handicrafts, helping operate boats and guiding visitors through the community.

Their work may not begin with an orangutan sighting, but it is part of what makes the journey possible and keeps tourism income in the community.

UNDP’s Wildlife Ecotourism Project, supported by the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF) under the Global Environment Facility (GEF), is working to strengthen these opportunities by supporting community-based tourism and creating more space for women to run businesses, develop tourism products and take part in decisions about how tourism grows around protected areas. 

Facing Growing Pressures

Although Tanjung Puting remains one of Indonesia's most important wildlife tourism destinations, there is another side to its growing popularity. The park and the landscape around it face a range of challenges, from peatland fires and environmental degradation upstream of the Sekonyer River to increasing tourism activity, visitor infrastructure and changes in surrounding land use.

These changes can be felt in the forest and along the river. Smoke from fires can reduce wildlife viewing opportunities. Habitat degradation can affect the places where animals live, while poor infrastructure can affect safety and accessibility for visitors. For a destination built around the experience of nature, keeping that experience intact is essential.

A Shared Investment in Nature and People

To help address these challenges, UNDP, the Ministry of Forestry and their partners are working through the Enhancing Co-benefits of Conservation Area Management through an Inclusive Wildlife-based Ecotourism Strategy (WILDLIFE ECOTOURISM) project. Supported by the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the project works across five national parks in Indonesia to strengthen biodiversity conservation through wildlife-based tourism.

The work goes beyond bringing more visitors to protected areas. It focuses on strengthening park management, developing sustainable tourism products and financing, and giving communities a greater role in how tourism develops around protected areas. It also seeks to create more opportunities for women, customary communities and local communities, as well as young people to participate in and benefit from ecotourism.

The approach supports Indonesia’s broader ambition to grow local economies and create livelihoods while safeguarding the natural assets that underpin long-term prosperity.

For the people who live and work around Tanjung Puting, conservation is not an idea that exists somewhere far away in the forest. It is connected to the river they travel, the businesses they run and the visitors they welcome.

As Indonesia works to protect its biodiversity while creating opportunities for communities, Tanjung Puting offers a glimpse of what that balance can look like: a forest where wildlife is protected, visitors can experience it, and local people can build livelihoods around keeping it alive.

Written by: Wiene Andriyana (Nature Cluster, NLCD Unit, UNDP Indonesia)
Edited by: Nabilla Rahmani