Willie Smits

Willie Smits (born February 22, 1957, in Weurt, Gelderland, the Netherlands) is a trained forester, a microbiologist, conservationist, animal welfare activist, wilderness engineer and social entrepreneur.

[1][2] From 1985 Smits worked on the Wanariset Tropical Forest Research Station in Samboja near Balikpapan in the Indonesian province of East Kalimantan.

"[3][4]He nursed her back to health and named her Uce (pronounced "Ootcha") for the laboured sound she made while gasping for breath.

Wanariset became home to hundreds of confiscated orangutans, rescued from illegal animal smuggling, kept as pets or exploited in other ways.

Smits also took on an increasing campaigning and advocacy role, to make the plight of the orangutan and its habitat more widely known, along with the message that something could - and was - being done.

The 2,000 hectares (4,900 acres) area it acquired had been deforested by mechanical logging, drought and severe fires and was covered in alang-alang grass (Imperata cylindrica).

[4] When challenged, Smits cited the production of cloud condensation nuclei by rainforest[9] as a possible mechanism to account for the observed data.

[11] Donors are able to view and follow the progress of the purchase with their donation in the project area with Google Earth satellite images from 2002 and 2007 with additional information overlaid.

[12] Smits is one of the founders of, and the chairman of the Masarang Foundation,[13] which raises money and awareness to restore habitat forests around the world and to empower local people.

During his years of research in North Sulawesi and other places in Indonesia where sugar palms grow, he has learned that people are not making the most of the tree and its properties.

The high-quality fibres from sugar palms are also widely used; Smits exports them to Europe, where they are among the materials used in the bodies of luxury cars.

[17] According to Smits' talks for Qi Global[18] and TED,[4] both Samboja Lestari and the Masarang foundation have evolved on the principles of People, Planet, Profit.

[20] Smits designed the Schmutzer Primate Centre at the Ragunan Zoo which opened in 2002 [21] so that the orangutans have freedom and privacy in a habitat with a variety of forest trees and plants, a waterfall and water with turtles and fish, and small animals like porcupines and deer mice.

Smits has continued to be involved in the study of the mycorrhizal fungi that improve the uptake of water and nutrients from the soil by the meranti tree.

In 2006 Smits launched TV 5 Dimensi, commonly referred to as TV5D, a North Sulawesi local television channel, based in Tomohon.

An increasing amount of Smits' activity has been in disseminating information, outreach, education, and public awareness-raising, his talks for Qi Global[18] and TED,[4] being examples of this.

According to Skiff, Smits has facilitated as of 2018 the rescue of 1300 orangutans, has established 114 conservation projects in Indonesia, including "setting up sanctuaries in twenty-eight locations throughout the country".

Alongside a wealth of information about this endangered species based on the latest research, authors Willie Smits and Gerd Schuster outline the threat to the orangutan's survival: economical and political interests, exploitation of nature and human ignorance and greed.