Gomma Photography Grant 2021
Saving Orangutans
Photographer
Alain Schroeder
Saving Orangutans
04 Feb, 2022
Indonesia’s Sumatran orangutan is under severe threat from the incessant and ongoing depletion and fragmentation of the rainforest.  As palm oil and rubber plantations, logging, road construction, mining, hunting continue to proliferate, orangutans are being forced out of their natural rainforest habitat. I documented the concrete actions undertaken by local organization in Sumatra. Organizations like the OIC (Orangutan Information Center) and their immediate response team HOCRU (Human Orangutan Conflict Response Unit), rescue orangutans in difficulty (lost, injured, captive...) while the SOCP (Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme) cares for, rehabilitates and resocializes orangutans at their purpose-built medical facility. These pictures shows them their daily life in the clinic and quarantine center while saving orangutans lives with the final goal to reintroduce them into the wild and to create genetically viable populations in protected forests.
About the photographer
Alain Schroeder
Belgian photojournalist Alain Schroeder (b. 1955) has been working in the industry for over four decades. First as a sports photographer in the 80s, then shooting book assignments and editorial pieces in art, culture and human stories. In 2013, he uprooted his life, trading-in his shares in Reporters, to pursue life on the road with a camera. Schroeder now travels the world shooting stories focusing on social issues, people and their environment. «I am not a single shot photographer. I think in series,» he says adding, «I strive to tell a story in 10-15 pictures, capturing the essence of an instant with a sense of light and framing.» He has won many international awards including Nikon Japan, Nikon Belgium, Felix-Schoeller, TPOTY, Istanbul Photo, Days Japan, Trieste Photo, PX3, IPA, MIFA, BIFA, PDN, the Fence, Lens Culture, Siena, POYI and World Press Photo.
