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John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m so honored to have with us today our first edition ever in 1500 shows from Australia Leif Cocks with us. He’s the founder of the Orangutan Project. Welcome to the Impact Podcast, Leif.

Leif Cocks: Thank you.

John: It’s an honor to have you on, Leif. The work that you’re doing is just so important. But before we get talking about the Orangutan Project itself, tell us a little bit of your background, your biography, where you grew up, and how you got even interested in this wonderful animals.

Leif: I grew up in Hong Kong, one of the largest most dense metropolises that you can imagine. But even then, when I was a very young child, I had a love of animals and wildlife. I started working with 15 orangutans and discovered that not only they’re beautiful animals but they’re also self-aware beings, just like we are. They don’t belong in captivity, no person does. But I also discovered that they are being slaughtered in the most horrific way that we can imagine and driven to extinction. That started my lifelong mission to save orangutans on the vision that one day, all orangutans will live free in the wild in secure habitat in viable populations.

John: So you grew up in Hong Kong, I’ve been there many times now. I grew up in New York City and like in Hong Kong and New York, very similar lots of tall buildings, lots of concrete. I got my love from animals because I grew up with racehorses and I became a professional trainer of horses and things. Where did your love of animals and orangutans come from? As a child, did your mom and dad have a love for animals? Or did they take you to zoos? How did that even start?

Leif: Certainly, love of any subject could be nurtured but I think for me, it was fairly innate although we lived in a flat in this apartment complex, 25-story buildings in a 15-in-a-row concrete. My bedroom was like a little menagerie, budgie guards and tropical fish and aquariums and terrapins.

John: Oh my God.

Leif: So, I created my own little jungle in my own room. So for me, I think it was an innate love of the wild and animals.

John: Was your family originally from Australia before they settled in Hong Kong. So that’s how you ended up back in Australia?

Leif: Yes, exactly. Because my father was a art director for advertising agency so he moved to southeast Asia when I was 18 months old so that’s where I was brought up. But we eventually came back to Australia where I did my university education and started formally studying and researching orangutans and their conservation.

John: So your classic education in terms of your Masters of Science and things of that such were basically in this field. You knew you were going there and you studied this at university before you actually started in 1998 the Orangutan Project?

Leif: It wasn’t kind of often a parallel process of working with the orangutans and I wanted to learn more about them to help them so my postgraduate diploma in Primate Behavior, my Masters of Science studying orangutans. We’re there to help me discover and learn and get information to help orangutans. At the same time, parallel to that again was I started the work in the Orangutan Project to help save them in the wild.

John: For our listeners and viewers, we’ve got Leif Cocks with us. He’s the founder of the Orangutan Project. Please to find Leif and the great work that he’s doing with orangutans and to support this important organization. Please go to www.theorangutanproject.org. I’m on that site right now. I have it up in front of me. It’s a gorgeous site. It’s very informative plus also, there’s ways to get involved and donate and things of that such and learn much more about Leif. Leif, talk a little bit about the problem. Let’s first, before we talk about the solutions that you’re working on, thank God, you’re doing this great work. What’s the problem? Why are we even? In 2021, why are we slaughtering these gorgeous animals? None of this makes sense to me.

Leif: It’s about greed. Greed from a very few people. A few people are destroying the rainforest for the value of the trees and replacing a rainforest with unsustainable formed monoculture, such as palm or pulp paper. What they’re doing is they’re taking away the economic, environmental future from Indonesia. They’d taken away the land and the environmental services from local communities, destroying biodiversity, killing the orangutans, and contributing to climate change in one of the most significant ways. They’re basically destroying the planet as such and passing the true cost onto the powerless orangutans, local community, biodiversity, then future generations. It’s just exploited to more aware that they basically extract wealth at the expense of others.

John: Comparatively speaking, I’m 58 years old, so when you and I were young boys growing up, how big was the orangutan population and how we destroyed it in these last 3 or 4 decades? How much is it? How much are we destroying it? And how desperate is this need for you to have this very important organization?

Leif: Well, the first 20 or 30 years of our life, they’re pretty much OK. There’s vast tracts of wilderness left. In the last 20 years, the big multinationals have come in and destroy 80% of the rainforest, 80% of orangutan home, and the population have plummeted to the point now that they’re all on the verge of all populations tipping over to become unsustainable and collapsing, including the rainforest collapsing. Because you need a certain amount of rainforest to support rainforest. And so, you have these tipping points, we’re at the verge now, in this decade. Whether things that you basically, the orangutan population and rainforest itself would virtually collapsed or we can rebuild now to save the planet and the orangutans.

John: In 1998, you decided to found this world-renowned organization. Now, world-renowned organization, the Orangutan Project. What was your mission when you launch this? I know we’re 23 or 24 years later now, but first, when you launch it, what was your mission and what was your focus then?

Leif: The mission is that one day all orangutan can live in the wild in secure populations in viable habitat. That basically recognizes two things; one is as critically-endangered species, they deserve to survive and their survival is intrinsically linked to our survival because we have to save the planet in order for us species to survive. The second thing is to recognize that these are self-aware persons, the most intelligent being that sheds our planet, we can have a conversation with them and they don’t deserve to be killed and slaughtered as simply as an agricultural pest.

John: Oh, being slaughtered during this process or is it a de facto slaughtering, as you say, in the liquidation and the wholesale destruction of the rainforests, or is it a combination thereof of both?

Leif: The classic scenario is they destroy the rainforest and obviously, then orangutan could either die in the process or starve. Because now, there’s not enough food to support the remaining orangutan because of the destruction of their areas and they basically become agricultural pests and try to eat the young palm oil that’s planted there or they raid local villagers crops. And so basically, they become vulnerable and then end up being slaughtered.

John: It’s also important to note that orangutans should not also be in zoos. We should not be supporting the captivity of these beautiful animals for our own viewing pleasure in in a zoo setting.

Leif: Yes, there’s two aspects to that is although, zoos can do some really wonderful stuff. For example, reintroducing numbats or the California condor. These very targeted programs for small species can actually work out quite well and they can do a great deal of benefit. But what zoos can’t do is save megafauna. They can’t save elephants, tigers, orangutans, gorillas. Their population is unsustainable by their very nature. So zoos can’t save their own collections neither. No conservation value for keeping orangutans in captivity. The second thing is that regardless of the wonderful care that many orangutans have been given by dedicated, loving zookeepers. The analogy I give is that in refugee camps, run by most wonderful people who care for people who want to help them. But we know the long-term internment of people in these camps called a long-term psychological damage because that person’s have to control who and when their contact with, they have anxieties about the future, worried about the path, they need control over their environment. Therefore, as persons, equally orangutans, don’t do well in captivity, they’re mentally damaged by the process. No matter how loving and caring that the keepers are for them. And this is why they can only really successfully live a meaningful life in happiness if they can live that in the own environment, in their own societies.

John: What’s the general age range of an orangutan that lives in its natural habitat in a rain forest setting that’s not been destroyed yet? How long do they typically live?

Leif: That’s a very good question. In the wild, we are not quite sure because [inaudible] 40 or so years. We think they must live at least, since the early 60s, for they’re the slowest reproducing species in the world, the orangutan to survive. Early 60’s, if not a little bit more, would be the classic lifespan for a wild orangutan. Unfortunately, captivity when I did the research on captive survival, even when taking out very high infant mortality, most orangutans would on average die in about 12, 15 years. A few could survive longer but you can see the long term chronic stress of captivity, basically undermines the immune system and makes them vulnerable to diseases and health issues including diabetes. It’s widespread in the captive community. We simply doesn’t exist in the wild population.

John: For our viewers and listeners who just tuned in, we got Leif Cocks. He’s the founder of the Orangutan Project. You could finally support his important organization at www.theorangutanproject.org. What exactly are you doing? And what can we do to help you and also support other great organizations like yours in around the United States and wherever our listeners, we have listeners all around the world, obviously, how can we support you and your efforts and how can we turn the tide on this absolutely tragic information you’re sharing with us today that these animals are endangered and it’s only at our own hands that this happened?

Leif: The first thing is to, I guess, highlight the time span we have to work with. Now, what we’re hearing from COP26 is it look we’ve got 10 years to turn things around. After that, there’s feedback loops which means that the the ecosystem, the planet may be unrecoverable. And so, we’ve got 10 years to turn this around. It’s no surprise we have 10 years to turn this around for the orangutans. The reason is these things are intrinsically linked. Destruction of rainforests causes about 28% of climate change and then the feedback loop where increasing droughts etc., are basically destroying the rainforest. So, rainforest is affected by climate change and so mostly populations are being slowly dwindled and orangutans are basically a lowland species and the palm oil and the pulp paper and the coal mines tend to want the lowlands as well. So, we really only got next 10 years to save viable ecosystems of the right type, shape, and size of rainforest to take the orangutans, elephants, tigers, and indigenous human communities through this crisis. After that, the rainforest will not be sustainable. The population of the orangutans will not be sustainable. Our vision is that one day within the next 10 years, we can secure a ecosystems of the [inaudible] the rainforest to secure these populations and provide the biological basis to start rewilding the planet to make it once again sustainable for human life, as well as all the other biodiversity.

The second part of the question, what we can do about it. Now, we’ve kind of been sold this lie for the last 10 or so years that our individual actions can make a difference. Individual actions have never made a difference. Humans are extremely successful, most successful species on the planet. Not because we’re particularly smart as individual or capable as individual, but because we had a capacity to collectivize. Smart people, collectivize, capital in businesses to make a lot of money. Smart people, collectivize, political interests, and parties to make a significant difference. Individuals can’t. That doesn’t mean as individuals, we don’t have a moral responsibility to live a life without hurting and affecting others and in a negative way. However, if you really want to achieve something, we got to put aside this lie of us saving our planet through our personal choices. We’ve got to collectivize. In this particular situation, one of the cost-effective ways we can mitigate climate change and the most significant thing we can do to the most vulnerable persons on the planet, the orangutans, is to collectivize in organization such as the orangutan project and we work together to achieve the vision. So what can people in America around the world do is there’s two things that people can do is that they can provide funds, we all vicariously by position, in developing nations, standard of living is subsidized from the exploitation of others and other countries. We can give back at least some of that to solve the problem. That’s a basic moral obligation of the privileged position that we’re in. And so, please become a contributor to the Orangutan Project or another organization that can effectively help achieve your vision for better future. The second part is we call all our leaders accountable. One thing I mentioned, we got 10 years to turn this around, but 90% of the human population has no ability to affect meaningful change. They don’t have the money to give. Secondly, they have no political path. They live in totalitarian dictatorships, poor struggling to feed their families. It’s only us in countries such as America, UK, and Australia as examples, that we have wealth, but also we have a possibility of political influence. We can affect our leaders decisions. Therefore, the moral obligation of of us being the most important generation of human history, This is a 10 years that’s going to determine the future of humanity. Those tens of thousand years that occurred before, there’s no more important time than now and we have the small subset of humans that have the capacity to make meaningful change change and change the planet. We have this great obligation and privilege to act and act now decisively through collectivization in to make meaningful change before it’s too late.

John: You’ve been doing this work, this is a lifetime of work, but the Orangutan Project, Leif, has been a child of yours, a baby of yours for almost 24 years now. How has it evolved in terms of your view as the progress you’ve made been and the response you’ve gotten from, as you said, political leaders, and others of influence, been appropriate or helpful so far? Or if you’ve been discouraged and just plowed it on in the wake of lack of action by even intelligent leaders that are out there?

Leif: There is a couple of elements to that. One is actions for governments have been wholly ineffectual. The reason being we’ve lost control of most of our democracies to self-interest of life, business, and multinationals. It’s the same in America. There’s several papers published that America no longer than fix our democracy because the decision of government doesn’t reflect the will of the people. It reflects the rules, their funders. So, there is this kind of inability, I guess, for governments all around the world to actually affect a meaningful change. So it’s been extremely ineffectual. On the other hand is look, I work with so many wonderful Indonesians who have dedicated their lives, put their lives on the line, often have their lives lost to save their future, for the countries, to save the land of indigenous communities, to save the economic future and the biodiversity of Indonesia. And so, what I do believe, is effective in the time frame. Yes, we have to reform our political systems to make them more democratic and more inclusive of benefiting everybody in the community, but in order to meet the time frame, what we’re doing, working with wonderful local organizations and people and indigenous communities and working together to save the ecosystems. The wonderful thing is, if we’re discovering through developing agricultural systems on rainforest canopy, such as trade, coffee, cocoa, honey production is that we can work with a local communities that they can become prosperous and economically-affluent through keeping the rainforest intact and therefore making that culture sustainable. So, a huge win-win solution. I hope to leave this planet, leaves its ecosystems not only environmentally, but economically-sustainable to pass on to future generations. Now, we have to take these communities through this transition because it takes 5 to 7 years to study agricultural systems. You may be surprised that we actually feed school children. We educate them, we provide scholarships, and we support women’s rights and and women work groups as some examples. Because it’s not wildlife versus people or the environment versus kind of these win-win solutions. And we’re taking the indigenous communities through this and developing their success into the future. That’s kind of, I guess, 2 examples of what we’re trying to achieve.

John: Leif, approximately, is it known how many orangutans are left on this planet right now?

Leif: The honest answer is we don’t have it because we don’t have the time, resources. They’re hard to find so that their estimate based on counts is with this huge variability in it. But what we do know is that they’re critically endangered, we hit the highest category of concern before extinction. They’re all on the brink. We really only got the next few years for to turn this around. We also know that because orangutans adapt to the environment through culture predominantly, not natural selection, same as humans. We pass our culture from generation to generation which makes us far more adaptive to ever-changing environment. Orangutans do this by having very long maternal periods. They suckle the infants for 8 years and they stay with the mother after 12 Years, learning the culture, they’re born with brains, we could program by the mothers. This system works really great for adaptation and they reproduce very slowly invest in a very few offspring. But unfortunately, that makes them very vulnerable to extinction when it’s super predator such as humans come along because they can’t bounce back easily. We also started the international elephant and international tiger projects to bring those species under an umbrella of protection but they’re falling out of our protective umbrella that we set up for orangutans in these ecosystems. But let’s say for tigers, what we’ve discovered is if you protect them, they bounce back fairly quickly. They bring relatively quickly. They adapt to the environment for natural search and rise in culture, but orangutans, don’t do that very well. And in fact, if you only kill 1% of the females in a sustainable population a year, the population spirals to extinction.

John: What you just said is fascinating in that you’re saying females might go through their whole life and all you have one offspring.

Leif: Usually, maybe about 3. There’s 3 species of orangutan. We going to careful not to generalize, but let’s take this amount to an Sumatran orangutan. The have the first baby at 15 and then there’s 9 years between individual infants and they’ll keep breathing and obviously until they get very old. They’re very slow levels of reproduction. But on the other hand, they’re the most caring, loving mothers. The infant mortality is very low. In fact, actually, maternal mortality of the female orangutan in the wild is the same as female mortality of humans giving birth in America.

John: Oh my gosh.

Leif: They do look after each other and without an external predator, they do have a very high rate of survival and do quite well.

John: Going back to something you said earlier, the absolute tragic nature of the slaughter of these beautiful animals. They share about 97 or so percent of our DNA, so they’re the closest, these these great great apes are the closest to us out of any of the species that are that are out there?

Leif: They’re not our closest relative. The closest relative actually the chimpanzee which is 99%.

John: Wow.

Leif: But in some ways that actually makes orangutans actually much more cool. Humans and chimpanzees share this trade of aggressiveness and warlike behavior. Chimpanzees and humans would look at another person and want to destroy them. We will destroy others. We would have warfare against other tribes. So that’s a nature of our aggressive ancestors. Orangutans don’t have that. They’re far more noble form of persons. To give an example of this is we killed over million orangutan, slowly slaughtering them to extinction in most horrific ways that we can manage, machete then burning them alive. And although orangutans are 7 times stronger than a human and the males have canines the same size as tigers, not one time in recorded history, not in any zoo or wild or sanctuary, that an orangutan has ever killed a human being. They’re not capable of what I call a kill switch and wanting to totally destroy another being as we do. That’s the added tragedy. They had some more humanity and persons, we share our planet that we should be emulating in so many ways. These are peaceful, loving creatures and we are destroying them as we speak.

John: Intelligence level you said of these beautiful animals is very high in terms of being able to process information and communicate with humans as well.

Leif: Exactly. I said the most intelligent being shares our planet and as persons they have anxieties about the past and your worries about the future, so what a person does is project themselves in the past and the future, not just living in the now. Therefore, their capacity to suffer is much greater than animals that are less intelligent. Humans, we suffer a lot. Most of our suffering is in our minds and it’s about past and future very little of our suffering is actually in the now. Orangutans are the same. I’ve had to care and consult orangutans which been bombed in World War II because when the fireworks, they believe that in bond again, and you have to console and try to rebuild these minds of orangutans which have their mothers slaughtered and eaten front of them, the little minds that are damaged.

John: So they’re capable of having PTSD like humans?

Leif: Exactly. We just discovering how fantastic they are. Researchers, for example, a discovery not only useful in thousands of plants to feed off the youth plants are medicines, topical treatment to treat malaria. And when they go, “Okay, wonder what they’re using, what the different medicines for.” Surprise, surprise. They go to the indigenous communities who are using the same plant for the same issues. So you got these 2 persons trying to frost basically also find the same solutions of medicines and passing those culture down from generation to generation. This is one of the reasons that it’s so important to save these populations. We’re not only saving genetic diversity, beginning framework to survival. We have to save the culture as well, without culture they can’t adapt to the environment. So think past and future generation. One of the interesting things is when we would talk about orangutans being persons. Male orangutans have this big cheek pads and a throat sack. They call out to attract females and keep other males away and like a big megaphone. In the evening when they nest in the trees, they will say, future me. I’m going to go up and move this direction in the morning. So they then point their big cheek pad and basically call into into the direction that they’re going to go the next morning. So they already plan the next day. They’re always thinking ahead into the future. In fact, that have this huge cerebral cortex which is basically this computer simulation. This is why, ley’s say, in zoo situations you probably see chimpanzees trailing area trying to do something. They say escape, rolling, running around. Orangutan would just sit then, just run the program in the head over and over till they get the right solution then just walk out and escape.

John: You save a lot of energy, they refer to their brain to really help them work through things.

Leif: Exactly. It’s a huge survival mechanism because when you’re like body like brain animals like orangutan, you got to conserve energy in the rainforest and so they don’t act, they act once decided and has thought about it for a long time before they make any actual action in itself.

John: So, really some of what you’re sharing today, besides supporting great organizations, like yours, it’s also to support politicians and other leadership that really are truly going to make strides towards turning this environmental crisis that we’re living through around because part and parcel with turning the environmental crisis and the wholesale liquidation of our environment around the world around will be also helping save the orangutans around the world as well.

Leif: Yes, exactly. We got the 2 forces and it actually goes down to brain biology. You have the conservative force and if you have a conservative mindset of brain, new information is it gives you fear. That’s a good reaction because making changes is dangerous. Things that go better but they all seemed to have to be good but the conservative mind look at things like climate change or a better way of doing things and we act with fear and then cognitive dissidence turned away. I think an American term to Liberal mind reacts new information by excitement. Oh, this is interesting. These opportunities climate change. We need to change this and that’s all stuff. And so, you have to kind of forces, with the mind reacting to the new situation with fear and denial, not because they’re unintelligent, that’s just the way their brain is setup or reacting to it. There needs to be some balance because, let’s say, take the Arab Spring. We can make these rapid changes, but then the end up really badly. There was that kind of balance there but my predominant message is we do need predominately politicians with the progressive outlook, because we have to make rapid change. We have to make this daring changes in the next 10 years. So all the conservatives and can actually benefit to it many times in the world. We need very progressive and quickly-moving policies in order to save this planet now, so I would encourage people to go for those visionaries, the visionary politicians who are willing to make the hard decisions and changes and change the [inaudible] because I guess now is not the time for more conservative nature to dictate our outcomes because we will go under.

John: Leif, I want to let you have the last word on any thoughts you want to share with our listeners and our viewers and our readers around the world. This is a very critical mission and project that you’ve created and we’re of course grateful for your time today. But therefore, I want to give you the last word and then I’ll sign off for us together.

Leif: I guess my last message is actually doing good and helping others is the pathway of the joy and happiness. There is no sacrifice in a meaningful, selfless life. If we live that life, we find the happiness within us and express it through intelligent ways in the world. Actually. It’s a win-win situation, all these are win-win situations. So, there is no sacrifice here. Working for our own power, name, fame, reputation, and money, inevitably, you can see yourself lead to misery and unhappiness. But if we work for others, in a sense of community and direction, we become happier and we express our happiness. So there’s no downside of living a meaningful life that helps others because it helps us as individuals too.

John: Leif, you’re living a very meaningful life. We’re so grateful for your time. I know it’s very early in Australia right now and we’re very grateful and thankful for the impact that you’re making at the Orangutan Project. For our listeners and viewers and readers out there that want to support Leif and want to find or connect with Leif in this very important mission at the Orangutan Project, please go to www.theorangutanproject.org, theorangutanproject.org. You can donate money, you could support, you could connect with Leif and his colleagues, and help save these beautiful animals. Leif, thank you for making the world a better place. Thank you for the impact that you’re making. Thank you for being selfless and really, really just doing this really important work. I’m just grateful for you. God bless you continued good health, and I just want you to continue to succeed in this great mission.

Leif: Thank you.

John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by the Marketing Masters. Marketing Masters is a boutique marketing agency offering website development and digital marketing services to small and medium businesses across America. For more information on how they can help you grow your business online, please visit themarketingmasters.com.