In the rain forests of Borneo, Sahril Ramadani wakes before sunrise to the high-pitched shrieks of gibbons. Fumbling in the dark, he packs up his essentials for the day: hand sanitizer, iPad, GPS tracker, watch, materials for sample collection, and lunch. Securing an N95 mask over his face, he sets out on a solitary search for orangutans.
Ramadani, 23, spends 20 days a month here at Cabang Panti, the research station for the Gunung Palung Orangutan Project in the southwestern part of Indonesian Borneo. The project’s fieldwork—the daily observations that have kept it going for 27 years—depends on his work