11/10/2026
Does rewilding work❓️
Yes.....and here's how we know 👇
🍃Kuta Langis Ecolodge, North Sumatra. Nine years ago this was a palm oil plantation, a monoculture that supports very little wildlife. We cleared the palms, replanted with mixed fruit trees (mostly durian) and let the borders grow wild to act as wildlife corridors. The canopy is now fully closed, and you can see it on Google Earth.
The wildlife data is building:
📷 A seven-week micro camera trap survey recorded 34 species: 17 mammals (one Critically Endangered, two Endangered, two Vulnerable), 15 birds (three protected under Indonesian law) and two reptiles.
🐾 Leopard cats are breeding here.
🐦 Bird surveys have recorded 80+ species so far.
👉Black-and-yellow broadbills, a forest bird, are here too. Indicating good canopy coverage providing correct microhabitat.
👉 Asian brown flycatchers have been recorded in February and October. This small migrant breeds in Northeast Asia and travels thousands of kilometres south for the winter, so the site is being used as wintering / stopover habitat.
👉 On a recent visit we detected a pair of barred eagle-owls, one still eating its morning catch! These are large nocturnal apex predators, and we believe this pair is resident. A top predator feeding on site suggests the habitat has enough prey and cover to support them.
🍃It’s still early days and there’s a long way to go, but this shows that land degraded by one crop can recover, and that wildlife returns when it has somewhere to live. Habitat outside protected areas matters.
💚You can help conservation by coming to stay at our Kuta Langis Ecolodge a living and breathing conservation success story.
