News
BBC Interview session
The Batang Toru cloud forest in Sumatra is home to the recently discovered but critically endangered Tapanuli Orangutan. Hotlin Ompusunggu works with local communities to save them by encouraging villagers to grow tree saplings at home and bring them to the clinic as part payment for medical treatment. Chainsaws can Read More
National Geographic
These six amazing animal activists are working to protect special species around the world. Here, we catch up with them to learn about the incredible animals they’re working to save, and just how they’re doing it. Read More
European Environment Foundation
Hotlin Ompusunggu Hotlin is a license dentist and the Co-Founder of Alam Sehat Lestari (ASRI), a nongovernmental organization in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. ASRI integrates conservation and healthcare through community-based projects, with a mission to break the cycle between poverty and illegal logging. A dentist is not a typical background for environmental activism, but Hotlin went into dentistry interested in community development and with a view of health and health care that encompasses the bigger picture. Read More
Dentist wins ‘green oscar’ for using healthcare incentives to halt logging
Scheme offering Indonesian villages that stop illegal logging large discounts on medical care is saving lives as well as the rainforest As a dental surgeon, a successful career in conservation was not something Dr Hotlin Ompusunggu ever imagined.But her work in Indonesia, where she has helped save orangutans by providing people with healthcare discounts if their villages stop logging, has clearly paid off. Read More