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. As well as cutting logging and improving health, this week she won second a “green oscar” prize and there are plans to replicate her model across south-east Asia.

“The idea is to save the lives of these people and also save the forest. A dentist is not a typical background, but I’m passionate about community development and I’m interested in health in the bigger picture. I have learned that to be a healthy human being, you also need healthy nature, and that’s how I came to find myself here,” she said.

In 2007, she co-founded the NGO Alam Sehat Lestari (ASRI), with a mission to break the cycle between poverty and illegal logging in the 1,100 km sq Gunung Palung national park in remote south-west Borneo by giving local people healthcare incentives to preserve the globally important rainforest. The forest is home to endangered species including hornbills, gibbons, sun bears, clouded leopards, and 2,500 orangutans – roughly 10% of the world’s population.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Hotlin Ompusunggu received a 2011 Whitley award and has this year been recognised a second time with a gold award. Photograph: James Finlay/Whitley Gold Award

Ompusunggu, who is from a big city on Sumatra, said she wasn’t originally interested in conservation. “I took it for granted that we had beautiful forests with orangutans. I was even sceptical about conservation, I wondered why we spend so much money saving orangutans. But I learned that the orangutan is the farmer of the forest, and the forest provides water for people, so it all comes back to people and conservation for human wellbeing.”



Illegal logging is destroying vast areas of the national park’s protected forest each year, and it has been estimated that 98% of it could disappear within 10 years. The 18 villages that border the park are very poor and many people resort to chopping down lucrative ironwood trees to earn a living.



“One of the drivers to log is instant cash to pay bills – particularly medical bills. If your loved one is dying, you will do anything to help.”



So Ompusunggu went to the community and asked people: “If the global community wants to help you to save the forest, what would you like help with? What do you need to enable you to protect the forest? And they asked for affordable, accessible, high-quality healthcare.”



Villages that stop logging receive discounts of up to 70% on medical care. More than 24,000 patients have been treated so far at the main clinic and mobile clinics for TB, high blood pressure, dental problems and diabetes. Since 2007, infant deaths have fallen by two-thirds and child immunisation rates increased by 25%. There has also been a significant reduction in rates of common illnesses. No one is turned away: those who cannot afford treatment can pay by taking part in reforestation activities.

“By providing this healthcare as an incentive we have removed one of the reasons for people to log the forest. But also it’s in line with what the community asked us for from the beginning,” she said.



As a result of the scheme, the number of villages free from illegal logging has more than doubled and the number of households involved in illegal logging has fallen from 1,350 to 450.



She said another request was for alternative livelihoods. Teams of local forest guardians are trained to monitor illegal logging and teach others about the importance of healthy forest ecosystems and conservation. “Many people want to farm but the methods are not good because they use slash and burn and with the population there is not enough land. Also fertiliser gets more expensive so they need a new way to be more independent, so they asked us to train them to farm organically.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Gunung Palung national park in remote south-west Borneo. The forest is home to endangered species including hornbills, gibbons, sun bears, clouded leopards, and 2,500 orangutans. Photograph: Endro Setiawan/Whitley Gold Award

For Ompusunggu, it wasn’t a challenge to win the community over and stop them logging once alternatives were provided. “They believe that they need forests. They live next to the forest, and they know if there’s no more forest there won’t be water for them. With a common understanding, we work together with them and they know that we are there to help them. They know also that to do logging is illegal, and to give them alternative solutions is to increase their dignity. So they feel they are doing the right thing for their future and their community.”

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Ompusunggu has won the 2016 Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN) gold award, and will receive her prize from HRH Princess Anne at a ceremony in London on Wednesday night.

The awards, which recognise the success of grassroots conservation leaders in developing countries, provide winners with funds to scale-up their projects. This year, other award-winning schemes range from protecting tree kangaroos in Papua New Guinea to safeguarding migrating birds of prey from hunters in Georgia.



Ompusunggu, who won one of the prizes in 2011, has been recognised by the awards a second time for the outstanding success of her project with a further grant of £50,000. The WFN prize money will now be used to establish the country’s first conservation hospital, she said, and fund a possible national expansion.

“The funding will enable us to scale-up and help us see potential replication of our scheme across forests in Indonesia. We did some site visits and are working to see what will be the impact on communities might be.”