Conservationists say a chain-smoking orangutan who became the star attraction at an Indonesian zoo will be forced to quit cold turkey.

Fifteen-year-old Tori developed a tobacco addiction after visitors began throwing lit cigarettes into her enclosure when she was five.

The Centre for Orangutan Protection says a guard has been placed outside her cage to make sure she does not smoke.

Tori's also believed to be undergoing therapy ahead of her attempt to quit.

"We are working with the zoo's management to try and move her to an island in a big lake in the middle of the zoo, away from the other orangutans and where visitors can't toss her any more cigarettes," said Daniek Hendarto, the coordinator at the Centre for Orangutan Protection.

"Until we get approval from the zoo to move her, a guard has been placed outside her cage to make sure she doesn't smoke. She will have to go cold turkey."

Mr Hendarto said Tori's parents had also been smokers, adding that orangutans easily mimic human behaviour.

News of the smoking orangutan spread quickly 10 years ago, attracting more visitors to the Taru Jurug Zoo in the central Javanese city of Solo.

Indonesian zoos have drawn international criticism in recent years for their poor treatment of animals. In March, a giraffe at a zoo in eastern Java was found dead with a 20-kilogram, beachball-size lump of plastic in its stomach from visitors' food wrappers thrown into its pen.

Indonesia is also one the world's last bastions of big tobacco, where few restrictions are placed on marketing and smoking rates have risen six-fold over the last 40 years, according to the World Health Organisation.

Several cases of children as young as two with smoking addictions have been reported.

ABC/AFP